1 Corinthians… an awesome letter highly applicable in our modern church context!

Check out the basic chapter content of 1 Corinthians in this summary handout!

Grace,
Derek

We spent two weeks over the Christmas and New Year seasons with Laura’s family in Travelers Rest, SC. While there, we reconnected with a local area church where we presented our ministry this past summer. God’s leading is evident as they are now our most recent ministry partnership, and we are grateful for their fellowship and friendship in the Gospel! As an intern pastor at Refrew Baptist, Sean Hamilton has experienced the freeing power of the Gospel from sin’s enslavement. His full-time work involves offering this freedom through an addictions counseling ministry nearby. Wisdom in Living Life Ministry bases out of Travelers Rest, SC with a vision to extend the love and freedom of Jesus’ Gospel to a hurting world enslaved by sin.

If you want to find out more about this upstate SC counseling ministry, visit their website here:
www.wisdominlivinglife.org

As I recently reviewed some of the books I gleaned some form of encouragement from this year, I thought I’d share some of them with you. The books first listed below are some of the books that I read this past year. I would recommend each of them as a great resource for your reading/study. The second list of books below are ones that I either am still working on finishing, or plan to begin reading as 2011 begins. I am a firm believer in encouraging us all to continually grow in our reading/study of God’s Word and other Biblically-related resources. Anyway, check out the links, and I hope some of them may help in the building of your own personal library.

Additionally, some of the links may take you to our other site, www.thebelieversbookshelf.com
We created The Believer’s Bookshelf site as a means to share ministry resources.

A Few Book Recommendations from 2010:

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/gospel-primer

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/cross-centered-life

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/crossroads

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/systematic-theology-wayne-grudem

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/evangelism-and-the-sovereignty-of-god

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/sex-romance-and-the-glory-of-god

Read Our Review Here: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com/forgotten-god

Some Book Recommendations for early 2011:

My attention was recently directed toward a missions message preached by John Piper back in 1999. Piper, the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis, preached the text of Romans 15 as a part of his focus on church missions. The thought that really struck me most was this: Paul essentially uses the book of Romans as a support letter, seeking the Roman church’s partnership in his future missions plans to Spain. How many of us involved with missions really focus (like Paul does in Romans) on the rich doctrine of our salvation and God’s grace in our own lives as the actual platform, theme, and motive for our missions involvement? Obviously, the Gospel is at the center of missions, but so many other foci vie for our attention and slowly erode what truly is the main emphasis of missions. I won’t say much more, as the link below provides the full message text and audio. If you are at all interested in missions and have time, please check it out.

Follow the link below for Piper’s full message entitled:
“Where There is No Church”

Significant to any ministry endeavor is a predetermined plan of action. While we as a church-sent ministry don’t seek to operate as a business, we do believe organized purpose and direction is very important for Biblical accountability and stewardship purposes. The development of a mission statement, philosophy, vision, strategy, etc. takes Biblical principles and directs God-given passions in an organized aimed way; giving wheels, tracks, and accountability to any ministry.

Beyond benefitting ministries, the development of Biblically-based organized plans can even help us in our families and individual lives. Maybe this doesn’t have to literally be in written form, but do we in our individual lives and families have an idea of where we are headed and plans to make those ideas possible. Regarding your own discipleship and the spiritual growth of your own family, do you have specific areas to which you are giving more focus each month and year? My point is that the development of Biblically-based and God-directed passions, purpose, and plans can be a great benefit for our individual lives, families, and ministries.

As we gain more exposure to Alaska ministry and look toward our future involvement throughout the state, we are led to review our motives, passions, and goals. This effort leads us to further specify our Biblically based passions, ministry mission, philosophy, vision, ministry applications, and strategy for Standing in the Gap Ministries Alaska. As we continue this ministry in cooperation with you our ministry partners (prayer and financial), we want to share our ministry essentials, giving you a better awareness regarding our ministry direction. If any questions or concerns arise, please feel free to drop us a note via email; we would enjoy getting your feedback. (standinginthegap@mac.com)

If interested, please review our ministry essentials document here: www.thegapstander.com/alaska/ministry-essentials

We often take knowledge, specifically Biblical knowledge for granted. The lack of a passion to learn Biblical truth is an all too often common trait among Christendom. I know we’ve probably all heard this plea before, but I am bringing this up again because it is so very critical. God’s people must get back to a thirst for learning Biblical truth. I’m talking about a deeper level of seeking truth than just your “15 minutes” of Bible reading or even the weekly church sermon.
Far too many Christians, myself included, treat their Christian life as if salvation’s granting of eternal life is the only work of the Gospel. Salvation involves far more than just a ticket to heaven! We get to live an abundant life in Jesus now! The Gospel has tangible implications for our lives in the here and now. We are all on a process of redemption, whereby God orchestrates all things for His redemptive purposes. So often I find myself living life as if the Gospel has no tangible implications for today. I mean, if we really grasped this meaningful truth, we would have an unquenchable thirst for growing in our understanding of Biblical truth. We would passionately approach our reading, our study, and our church attendance.

This desire for learning is a relatively new work that God is doing in my heart throughout the past few years. It is far too easy for us to sit through church and do our daily Bible reading in a form of legalism without actually growing in our passion for learning Biblical truth. As Paul addressed Timothy, are we truly studying to show ourselves diligent students of God’s Word?

So what does this look like? Am I saying that we all need to quit our jobs and retreat to a monk-like lifestyle where all we do is read and study? Of course not. What I am saying is that there are likely some of us that could develop a deeper desire to learn Biblical truth that may manifest itself in an increased level of reading or some other means of growing in truth. I’m sure some people reading this already have a good discipline or hobby of reading. But how many of us need to develop a passion for this kind of learning? Do you fully appreciate the glorious doctrines of Scripture? Do you even know the various doctrines of the Bible? You may be able to share your salvation testimony with another, but are you able to answer the skeptic’s intellectual questions regarding truth? Do you really know what you believe and why you believe it? Or, do you just believe what you believe based on tradition and the preacher’s word?

Please understand me. I am not advocating these things as a legalistic aspect of the believer’s life. I am admonishing these things because I feel that there are so many Christians who live with a very shallow understanding of Biblical truth and how it actually relates to them. Beyond the actual level of truth caught, there are scores of people today in our churches that approach learning (whether devotional, personal reading, or church) in a way that is often void of any passion.

In response to all of these important truths, I am excited to introduce to you an ongoing project started many months ago. As God continues growing my passion for truth, I decided to share my study and various thoughts with others. From one regular redeemed child of the King to another, I pray that these resources and recommendations can be of some mutual edification to you! Follow the link provided below to view our new site designed to promote a passion for growing in Biblical truth. At the new Believer’s Bookshelf website, we endeavor to share our learnings along the way as we continue our ongoing life of redemption together. It is still just a small sampling of all of the Biblical resources available today, but be sure to check back often as we continue adding resources and reviews. Please also understand that we attempt to bring a wide and often random selection of materials available today and that we must (as always) exercise Biblical discernment in our reading/study.

Enter: www.thebelieversbookshelf.com

Derek

Blessings,
Derek

Embrace the Waits Video File

Embrace the Waits PDF with Notes

God is continually increasing my appreciation and passion for reading books related to Theology and other Christian related topics. I was thinking about this one day and decided to begin including some of my book recommendations on our ministry website. You will now find a “current reading” section on the bottom right of our site with a list of recommended Christian resources. I will also strive to provide occasional reviews on especially good books. Additionally, there are included Amazon links on each book picture. It is my prayer that God can use this to encourage you to read solid materials for your Christian walk! Follow the link below to view thegapstander Christian resource recommendations:

http://thegapstander.com/alaska/book-recommendations

- Derek

- Derek