"A Thirty Day Experiment"

Lindsay Cofield, DBA pastor and BGCT staff person, describes in this eight minute testimony his thirty day experiment with God.


"I'm just going to back off. I'm going to try to not make anything happen myself--but just respond to what You bring my way for thirty days."



Visit www.dba.net/pastors to listen to Lindsay's testimony about his experiment...and God's results!

"We do not live in a praying age."

And with that part of our church membership that does believe in prayer theoretically—and thank God I believe it is still the vast majority in our evangelical churches—even they do not make the use of this mighty instrument that God has put into our hands that one would naturally expect.

As I said, we do not live in a praying age. We live in an age of hustle and bustle, of man’s efforts and man’s determination, of man’s confidence in himself and in his own power to achieve things, an age of human organization, and human machinery, and human push, and human scheming, and human achievement; in the things of God this means no real achievement at all.

I think it would be perfectly safe to say, that the church of Christ was never in all its history so fully and so skillfully and so thoroughly and so perfectly organized as it is today. Our machinery is wonderful, it is just perfect; but alas it is machinery without power; and when things do not go right, instead of going to the real source of our failure, our neglect to depend upon God and to look to God for power, we look around o see if there is not some new organization we can set up, some new wheel that we can add to our machinery. We have altogether too many wheels already.

What we need is not so much some new organization, some new wheel, but “the Spirit of the living creature in the wheels” whom we already posess.

from The Power Of Prayer by R. A. Torrey (1856-1928)

Dirty Grace

I'm not saying it's completely refined but it does have some interesting ideas.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god_article.php?id=7446

"The point is not to live rightly by some detailed code of conduct—far from it. What I am speaking of is graceful life—the free will of humankind drenched to the bone in God’s abundant grace. Some people say there’s no freedom in religion. Jesus said there’s no freedom in enslavement to our own selfish desires. Time after time we find ourselves returning to the prison cells where we no longer belong. Confinement and legalism can be comforting, but only for a while."

A Story about God in Control

"Leave it to Benji!"

A light-hearted look at the serious matter of God's guidance in all of our life...even the "bad" stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zSBr7_dP-8

Listening to God Daily

This I Beleive: "A Daily Walk Just to Listen"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6153012

"The guiding light of my life is the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. In our hectic, noisy world, I have to slow down or withdraw in order to hear it. Prayer, I have discovered, is less about what I say and more about what I hear. "

from

Location and Reading for May 22

We'll meet Tuesday, May 22, 10-11:30 a.m. at Bible Way Baptist Church (2607 Exeter, Dallas, 75216, 214-375-1241)

David has said it would be helpful for us to read Chapters 4 and 11-13 for our study next week.

Did you know the books are always available online?: http://www.livingbygrace.org/books.htm

April 24 Session Recording

Below are links to download the audio from our April 24 time together with David Kuykendall. You liley also recieved an email from YouSendIt.com with this same link.

If you missed or want to review, remember to download them this week. They become unavailable online after 7 days.

If you have trouble or prefer it on an audio CD, let me know.

First part: http://www.yousendit.com/download/UW15WmdvQTY5eFUwTVE9PQ
Seond part: http://www.yousendit.com/download/UW15WmdzR3MyWGMwTVE9PQ

Persuasion Not from God

From David's email devotional this week:

In Galatians 4:10-11 Paul writes:

You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.

Paul writes in Galatians 5:6:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

Referring to all of the false teaching the Galatians had received Paul writes in Galatians 5:8:

This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you.

Some of us confess that even though we have taught others to be saved by grace through faith we have also encouraged them to walk with God by observing certain requirements. For example, we have suggested that believers pray so many minutes and read so many chapters of the Bible each day. We have even encouraged them to keep the commands of the Bible without any reference to the leadership and empowering of the Holy Spirit. We persuaded them to walk in the flesh. Our persuasion did not come from God (Galatians 5:8).

Many of us who have persuaded others to accept legalistic approaches to their Christian lives have repented of our error. Now, we teach and encourage believers to walk in the Spirit by living out their oneness with Christ. The Holy Spirit guides and enables believers to walk with God—even in prayer and Bible reading.

Grace-Living is the HD-Life!

"[At least a quarter of] the people who think they are watching high definition television (HDTV), aren’t! This is according to a recent study by Leichtman Research Group.

"That means that people are inviting their buddies over for the big game and saying, “Check out my picture. Isn’t HDTV great?” Husbands are trying to convince their wives that all the extra money was well spent, and she doesn’t see it (for good reason). The problem is that the system is not properly set up.

"I wonder how many [Christians] never use the capacity of a high definition life God intended them to have, because they are not cooperating with the Holy Spirit. The relationship is not properly set up. " - by Steve Canter, from the NAMB Church Planting Group’s enewsletter, April 20, 2007

That was me...thinking I was living "the abundant life" but not able to figure out why things didn't work much differently for me than for non-Christians.

Actual HDTV story is at http://www.about-electronics.eu/2007/03/01/us-consumers-confused-over-hdtv-technology

"Living By Grace" Devotionals

You can subscribe to David's weekly "Living By Grace" email devotional at: http://livingbygrace.org/register.htm

They are usually short...and always substantial!

You can read all the old ones at: http://livingbygrace.org/devotional.htm

March 27 Session Recording

*** NOTE: Let me know if you would like an audio CD of this recording. The links below are no longer working. - Scott ***

Click here for part one: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=2E6D6BD25125BC27

Clcik here for part two: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=7A5E1CF42E147D6A

Let me know if you'd like it but prefer an audio CD.

Example of "Living By Faith" Perspective

This is the example David mentioned from Neil Cole's Organic Church:

I felt pressured to make sure we had a remarkable meeting, but as I sat down to come up with an agenda, I clearly felt the Lord saying, "I'll take care of that."

It was risky to show up with these dynamic Japanese leaders who do not have time to waste, at someone else’s expense, and tell them, "Oh, by the way, I don't have an agenda." But this is exactly what I did. I started the meetings by saying, "It is hard for me to do this, but I think it is absolutely necessary. We will not have an agenda here. We will seek the Lord and wait until we know we have heard from Him, because it is important that this work be His, not ours."
...
When we later recounted our time together, one of the things that impressed the Japanese leaders was the idea of meeting without any agenda other than to seek God. This might have actually been a breakthrough, in a controlled culture of hierarchical leadership structures where the leader is supposed to be "large and in charge."
...
Despite three years of personal night-and-day, seven-day-a-week training by Jesus, he told His disciples to wait in the upper room behind closed doors and not even think of going out until the Helper came… I believe we need to learn to sit still and wait for God before we launch out with our strategic plans and demographic studies. (pages 50-52)

Click “comments” below and say what you think of this, or tell about other examples you run across.

Tell us about...your know-it-all attitude!

If you'd like, click "comments" below and tell us in a word or a paragraph where you've seen an example of your--or, if you must, someone else's!--"know-it-all attitude" (a.k.a., "thinking we/they are wise", pride, sin problem/nature).