What Is Grace? by Kimm Crandall (good news for weary moms) →

What Is Grace?

By: Kimm Crandall on Thursday June 18, 2015 on KeyLife

“Shut up!” How childish that sounds coming from a mother of four. Immature, cutting words passed through my lips, taking flight as they hit the air, piercing my eight-year-old’s tender heart. Before I knew it, the words were gone, a vapor I could not grasp and stuff back in. The regret came fast and lingered through the evening. I’d done it again.

The guilt surfaced quickly as I realized what I had just said — what relationship I had just wounded. I sank into the chair in the corner and began to preach to myself how very wrong I was. I proceeded to add up all the other harsh words I had used that day. Surely I would have to pay; I would somehow have to earn my way back into good standing after sinning like this again. How does God put up with me?

His Kindness Leads Us To Repentance

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The Gospel and Multiethnic Churches: An Interview with Derwin Gray →

I’m very excited to interview my friend Derwin Gray! Derwin is a pastor, writer, ex-NFL football player, and the founder of Transformation Church—a multiethinic mega-church in North and South Carolina. Derwin is also the author of the recently released The High-Definition Leader, which challenges pastors and leaders to see the importance of multiethnic communities.

Derwin, thanks for letting me ask you some questions on my blog!

PS: Why don’t you first give us a brief summary of your new book, The High Definition Leader?

DG: I wrote The High-Definition Leader because Jesus is calling local churches in America and the world to be communities of unifiers and reconcilers, not dividers. Jesus’ epic work through his sinless life, atoning death, resurrection, and ascension, and the sending of the Spirit, was so that God could have an ethnically diverse family of Jews and Gentiles. This new family called the church becomes a picture of God’s family in eternity on earth (Rev. 5:9-12).

My book will equip pastors and leaders to embody the Apostle’ ministry of reconciliation. Preeminent New Testament scholar, Scot McKnight says this about the local church: “God’s desire is for us to experience multi-ethnic fellowship now in the local church as it will be for eternity. God’s heart is total reconciliation.”

PS: Can you give us some statistics about the racial and/or socio-economic homogeny that exists in the American church today?

DG: Only 13.7% of churches in America are consider multiethnic. This means that 86.3 % of churches are homogenous. Sociologist Dr. Michael Emerson consider a local church multiethnic if one ethnicity does not make up 80% of the congregation. Local churches are ten times more segregated than the neighborhoods they are in and they are twenty times more segregated than the schools than the nearby schools.

This lack of gospel-diversity reproduce inequality, encourage oppression, strengthen ethnic division, heighten political separation, and causes the church to lose credibility.

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3 Ways the Gospel Gives Life to the Weary by Jared C. Wilson →

First posted on Gospel Coalition

What is the significance of the gospel for Christian men, moment by moment?

Men are given much to look at and listen to every day, literally and spiritually. We are bombarded by messages from cable news, internet and radio ads, billboards along the morning commute, magazines in the grocery checkout, bosses and coworkers, and wives and children. We are tempted according to our lusts and appetites and shamed over the size of our bank accounts, our standard of living, our level of fitness, the style of our dress, and our achievements (or lack thereof) at work and at home. We never feel done; we rarely feel right. And then we have the Accuser, our old enemy the Devil, eager to capitalize on these moments of weakness with his message of condemnation. It’s a wonder more men don’t refuse even to get out of bed in the morning!

So how does the gospel of grace keep us afloat in the humdrum of our ordinary days? Well, it’s imperative that we listen early and often to the message of the gospel. When we incline our ears to the good news, directing our gaze to the glory of Christ in Bible study and prayer, we can be changed (2 Cor. 3:18). When we hear the gospel message loudly and clearly, above all rival messages, the truth of grace flashes like lightning into our drab ways of living and thinking, electrifying our souls and thundering with glorious finality: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

And how changed can we be? Consider these three big ways the gospel breathes life into the weary spirit:

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Quieting The Voices - RJ Grunewald →

Quieting The Voices

BY RJ GRUNEWALD

The accusations of the voices we hear on a daily basis are deafening. There is no shortage of voices that will remind us of our failures. If God can choose to speak even through the mouth of an ass to get his message across, it seems that Satan has an abundance to choose from for his message.

In Galatians 1, Paul writes about the gifts that Jesus gives. Gifts that aren’t waiting for our performance or lack of failures, gifts that rely only on the work of the Giver:

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen”

Grace and peace -  grace that forgives even the worst of sins and peace that quiets even the loudest of voices. Unfortunately, this doesn’t come without Satan fighting against peace with burdened consciences.

Satan is an expert in using the Law to crush the already burdened. He’s a master at using thousands of voices to use the Law to drive us away from the cross instead of towards it. That’s the difference between the voice of God and the voice of Satan – when God speaks it ultimately leads us to grace and peace by the way of repentance, when Satan speaks it’s meant to make us believe that grace and peace isn’t for us.

Read More Here