In August I celebrated my 25th anniversary as pastor of Lake Shore Church in Chicago. I thank God for the joy it has been to work with the Lord and his people!
25 years!
In August I officiated the wedding of one of our church members to a man living in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Everyone in our church enjoyed getting out for the celebration (held in Chicago), especially after months of being cooped up in apartments.
With Stephen and Sujatha
Next week we begin a new theme: What Psalm 91 teaches about God’s protection.
I am getting the technology and skills together to post audio now and then of my messages. Here is the sermon I gave on October 4th: When Victory Looks Like Defeat.
When Victory Looks Like Defeat, by Craig Brian Larson
My favorite post of the last two months is What It Means to Be in Covenant with God. All who sincerely believe in Jesus Christ are in covenant with God. God obligates himself to his covenant partners with many promises, and in turn he requires certain things from them. Please share the link with someone you care about.
Seeking a Publisher
This morning I sent a book proposal to my literary agent for a book on holiness. Pray the Lord will open the door with a publisher. Our nation needs the holiness of God!
Knowing God
Knowing God and his ways upgrades your life. He gives meaning and significance to all you are and do.
Knowing God and his ways does not happen by accident. You must pursue it, pursue him. It takes time, meditating on the Bible, praying, reading material such as my blog that has the specific goal of helping you understand God and his ways better. But there is nothing—nothing—you can do that is more important, that will enrich your soul in every way both in this life and forever. Make it a priority. He is the ultimate everything!
May the Lord teach you his ways!
Craig Brian Larson
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)
Chicago is in the news with plenty of negative stories, so let’s put a few positive pictures before us. Here are some recent photos from a rooftop lunch our church enjoyed after a recent Sunday morning worship meeting. The park below is where we have been meeting outdoors for worship each week.
Church happenings: The building where our church normally rents space has been closed for coronavirus. When we resumed our Sunday worship services in July, we began meeting outdoors each week in Grant Park, the huge park on the lakefront in downtown Chicago. It has been a great experience. We are giving glory to God in public, being a testimony for him, and as a side effect, we get to enjoy being outside.
Reading:
J. I. Packer, “Rediscovering Holiness”
Thinking:
I am extremely pleased to have written this month about a paradox that has puzzled me for years: What sort of accountability do Christians have on Judgment Day? I have puzzled over that for years.
What’s to puzzle? you might ask.
For one thing, 2 Corinthians 5:10, which says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Paul wrote that to Christians. So it seems to me we have a paradox. Christians are fully forgiven, yet we will “receive what is due” for both good and evil deeds on Judgment Day.
That is what has puzzled me for a long time. So, I finally wrote about it for three posts, beginning with the post about forgiveness on August 10th and continuing the theme on August 24th and 31st. I hope you read them all, because the most important day in your life is Judgment Day. On that Day you want to have as few surprises as possible because on that Day all decisions are final and forever.
New resource now available: I created a new email course called “How to Recognize the Presence of God.” Share this free resource with people you know by sending this signup link: https://forms.aweber.com/form/91/817532891.htm
In the Spruce Forest at Morton Arboretum, a tree struck by lightning Self, June 2020, untouched by lightning
During the corona-virus pandemic, God has protected my health and the health of everyone in my family and church. I thank him for this mercy.
Church happenings: During the lockdown, for two months now we have had a prayer meeting every weeknight on Zoom, which has been a great joy and will be my enduring memory of this time.
Preaching: Over the last several months, I gave a series of ten sermons on Psalm 91.
Listen: Do you ever feel as though you are waiting for God to do something, and he is taking a long, long time? I invite you to listen to my reading of one chapter from a book I have written but not yet published. The chapter is titled Tested by Waiting. I welcome your feedback (in the comments below or send me an email).
Scriptures I have memorized and recently meditated on: Psalm 91:1–16. Matthew 17:19–20. Matthew 21:20–22. Mark 11:20–25. Luke 17:5–6
Reading: The Atonement, by Leon Morris. Systematic Theology, by John Frame. Leviticus, by Gordon Wenham.
My granddaughter Rosalie and I at Union Station in DecemberThe setting moon, at dawn, in October, looking west from my apartment
At the start of a new year I have much for which to thank
God. Most importantly, I feel as though I walked with God more closely than at
any time in my life and that he taught me much about himself and his ways.
Writing this blog played an important role in that. Meditating and writing on
God’s love for a year has marked me forever. If you’re new to the blog, I urge
you to go back and read
the posts.
Next up, we will explore another critical subject that is
absolutely essential if we are to understand God and his ways, and that is the
gospel. What does the gospel teach us about God? How does the gospel of Jesus
Christ distinguish the God of the Bible from every other so-called God and
religion?
So, again, the goal in this upcoming theme is to understand
the gospel deeply for the purpose of knowing God and his ways better. We
will see how this knowledge has enormous implications for everything in the Christianity
life, not just for knowing how to be saved.
Blog email provider
On a practical note, at the end of the year I experimented
with using a new company as my email provider. I didn’t like the results (some
subscribers did not receive my emails) and switched back to the previous
company. However, I’m still planning to get another provider. If you don’t
receive your email as usual from me on Mondays (switching email providers can
cause email services like Gmail to think an email is spam), please send me an
email (brian@CraigBrianLarson.com)
and let me know that. And check your junk folder.
I’m praying for you and all my readers regularly that God
will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.
Maximum payoff
Suppose that in 2019 you earned a new certification or
degree in your field of work. That would help you in great ways, but far
greater good would have come to your life if you grew in the knowledge of God.
Knowing God correctly results in making better decisions, having more faith, love,
and hope, living morally in a way pleasing to God, and experiencing God’s
presence, for starters. All the things that matter most flow out of our knowledge
of God.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain
to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his
own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3 ESV).
So, as 2020 begins, make it your ultimate goal this year to
know and love God better. You will never regret it, and the fruits endure
forever!
Much love,
Brian
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)
I’m praying for my readers that God will give you the Spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.
Blessings,
—Brian
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)
Ninety-eight people have now signed up to receive my free
weekly email post. I pray several times each week for these readers. Specifically
I ask God to give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better, especially
that we would grow in our knowledge of his love and holiness, and I pray the
Lord’s prayer for us.
Favorite posts
I had a hard time selecting my three favorite posts of the
period. If you have not been reading regularly since May 7th, try to make time
to go back and read all those posts, because they will change your life. The
topic of the fatherly love of God is that powerful and important. My favorites:
You probably noticed I began using a small image of the blog banner’s blue sky and clouds at the end of each article, along with the theme Scripture:
“Thus says the Lord…Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me” Jeremiah 9:23-24
I shot that picture looking out our apartment window a few
years ago. Nancy and I have lived here on the 20th floor for over nine years,
and we have taken thousands of photos of the sky. There is no end to God’s
creativity in the heavens. Below is an amazing photo we took of a storm moving
in recently (that horizontal line above the dark clouds is the leading edge of
the incoming front, not a window curtain! I’ve never seen anything like it).
On the subject of design, below is my favorite color
combination in the lead image of the last two months, which I used in the June
17th post. Even with the minimal changes I make each week in theme images, I
enjoy the creativity of combining colors and words. I don’t choose any color
that strikes me; rather, I have a palette of about 15 colors along with black,
white, and all the shades of gray from which I mix and match. Yes, my favorite
color is blue. The background’s dark blue in this image reminds me of the color
of the sky at nightfall in summer, which I love beyond description.
Nancy and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary on June
22. We did the garden circuit over several days. We enjoyed perfect weather at
the Chicago Botanic Garden. We
also celebrated by going to the Japanese Garden at Jackson Park and the rose
garden of Grant Park. The Lord is good, and my love is a red, red rose.
Nancy
A few weeks ago my son Aaron and I attended a free rehearsal
of the Chicago Symphony. Aaron lives in the same apartment complex as we do and
leads worship at our church. He is a man of God who like his father earnestly wants
to know the Lord and his ways and thus is a careful, observant, meditative
reader of God’s Word. He is blessing to me and all who know him.
Aaron and I
In upcoming weeks I have more wonderful topics to explore
under the fatherly love of God, so be sure to tune in to upcoming emails.
Vision of knowing God
The effort you put into knowing God better is worth it.
Knowing God as he actually is changes you into a better, more
loving person. 1 John 4:7–8 says, “Whoever loves has been born of God and knows
God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Knowing God increases the level of God’s grace and peace in
your life. Second Peter 1:2 says, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in
the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
Keep reading every week and improve your life in every way.
Hi, here are some happenings and memories of the last few
months.
I took this fun photo at Morton Arboretum recently, where an artist has created several giant statues like this.
Nancy and I took a day for an outing to one of our favorite restaurants, the Grande Luxe Cafe, and the Planetarium.
Can you imagine being sealed into this tiny Apollo spacecraft for days and never leaving your seat?
News:
At our church we recently had a wonderful
experience with prayer for seven weeks. Several people had critical needs
related to work and visas, and so the Lord led us to fast and pray on seven
Sundays for the moving of mountains in our lives. We invited people to fast from
lunch, or breakfast and lunch, and then after our Sunday morning worship
service we went to one of our homes and prayed for a couple of hours together.
Then we ate together. God answered a number of our prayers, and our
relationship with him was deepened. It was a powerful and life-changing
experience.
I have several months more writing to do on the
theme of God’s love. Thinking long about God’s love has changed my life, and I
hope yours as well.
I’m still writing my book on holiness. This is a
labor of love. I revel in the subject of God’s holiness, and I love sharing
with others about it, partly because it is so little understood or cherished in
our world today. God’s holiness has become lost knowledge.
The ministry of this blog has grown to 91 readers
who have signed up to receive my weekly email, which is free. If you have not
signed up, I invite you to join and belong if you enjoy reading my writing, if
you think others could benefit from it, if you want to foster the knowledge of
God in as many others as possible, if you want to support this writing ministry
and message. One benefit of your signing up, for example, is that it may please
God to publish the content of this blog not only online but in the traditional
world of book publishing, and book publishers are much more willing to publish
a writer who has a “built-in” readership (measured by the number of email
subscribers). You can sign up in the
upper-right column of my site, craigbrianlarson.com. Thanks, and welcome to the
Knowing God village!
Favorite new website
and mobile app: I have known about the free BlueLetterBible.org site for
years, but recently I started using it as my main Bible-study resource. Surprisingly,
I now prefer it in most ways over my PC’s $350 Bible-study application.
The most interesting mobile app I’ve recently come across is
“Read Scripture.” I haven’t used it a lot yet, but what I’ve read has impressed
me.
Questions: How can I make this site more valuable to you? How can we have more community and interaction among readers? What are your questions about God and his ways? Please send me an email with your feedback:
Prayer request: I
am seeking a publisher for a manuscript I’ve written on the subject of divine
testing.
Knowing God: What
do you most want to know more about? What are you most curious about? Over
time, that is what you will gain understanding in. Curiosity leads to
knowledge, for it leads to motivated reading, to conversation and connection
over our shared interest, to love of what we study, to the ability to see what
others overlook, to further meditation.
God wants us to be curious about him. He wants us to think
about him, to meditate on him, to talk with others about him, to ask questions
and sing songs and report what we have learned about him. He wants us to have a
sense of wonder about him similar to the wonder that scientists and explorers
have in their field of study. Not so that we can control or master God, but so
that we can know and praise him and relate to him as closely and deeply as
possible.
God is deeper and more profound than the greatest questions
and theories in mathematics or physics, for he created mathematics and the
material world and understands every aspect of it completely.
God is more beautiful and pleasing than a collection of the
world’s most beautiful music. He created music. He created Mozart, or whoever
writes the music you regard as most wonderful. God could write and play a
million songs more beautiful and delightful than any you have ever heard, and
the next day write a million more, and the next day a million more. Just for
starters. But all these beautiful songs are simply an expression of his own
beauty, the music of his own heart and mind, of who he is.
God is more loving than the kindest, most sacrificial person
you know. He doesn’t just do love; he is love. Love is his nature, his being,
his constitution, for love gives. God upholds all things and gives existence to
all things as a continuous expression of his will. He is love, for all things
are from him, through him, and to him. He gives and gives and gives as who and
what he is.
Therefore, for good reason the Lord says, “Let not the wise
man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the
rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he
understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love,
justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,
declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23–24 ESV).
For good reason he commands, “You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with
all your strength” (Mark 12:30). He knows this brings the good life, the very
best life, the ultimate and most satisfying life.
There you have it, my reason for being, my reason for writing,
and the purpose of this blog. May you grow in the knowledge of God today. And
thereby, may you have the good life.
