The halls of the Washington Hilton, the hotel that hosted the National Prayer Breakfast, buzzed last Thursday as people discussed the speech — Metaxas’ speech, not President Obama’s, which followed. Outside the hotel, a Occupy Wall Street protestor asked, “Is it true what I’m hearing, that Eric Metaxas talked about Jesus?”

It was true. And then, to end his speech, Metaxas led those in attendance in the singing of the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The author attacked “phony religiosity,” which he struggled through as an agnostic studying at Yale before he became a Christian.

“Jesus was and is the enemy of dead religion,” Metaxas said. “He came to deliver us from that.” Prayer emanates from “real faith in God,” he said, adding that faith in Jesus leads to courageous acts like those of Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce.

The video below is set to start at approximately the 35 minute mark which is where Metaxas’ speech begins.

Yes, that’s my boy.

Happy 26th Anniversary, Wifey!

St. Andrew’s member Dr. Bill Sasser first began doing short term mission trips over 15 years ago.  Bill and his wife, Susalee, have traveled all over the world, offering dental care to those least able to care for themselves. Their travels have taken them from the jungle highlands of Southeast Asia to prisons in Rwanda to the squalor of Haiti. After serving solo for many trips, they felt led to reach out to students at MUSC’s Dental School.

Ten years ago, they helped organize Dental Community Fellowship (DCF – DentalCommunityFellowship.net). This is a student chapter of a national  organization called the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. DCF organizes yearly mission trips where students play an integral part of the care given in these locations. Students who go on these trips are responsible for covering all associated costs for their trips. These include airfare as well as incountry expenses. The trips not only benefit the patients but the students as well as they are able to provide hands on care at a rate and under circumstances that they will never see if their learning was confined to the school and its clinics. In addition, they are exposed to missions and serving those who are many times forgotten.

This Saturday,  January 21, they will hold two events to raise money for scholarships. The first event of the day will be a golf tournament at Stono Ferry. In the evening, they will have a banquet here at St. Andrew’s beginning at 6:30 pm. The DCF Banquet will feature a silent auction, bar-b-que dinner and a speaker, Dr. Stan Cobb. Stan is known as the Cowboy Dentist and hails from Spearman, Texas. He is a dentist, artist, writer, and occasionally, a cowboy.

I invite you to come and be a part of the banquet and hear the incredible stories of what our Lord is doing through and with our local dental school. To purchase tickets to the banquet, please visit the DCF’s website.

Registration is now up and open on the SAMP website for our 2012 Men’s Retreat. 

The theme this year is,  “Be Present,” and, I am delighted to have +Terrell returning to SAMP to lead us through the weekend.

For more information or to register, click here.

By “Little-Faiths”, Spurgeon here means people who are not great in faith and deed.  There are no Moses, or Paul, or Peter, or Augustine, or Luther, or Calvin.  They aren’t even  ”Joe-Schmoe” Christians, but something less than that.  They are people whose faith is full of doubts, whose morality is often feeble.  They are not spiritual giants but spiritual midgets.  Here Spurgeon speaks a word of comfort to folks just like this, and shows that the blessings of Christ are every bit their’s as they are to the spritual giant.  Maybe these words will be a comfort to you.  I know it spoke a word of comfort to me…

Now I want to say one or two things to Little-Faiths this morning. The little children of God who are here mentioned as being bruised reeds or smoking flax are just as safe as the great saints of God. I wish for a moment to expand this thought, and then I will finish with the other head. These saints of God who are called bruised reeds and smoking flax are just as safe as those who are mighty for their Master, and great in strength, for several reasons. First of all, the little saint is just as much God’s elect as the great saint.When God chose his people, he chose them all at once, and altogether; and he elected one just as much as the other. If I choose a certain number of things, one may be less than the rest, but one is as much chosen as the other; and so Mrs. Fearing and Miss Despondency are just as much elected as Great-Heart, or Old Father Honest. Again: the little ones are redeemed equally with the great ones! the feeble saints cost Christ as much suffering as the strong ones; the tiniest child of God could not have been purchased with less than Jesus’ precious blood; and the greatest child of God did not cost him more. Paul did not cost any more than Benjamin—I am sure he did not—for I read in the Bible that “there is no difference.” Besides, when of old they came to pay their redemption-money, every person brought a shekel. The poor shall bring no less, and the rich shall bring no more than just a shekel. The same price was paid for the one as the other. Now then little child of God, take that thought to thy soul. You see some men very prominent in Christ’s cause—and it is very good that they should be—but they did not cost Jesus a farthing more than you did; he paid the same price for you that he paid for them. Recollect again, you are just as much a child of God as the greatest saint. Some of you have five or six children. There is one child of yours, perhaps, who is very tall and handsome, and has, moreover, gifts of mind; and you have another child who is the smallest of the family, perhaps has but little intellect and understanding. But which is the most your child? “The most!” you say; “both alike are my children, certainly, one as much as the other.” And so, dear friends, you may have very little learning, you may be very dark about divine things, you may but “see men as trees walking,” but you are as much the children of God as those who have grown to the stature of men in Christ Jesus. Then remember, poor tried saint, that you are just as much justified as any other child of God. I know that I am completely justified.

Read the rest.

h/t: Awakening Grace

Did anyone make a New Year’s resolution to read through the Bible in a year?  I hope so.  Of all of the spiritual disciplines, I have found this the most fruitful.

If you’re still looking for a plan, or to get started but don’t know where to start, Nicky Gumbel at HTB has put together a great Bible reading resource.  It’ll take you through the entire Bible in one year and he offers a bit of explanation and application with each daily reading.  Best of all, you can have it sent right to your phone, iPad (or whatever), computer.

Here’s a snip from today’s selection:

The Bible has a great deal to say about walking with God.  It is how we were intended to live.  It was only Adam and Eve’s sin that made them hide when they ‘heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Genesis 3:8).

God’s desire for each of us is that we should walk humbly in a relationship (Micah 6:8).  This is what Jesus has made possible – for us to walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).  Now we stumble, but one day we will walk with him dressed in white (Revelation 3:4).

Each of the passages for today tell us something more about what it means to walk with God.

Click here to read the rest of today’s entry, and, if you wish, to sign up.

Get your Kleenex out:

Back story is here.

Tim Keller gave the sermon for the service from Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” Keller presented five ways to imitate Stott’s life and faith.

Read it all.