Category Archives: Endeavors

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Update on 2015 Endeavors

2015 Endeavors

I begin each year with something I call “Endeavors”; just think of them as spiritual goals for the year. To this point in my life I’ve rarely changed the Endeavors that kicked off each year. It’s probably because I feel duty bound, come hell or high water, to complete the individual Endeavor—and I recognize how silly such enslaved devotion is. Well, 2015 may be the year I broke free of dutiful silliness.

My 2015 Endeavors were essentially three:

  1. Memorize the books of 1 John and 2 Timothy.
  2. Read all four volumes of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics.
  3. Integrate regular fasting into my life and ministry.

I’ve adjusted #1, scrapped #2, and kept #3 in tact. Here’s an update on what’s been happening with each one.

Adjusted 2015 Endeavors

#1 – I endeavor to memorize the books of 1 John Philippians and 2 Timothy. In January we began a sermon series through 1 John at IDC and I planned to simply memorize the book along the way. I kept at it through chapter two and then I just lost steam. Maybe John’s repetitive nature led me to feel I was memorizing the same truth in just a different place or maybe it’s my love for more linear epistolary argument. Whatever it is, I shut down 1 John in late February and made a pivot to Philippians. We are slated to begin a sermon series through Paul’s letter of joy in the fall and memorizing the book now I trust will bring power to my future sermon prep. I hope to have Philippians complete by the end of August and then use the last few months of the year to write 2 Timothy upon my heart.

#2 – I endeavor to read Herman Bavinck’s four-volume Reformed Dogmatics. I made it through volume one of RD and then the syllabuses for PhD seminars arrived—syllabuses telling me I had 37 books to read by mid-May. For a while I kept plugging away at RD, but eventually I found myself obligatorily rushing through each day’s reading of the Dutchman in order to get to the PhD books. And let’s be honest, Bavinck deserves better than forced friendship. So Bavinck’s magnum opus took its venerable place back on the shelf in my study. Maybe I’ll get to him in 2019.

#3 – I endeavor to integrate regular fasting into my life and ministry. An old mentor of mine once said, “Fasting is overrated.” Fasting has been an afterthought in my spiritual life ever since. Yet, a great cloud of fasting witness cried out to me in 2014. I seemed to read many old saints expressing a delight in and devotion to fasting that was utterly compelling. Also helped along the way by Piper’s A Hunger for God, I began to rethink my old conviction and set out to walk more faithfully in the discipline of fasting this year.

Currently, I fast from breakfast and lunch every Saturday. As I discerned how best to go about consistent fasting I felt forgoing first two meals each Saturday might be unusually challenging to my soul. You see, our church meets at 5pm on Saturdays. Therefore, I routinely preach on an empty stomach. But oh my, how full my heart is! Fasting on Saturdays has led to more urgent pleas for God to glorify Himself in our church, and I hope, a growing humility in my preaching. Preaching hungry means preaching in weakness; it means preaching in His strength. I’ve realized these last few months how prone I am to trust in my own power instead of God’s power. The weakness which attends fasting calls me to trust ever more on the Spirit for success at the sacred desk. It’s a lesson I should have learned by now, but I evidently haven’t. And so the weakness of fasting is a feeling I love more and more with each passing week. It’s helping me taste the glory of Christ in new ways.

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2015 Endeavors

2015 Endeavors

A few weeks ago I was at my local haunt – Rudy’s BBQ – having breakfast with a church member. Yes sir, only in Texas are BBQ breakfast tacos possible. I frequent the store so much one of the managers will start making my order the minute I walk in the door. When we arrived at the register and my tacos were ready for feasting my friend asked, “Do you ever change your order?” I answered tongue-in-cheekly, “I don’t believe in change.”

I love routines and habitual living. It’s rare for me to whimsically change a life pattern unless pressing external circumstances demand me to do so.

The beginning of a new year is one such regular occasion for changing the routine.1 At the beginning of each year I put down a short list of what I call “Endeavors.”2 The system of Endeavors was originally inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions and gives me foxhole friends for The Good Fight each year.

Here then are my three Endeavors for 2015 . . .

ENDEAVORS FOR 2015

I endeavor to memorize the books of 1 John and 2 Timothy. Next weekend at IDC, Lord willing, we will begin a four-month sermon series through the book of 1 John. I’ve thought in recent weeks, “I might as well memorize it.” I know preaching through the book will make memorizing it easier than it might be otherwise. Since I hope to have 1 John cemented by the end of May, my goal for the rest of the year is to write 2 Timothy on my heart. I’ve long desired to memorize all the pastoral epistles and last year I did 1 Timothy, so Paul’s second letter to his “true child in the faith” is the next logical step.

I endeavor to read Herman Bavinck’s four-volume Reformed Dogmatics. I’ve always advocated the patient, systematic reading of classic works of theology. A few years ago I tackled Calvin’s Institutes and a Brakel’s The Christian’s Reasonable Service, last year I took on the collected works of George Swinnock. Throughout 2014 I considered which set in my study needed slow reading in 2014 and the answer was unmistakable: Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. By my calculations, seven pages per day will get me through Bavinck’s work with several weeks to spare.

I endeavor to integrate regular fasting into my life and ministry. For a variety of different reasons I’ve never been consistent in the discipline of fasting. Most centrally is the fact I usually only eat one meal a day (a pattern I probably should address in and of itself). Thus, fasting has always seemed to lose some of its weight because I float through most of each day without hunger pains. Nevertheless, I’m endeavoring to rectify this glaring gap in my spiritual life. To begin, I plan to read Piper’s A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, which I trust will set my course for faithful fasting in 2015.

I can’t wait to see what God will do through these practices. Anyone interested in joining me on the journey?

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  1. I just realized, in writing that sentence, how even changes to my routine are  . . . well, rather routine. ↩
  2. Click here to see the Endeavors from 2014. ↩
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In Which I Cry “Uncle”

boston

Almost two weeks ago I decided to add a new Endeavor for 2014: read the collected works of Thomas Boston. It was a “go big or go home” Endeavor and I wanted to go big. But now I am going home.

Just yesterday said, “Uncle,” to the great Scotsman.

My reasoning for laying aside the Boston endeavor is quite simple. To read through the twelve volumes in eleven months would mean reading about thirty-five pages a day. If I’m reading fast, those pages would occupy about forty minutes of each day. I spent about ten days attacking the first volume with verve and nearly knocked out the whole thing. But it didn’t take long to realize that this one Endeavor was going to rob time from the other three Endeavors, while also infringing on my afternoon prayers.

Right as I was thinking about laying Boston aside in order to protect prayer time in the afternoon I read this part of Spurgeon’s magnificent lecture on “Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance“:

Fan [earnestness] with much supplication. We cannot be too urgent with one another upon this point: no language can be too vehement with which to implore ministers to pray. There is for our brethren and ourselves an absolute necessity for prayer. Necessity!–I hardly like to talk of that, let me rather speak of the deliciousness of prayer–the wondrous sweetness and divine felicity which come to the soul that lives in the atmosphere of prayer. John Fox said, “The time we spend with God in secret is the sweetest time, and the best improved. Therefore, if thou lovest thy life, be in love with prayer.” The devout Mr. Hervey resolved on the bed of sickness–“If God shall spare my life, I will read less and pray more.”

I often think about dying and what I would say on my deathbed. The older I get the more I realize how likely it could be that I would say the same thing as good Mr. Hervey.

And I don’t want to.

So I put Boston back on his venerable shelf in my study and sat down to pray. I think the good Scotsman would commend that endeavor.

A prayerful journey through Boston is still, very much, in the cards . . . just not in 2014.

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A Synonymn for Holy Living

boston

One of my endeavors for 2014 was to read Looking Unto Jesus, the magnum opus of Isaac Ambrose. I planned for slow, meditative reading, but LUJ was far too good to put down. Thus, the Ambrose endeavor is now complete.

Here then I stand on the precipice of 2014’s second month wondering if I should add another endeavor to the list. The next eleven months offer open vistas of opportunity, growth, and challenge. The small shouting voice in my soul proclaims, “Go big or go home!” So I endeavor to go big with Boston; Thomas Boston that is.

I endeavor to read the collected works of Thomas Boston in 2014.

Boston was one of the subjects of my thesis, This is Not the End: Puritans on the Glory of Heaven, and I found him to be unusually illuminating. But perhaps the greatest motivation for this endeavor is found in Andrew Thomson’s description of the man from Ettrick:

If Scotland had been searched during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, there was not a minister within its bounds who, alike in personal character, and in the discharge of his pastoral function, approached nearer the apostolic model than did this man of God. It is a fact that, even before he died, men and children had come to pronounce his name with reverence. It had become a synonym for holy living.

“A synonym for holy living,” now that is an endeavor worth much prayer and pursuit.

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Who is Isaac Ambrose?

isaacambroseOne of my Endeavors for 2014 is to read Isaac Ambrose’s timeless tome, Looking Unto Jesus: A View of the Everlasting Gospel: Or, the Soul’s Eyeing of Jesus, As Carrying on the Great Work of Man’s Salvation, from First to Last.

If you aren’t familiar with Puritan works just know that title is not particularly long for those 17th century divines.

So just who is Isaac Ambrose? I can’t improve upon the work of Beeke and Pederson in Meet the Puritans. Here’s a short-ish adaptation.

AMBROSE THE MAN

Isaac Ambrose was born in 1604, the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, Lancashire. Entering Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1621, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1624, and was ordained to the ministry. He became vicar of the parish church in Castleton, Derbyshire, in 1627, then served at Clapham, Yorkshire, from 1629 to 1631. The following year he received a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge.

About 1640, Lady Margaret Hoghton selected him as vicar of Preston in Amounderness. As long as Ambrose lived in Preston, he enjoyed the warm friendship of the Hoghton family. It was to their ancestral woods and tower near Blackburn, east of Preston, or Weddicre Woods near Garstang, that Ambrose retired each May to be alone, searching the Scriptures, praying, and meditating upon God. His sermon, “Redeeming the Time,” preached to the large congregation assembled for Lady Hoghton’s funeral, was long remembered in Lancashire.

Presbyterianism in Lancashire was served well by Ambrose in the 1640s and early 1650s, though not without strife. On several occasions he served as moderator of the Lancashire classis, and, in 1648, was a signatory of the harmonious consent of the Lancashire Presbyterian clergy, which expressed solidarity with the Westminster Assembly and opposed calls for toleration. In 1649, the local committee for the relief of plundered ministers ordered him to be briefly imprisoned in London. When Ambrose returned to minister in Preston, he faced ongoing persecution. Finally, in 1654, he gave up his post there, perhaps due in part to illness (Oxford DNB, 1:921).

Ambrose moved north to become minister of Garstang, where he was ejected from his living in 1662 because of non- conformity. He lived in retirement among his friends at Preston, dying suddenly of apoplexy on January 23, 1664. It was said of him: “He was holy in life, happy in his death, honored of God, and held in high estimation by all good men.”

AMBROSE THE AUTHOR

Ambrose was a Christ-centered and warmly experiential author. He spoke of himself as a son of Boanerges and Barnabas, though his writings and ministry appear to have reflected more of the latter than the former. His writings are remarkably free of polemics. “As a religious writer Ambrose has a vividness and freshness of imagination possessed by scarcely any of the Puritan nonconformists. Many who have no love for Puritan doctrine, nor sympathy with Puritan experience, have appreciated the pathos and beauty of his writings, and his Looking unto Jesus long held its own in popular appreciation with the writings of John Bunyan” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1:800). A collection of his works appeared in 1674 and was reprinted at least seven times over the next two centuries.

After a serious illness in the early 1650s, Ambrose wrote a devotional on what the Lord had done for his soul, titled Looking unto Jesus, or the Soul’s Eyeing of Jesus as Carrying on the Great Work of Man’s Salvation (1658). The book, which stresses experiential identification with Jesus in thought and behavior, soon became a classic of Christ-centered divinity. Its readers feel they are standing on holy ground.

The book has been reprinted many times, influencing many Christians over the centuries to pursue a closer walk with God. It equals Samuel Rutherford’s Letters in its Christcenteredness.

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3 Endeavors for 2014

2014 Endeavors

Few men of old have impacted my life so profoundly as Jonathan Edwards. It all began in the spring of 2007.

On a whim I purchased George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards: A Life from a nearby Christian bookstore. As strange as it may seem for those who know me well, and in light of yesterday’s post, Marsden’s biography was the first “Christian” book longer than 200 pages I had ever read.

It took me quite a while to finish the book, the pace was caterpillar-ish when contrasted to how I read seven years later, but I have never been the same since. Apart from Scripture no other book as effected me in a myriad of significant ways like this one.

It was the gateway into deeper study of Edwards.

It was the gateway into loving the Puritans.

It was the gateway into a near obsession with history.

And it was the gateway into a disciplined pursuit of holiness.

This last one is what struck me most about Edwards, his staggering, soul-consuming pursuit of holiness, and thus happiness, in God. I doubt anything encapsulates his passion for godliness like those famous Resolutions. After reading them I had a strange bifurcation of the soul. One part of my heart fell into utter despair, “What a miserably lazy worm I am!” But the other part, and honestly the major part, raced with excitement, “Yes! Amen! Now, that’s a life spent pursuing God.” And so it was that I pulled out my laptop and tapped away my own list of desires for The Fight. I called them “Endeavors.”

Some day I might publish those original ones, but for now you should know that as every year begins I have a couple new, often time-capped, Endeavors that find their way onto the list. Here are the three Endeavors I have for 2014:

3 ENDEAVORS FOR 2014

First, I endeavor to memorize 1 Timothy. Few things stir my soul to consistently dwell in doxological deeps like Bible memory. In 2011 I memorized Ephesians and Colossians and have spent the last two years trying to make sure I retain them. I think I am now ready to move on to the next book and it was always going to be 1 Timothy. Paul’s letter to his “true child in the faith” has long been a go-to resource for pastoral ministry and I want to write it on my heart.

Second, I endeavor to read the collected works of George Swinnock and the magnum opus of Isaac Ambrose. This is a good example of what I mean by a “time-capped” Endeavor. In the past couple of years I have chosen a few older and longer works to meditatively nibble on throughout the year. This year its the five-volume collection from Swinnock and Ambrose’s Looking Unto Jesus. 8 pages per day in the former and 2 in the latter will have ’em likely done sometime in November.

Third, I endeavor to personally evangelize at least one person a month. Some may say, and be right to say, that this hope is porous. It’s too small. Or, “You don’t do that already?!?” I usually find it best to put the peanut gallery on mute, especially in areas like this. Simply put, I want to become a better personal evangelist. My calling demands it and my God deserves it. I am praying that the Spirit would empower me unto faithfulness and fruitfulness in evangelism. Maybe one day I might be like the venerable Mack Stiles who says it’s rare for a couple days to pass without at least one evangelistic conversation.

So, in the year of our Lord 2014, these are my Edwardsian endeavors. Anyone want to join me on the journey?