The father patiently endures the loss of honour and the pain of rejected love. Ordinarilary when our love is rejected we get angry, retaliate, and do what we can to diminish our affection for the rejecting person, so we won’t hurt so much. But this father maintains his affection for his son and bears the agony.

Tim Keller, The Prodigal God [p20]

Had the privilege of listening to John Chapman (Chappo) today on personal evangelism for church leaders.

He said this…

“Without good preaching, the wheels fall off a church”

I also picked up my copy of  ‘The Prodigal God‘ today – £10 from GBC. At the end of the first chapter [p16] Tim Keller makes this observation about our churches…

“If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think”

Last month I spoke 3 times in different settings on the Parable of the Lost Son (Luke 15) – in preparing and speaking I became convinced that this story is not primarily about either of the sons, but about the Father.

In the same way that the other parables aren’t about the sheep or the coin, but the one who looks for them!

Here are some things the Father does, He: gives, looks, sees, has compassion, runs, embraces, kisses… he gives again, he clothes, he celebrates… he pleads, he’s always been giving!

All this said, I’m really happy the Tim Keller’s new book ‘The Prodigal God‘ has been released in the UK… and I’m really really happy that the Good Book Company are stocking it, and for the bargain price of £10, that’s cheaper than Amazon!! I’ve ordered my copy, you should do the same!

Apparently I’m a “Top 100 Christian Blogger“… one of 5 recommended blogs from a Christian male perspective.

This list seems a bit American, and a bit dodgy looking at some sites… but John Piper made it on there, so can’t be all bad.

You’ll notice that I’ve been quite busy recently (ie. not much blogging), either that or yet again the dull and uneventful life I lead has been exposed as such. But also, there hasn’t been much I’ve wanted to blog about of late… I can’t be bothered to post another Youtube video of something that only has meaning for me… watch this space, maybe I’ll have something to write about soon…

Oh, check out the new church website, version 67.

“To motivate them toward growing up and honorably taking a wife. Nearly every man wants to have sex. The issue is which woman he will have sex with. If he grows up, leaves home, walks with God, pursues his career, and then marries his bride to enjoy her biblically, then his love for her was part of God’s motivation to turn a boy into a man by making him take manly responsibility. Since most young men want sex, that desire is to encourage them to not settle for having sex with their hand or with their girlfriend, but rather grow up and lovingly enjoy their wife.”

Mark Driscoll