Does that sound like a John Piper quote or what?!

On Sundays I have been trying to read a chapter of Piper’s book, Seeing and Savouring Jesus Christ.  I’ve been trying to do this because I realised from/after our big trip overseas in July-Aug this year that I was often arriving at church (or music practice) distracted or frazzled rather than eager to focus on the excellencies of the Lord Jesus so I could declare and respond to them whole-heartedly.  This was making church a struggle for me and making me less than edifying for others and not very glorifying to Jesus.  Bad news.

Church overseas (especially at and after the Worship God 09 conference) was a joy largely because instead of being distracted (holidays are good like that!) I was focused, and helped by the service leaders to focus, so I learned I have to actively prepare myself for church every week, even several hours beforehand.  Hence, SASJC.

In the introduction to this book, Piper says:

When I speak of seeing Jesus Christ, I don’t mean seeing with the eyes of your head, but the eyes of your heart. … When we see with our spiritual eyes, we see the truth and beauty and value of Jesus Christ for what they really are.  Thus a blind person today may see Christ more clearly than many who have eyes.

Everyone can read the stories of Jesus and “see” the portraits painted by the words of those who knew him.  But not everyone sees truth and beauty and infinite value.  Some see only myth.  Some see foolishness.  Some see offense.  ”Seeing they do not see.”  …

Savoring Jesus Christ is the response to this second [spiritual] kind of seeing.  When you see something as true and beautiful and valuable, you savor it.  That is, you treasure it.  You cherish and admire and prize it.  Spiritual seeing and spiritual savoring are so closely connected that it would be fair to say: If you don’t savor Christ, you haven’t seen Christ for who he is.  If you don’t prize him above all things, you haven’t apprehended his true worth.

The aim of this book is to help you see and savor Christ.

I just read chapter 4 about Jesus’ joy.  It was a 4.5 page meditation on how Jesus is joyful, rejoices, pursued joy, and gives us his joy.  This is fantastic and amazing because his joy is indestructible despite being concomitant with suffering (his and ours and others’).  We can think Jesus was just bland and stoic or worse, sad, so we can live our Christian lives like this too.  But just like Jesus, we can possess an indestructible joy in God as well as live sensitively and effectively in a broken world while waiting to live forever joyfully with him.

mmmm, I thought.  I’d like to grow in this joy.  How good to be able to pray Piper’s indefatigable prayers at the end of each chapter; an excerpt -

May Christ so dwell in our hearts with his indestructible joy that day by day we are conformed more and more to his glad image.  And so may we be a place of refuge and eternal refreshment for a hopeless, joy-seeking world of people who do not know they are starved for the glory of the gladness of God in Jesus Christ.  In his name we pray, amen.

Amen indeed.

Appetite whetted?  We have several of Piper’s books available for borrowing, or find them all online for free!

At 5:17 church, we’re all about connecting with people and connecting people with Jesus. As an outworking of this, we’ve recently decided to support a great ministry called Teen Challenge. As their website tells us, for over 30 years Teen Challenge has given young people who struggle with life-controlling problems a second chance at life. The program aims to eliminate their self destructive habits by meeting the needs of the whole person… not only dealing with the addiction, but also rebuilding their self-image, work ethic, spiritual awareness and relationships.

Last week, Keiyeng encouraged me to read a biography of one young girl who went through the Teen Challenge program. The book was so captivating that I read it in one afternoon (that doesn’t happen very often!!).

Jodie Cadman was a young woman running away from life. In her early teens, her parents went through a messy divorce, and neither of her parents showed her love and acceptance. Her only love and support was her brother - Jonathon. But in her late teens, Jonathon was killed in a motorbike accident. For Jodie, life had lost its meaning. What now? Where to from here?

Jodie fell into a life of self-destruction in the world of drugs and prostitution on the streets of Kings Cross. It’s a brutal read – the author doesn’t leave us guessing about the depravity that Jodie had fallen into. But hope rose out of hopelessness when she discovered Teen Challenge. Through a long and gradual process (including both successes and failures), with the love and care of Teen Challenge, Jodie escaped the clutches of heroin addiction.

In time, Jodie came to trust in Jesus as Lord and Saviour – and her healing and vibrant love for God powerfully speaks of the wonderful grace of God. It is a striking testimony of the great truth that if anyone is in Christ, he (or she) is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

I’d recommend this book to all 5:17ers – it’s a challenging read, and it’s good to read more of a ministry that we support. Alongside financial support (part of our Sunday financial giving has been channeled to Teen Challenge), we also hope to prayerfully find more ways that we can be involved in this terrific ministry.