Gabi Lupescu – Indemn pentru tineri

„Poporul Tau este plin de inflacarare, cand I-ti aduni ostirea; cu podoabe sfinte, ca din sanul zorilor… vine tineretul Tau la Tine, ca roua !”. (Ps.110:3) – Amin.

Astăzi Dumnezeu vorbeşte… cheamă, trimite, vrea să-şi formeze o avangardă tânără…nemolipsită de chemarea trecutului, dar aprinsă de cea a viitorului. Cum răspund eu… în faţa acestei insistenţe divine? Îmi mai este îndeajuns Egiptul sa…u chiar pustia?!…

Dumnezeu încă aşteaptă; iar apoi, cu această avangardă tânără care s-a dezvoltat în mijlocul a tot ceea ce se numeşte râu, va întoarce ultima filă a istoriei salvării.^ Iată, iubiţi tineri, care aţi fost înzestraţi cu entuziasm şi putere, nu le lăsaţi să fie risipite şi apoi uitate… ci învesteşte-le ca un Iosua, ca un Ghedeon, David, Ieremia sau Timotei !.

Un nou cuvânt ţi-a fost adresat, o nouă solie este scrisă în faţa ta… cu litere de foc. E pentru tine menită să-ţi aducă fericirea şi înţelesul rostului său. Primeşte-o şi vei simţi că ai pentru ce trăi; vei trăi cu adevărat.

„Iată, eu stau la uşă şi bat” .De răspunsul tău la această chemare, va depinde în mod necesar… durata rămânerii noastre aici !. ” Sa grabim venirea zilei Domnului !”, printr-o purtare demna de un fiu sau o fiica a Celui Prea Inalt , stand la dispozitia Sa!.

Când un tânăr se hotărăşte să-i servească lui Hristos …are de înfruntat mari atacuri din partea lui Satana. Dar Domnul, “Leul din seminţia lui Iuda,” este biruitor peste moarte şi păcat şi oricine se încrede în El va fi biruitor ca şi El….

Iubiţi tineri, să ne alegem în fiecare dimineaţă un text… la care să meditam mereu în cursul zilei. Lucrul acesta ne va face să descoperim lucruri adânci în gândurile lui Dumnezeu şi ele vor ţine gândul nostru legat de cer, păzindu-ne astfel de ispite.

Suntem entuziasmaţi de a porni pe drumul consacrării şi al sfinţirii. Dar pe ce ne bazăm când pornim pe acest drum? Pe puterile şi (averile noastre) talentele noastre? În cazul acesta vom avea insuccese sigure. Domnul Hristos a declarat: „Fără Mine, nu puteţi face nimic”. ^ Dacă ne încredem în Domnul, El va lucra pentru noi. El ne îndeamnă: „Aveţi credinţă în Dumnezeu şi aveţi credinţă în Mine”. Eu voi merge înaintea ta şi voi netezi drumurile muntoase, voi sfărâma uşile de aramă şi apoi voi rupe zăvoarele de fier.

Iubiţi tineri, negreşit cu Dumnezeu… vom face isprăvi mari. Domnul să ne ajute, să se împlinească cu noi …făgăduinţele Sale. Amin?

PAGINA – Gabi Lupescu PREDICI

Proverbs 3:5-6

photo source http://www.heartlight.org

Psalms 62:8 “Trust in Him at all times, you people;

Pour out your heart before Him;

God is a refuge for us.

Sinclair Ferguson – Taming the Tongue from Desiring God Conference

Sinclair Ferguson: Sometimes I wonder if the misuse of the tongue is a peculiarly evangelical sin. How many occasions I’ve been with brothers and somebody’s name has been mentioned… the first lash of the tongue is to destroy that brother. Yes, he may not be perfect, yes he may have many peculiarities, foibles, not yet fully formed, but, how dare I destroy with a word a brother for whom Christ has died within the context of the fellowship of God’s people? You see, careless with fire.

• The man who is able to control his tongue is a perfect man; to be a mature Christian you have to learn to bridle your tongue.
• Teachers of the Word will be more strictly judged (thus Jude advises that not many should be teachers).
• The man who can control his tongue can control himself (his body). The person who has managed to bridle his tongue and thus control, become master of his whole body is the person who is able to go beyond silence to speech.
• Taming the tongue = the ability to have that sensitivity to use the words that are necessary: gracious, convicting and saving and to remain silent in sensitivity when such silence is necessary.
• Taming the tongue = for those of us whose whole instinct is to remain silent, for the Gospel to break words through our native barrier to speech so that we may speak words that are seasoned with salt and are full of grace.
• The ability, by God’s grace, to say the right thing, at the right time, to the right person in the power of the Holy Spirit and in faith is a most magnificent grace in the life of the believer.
• But, James is saying it is one of the most difficult graces to experience, because it requires the mastery of the tongue. It is a hallmark of spiritual maturity. It’s a day by day, hour by hour and moment by moment battle in the heart.
• James is teaching us that, just like Job understood that he needed to make a covenant with his eyes, that is not the whole of the biblical principle, but the application of a biblical principle to a particular member of the body. It’s not just the eyes that we need to make covenants with God about, so that we may not look lustfully at women; it’s with the ears, and with the lips.

photo via www.pixmule.com

Taming the Tongue

James 3:1-12

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. ² We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

⁷ All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Uploaded by sermonindex on Mar 28, 2011 from www.Desiringod.org

The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing

An Exposition of James 3:1-12 by Sinclair Ferguson

Extensive notes from this sermon/video– The practical purpose of Scripture is to make us spiritually mature and in order to do that, it unfolds truth for our darkened minds, it touches our consciences in the power of the Holy SPirit and convicts us of our sin, right through to the very end of our Christian lives and even as it does so, it corrects us or heals us and transforms us and builds us up and equips us to be mature Christian people. And, it’s one of the burdens of James, whom I take to be the half brothers of the Lord  Jesus Christ. It’s one of the burdens of this whole little book of James and these Christians to whom he is speaking should be brought to a striking spiritual maturity.

In the opening chapter he speaks in terms of the way the Christian responds to suffering. Suffering, among other things is intended to make us mature, rounded, balanced, stable Christians. Then he goes on to speak about the way in which the Word of God , and our response to the Word of God builds us up, transforms us and makes us mature. Particularly, you notice in verse 2, he says that the man who is able to control his tongue is a perfect man, a man who has become mature in his Christian life. He is sharing that great passion of the apostle Paul to present every man as mature in Christ before the judgement seat of God.

James is so profoundly concerned that these Christians who have been scattered, perhaps from earlier privileges of sitting under His ministry should grow to be like Jesus Christ. Jesus was someone who spoke constantly with such grace and yet at the same time He was someone who could speak with such a dramatic cutting edge. He has that picture in mind- the mature Christian believer, growing in that Christ likeness until he is fully formed into the image of Jesus, even in the words that come from his lips.

(1) I’d like for us to first of all walk through these 12 verses in order to see what he very pointedly has to say about the use of the tongue. – James is essentially drawing out 4 specific threads of teaching about the tongue and the Christian believer.

1. The difficulty of taming the tongue –It is a searing truth. In the first instance he is speaking to those who would teach, those who would as a gift f Jesus Christ, in the fellowship of God’s people, employ their tongue to an extraordinary degree (Frequency?) and he advises that not many of us should be teachers because by our words, we will be more strictly judged. But, of course, as he speaks to those who aspire to be teachers, he is bringing to bear on their lives genetic Gospel principles. The apostle Paul makes a reference to James in 1 Corinthians 7 where after the resurrection Jesus appears to Peter, to the 12 apostles, to the 500 and then He appears to James perhaps to bring him a reassurance of pardon (for his unbelief and probable snide remarks during that time). Here James wants to show us how difficult it is in the first place to master the tongue. James is saying that the thing that will make most impression on your fellow Christians, the people with whom you work, in your home and family is not the great, big things that you do, not how you appear on the public stage or arena, but the very simple question of whether or not you have mastered your tongue. And he engages in this rigorous analogy with a picture that a mature man bridles his tongue in order to bridle his body. The man who can control his tongue can control himself. Seems to me, in so many ways (that) Christians tend to be divided into these 2 categories. 1- Those who find it easy to use their tongues and their temptation to use their tongues too frequently and those who (I certainly place myself in this category), who actually find it constitutional difficult (by upbringing or education) more difficult to speak. To have that mastery of the tongue, because that mastery of self that enables those who would remain silent to speak and those who would over speak to remain silent.  And so when James speaks of the mastery of the tongue, he isn’t simply speaking about the words that we use, he is speaking about the ability to have that sensitivity to use the words that are necessary: gracious, convicting and saving and to remain silent in sensitivity when such silence is necessary. And, for those of us whose whole instinct is to remain silent, for the Gospel to break words through our native barrier to speech so that we may speak words that are seasoned with salt and are full of grace. Back in James 1:26 „ If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless.” I think that is very searching, that my inability to speak may actually be an expression of my failure to bridal my tongue and my inability to cease speaking (too). So the ability, by God’s grace, to say the right thing, at the right time, to the right person in the power of the Holy Spirit and in faith is a most magnificent grace in the life of the believer. But, James is saying it is one of the most difficult graces to experience, because it requires the mastery of the tongue. It is a hallmark of spiritual maturity. Indeed, he mentions, nobody but Jesus  mastered the tongue fully. So it’s a day by day, hour by hour and moment by moment battle in the heart for a sanctification that is whole person, whole bodied that even the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is manifested through our tongue.
2. The disproportionate power of the tongue. (vs 3-5) James uses these amazing images: the image of the bit in the mouth of the horse, and the rudder at the back of the ship. The tongue can build up or destroy. Why does it it so powerful? Because it carries our souls into the world in which you live. James is saying that every time we open our mouth we give ourselves away or in the old fashioned language of the KJV: Our speech betrays us. There is such a disproportionate power to the use of the tongue that it permeates absolutely everything that we do.
3. The destruction caused by the tongue. Notice the language in verses 5 & 6- „Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” The tongue- a world form which iniquity can come and it’s a stain. It’s a tiny instrument that stains and ruins everything, like a stain on a dress. The misuse of the tongue can apparently render all other graces in my life impotent. It’s a beast that demands to be heard. It’s a restless evil and a deadly poison. In those last 3 pictures he is using, he has Genesis 3 at the back of his mind, the poison under the tongue of the serpent, who is the ultimately restless one. Restless in his disobedience. He (Satan) goes about like  a restless, roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. And he produces restlessness in a heart that creates restlessness in the tongue and deadly poison that eats away at everything that is beautiful in life. One of his chief instruments is this tiny little instrument God has given to us in order that we might praise His name. You can destroy a person’s reputation by your tongue as easily, more easily than you can destroy their life by the sword. Indeed I think one of the most helpful spiritual exercises one can possibly do in relationship to the tongue is to quietly meditate on all of the 10 commandments of God and think of the way in which the tongue has the capability to breach these commandments and you and I hardly move an inch. Tongues that were given us to praise Him, but express far more excitement in idolatry than in doxology. Tongues that were given us to praise Him, yet remain silent in worship or are deadened in praise on the Lord’s Day. Tongues that were given to speak words of love, but then speak words of flattery and lust and adultery. Tongues given to speak truth that tell fabrications, just a  little less than the truth. Tongues that were meant to give, give, give.. that take, take, take… Sometimes I wonder if the misuse of the tongue is a peculiarly evangelical sin. How many occasions I’ve been with brothers and somebody’s name has been mentioned… the first lash of the tongue is to destroy that brother. Yes, he may not be perfect, yes he may have many peculiarities, foibles, not yet fully formed, but, how dare I destroy with a word a brother for whom Christ has died within the context of the fellowship of God’s people? You see, careless with fire. Ireflected in another context this week on some of Jonathan Edwards resolutions on the tongue: #31.Resolve never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution. #34-Resolved, in narration’s never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.#36- Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it. #70- Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak. (Jonathan Edwards Aug. 17, 1723). You see, he discovered the great secret that the apostle Paul moves towards in the opening of the Book of Romans, where he brings us all to the positions where our mouths are shut and we’re conscious of our sin and guilt and shame and it’s only then: „Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling…” its then, out of the silence for the judgment seat of God  and the reception of the overflowing grace of God, such a sinner as I am!
4. The deadly inconsistency, the plague of the tongue. We bless God, but we curse His image. We should never minimize words. we understand that the words bless and curse in Scripture are not minified words with little significance, the kind of thing we say to one another when we sneeze- „bless you”.  These are words that describe the serious covenantal determined operations of God, either to bring judgement that will lead to hell or to bring grace that will lead to heaven. And he’s saying, ‘there we are praising God and in the next minute cursing men and women who are made in His image’. He is now back in Genesis 1: Man and woman made in the image of God in order to have dominion, not only over the external order, but for the internal order. So as they blessed God in heaven for His provision of His creation, they would speak words of blessing and grace to one another. But now, we’ve not only lost dominion over the earth, but we end up as dust over the land we were supposed to have dominion over. And it is this little instrument that begins to control us, instead of us controlling it(tongue). And we curse the image of God

(2) Secondly, to step back from that and put this teaching in the context of the whole book of James, to help us see the practical counsel he gives to believers that they may use their tongues well. James breaks open our consciences and makes out cry out to God, „Be merciful to me the sinner”. He undergirds this teaching with the most amazing practical counsel about how I can go about growing into maturity and becoming stable and using my tongue well. James is teaching us that, just like Job understood that he needed to make a covenant with his eyes, that is not the whole of the biblical principle, but the application of a biblical principle to a particular member of the body. It’s not just the eyes that we need to make covenants with God about, so that we may not look lustfully at women; it’s with the ears, and with the lips. Amazingly, quite outside of this passage, the book of James has at least 20 resolutions that need to be part of the Christian’s covenant with God, about how the believer is going to employ his tongue, his lips; master his or her heart in such a way that the beauty of Jesus and the holiness of Jesus is expressed out of our mouths.

1. James 1:5 „I resolve to ask God for wisdom to speak out of a single minded devotion to Him.
2. James 1:9-10 „I resolve
3. James 1:13 „I resolve
4. James 1:19 „I resolve
5. James 2:1-4 „I resolve to learning the Gospel way of speaking to both rich and poor
6. James 2:12
7. James 2:16
8. James 3:14
9. James 4:1
10. James 4:11
11. James 4:13
12. James 4:15

(3) And then to stand even further back to see how James sets this teaching on the tongue in the context of the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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