How God Has Prepared Me For Seminary

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Anthony Russo

[I first wrote this over before Labor Day Weekend last year.  I am cycling through some older posts to give them a second life for folks who may not have seen them the first time.  Enjoy! -AR]

There is a lot more I can write about this title than I will get to, so I’ll just tell you that up-front. But what I mean is that this week I have been impressed by how attributes of myself have come through that are either directly attributable to intrinsic traits (like I.Q. or temperament) or learned skills. I am still getting a ton of information at school but this week I’ve thought about how I’m handling it so far.

I’m thankful for my 20-year career in corporate America and that God kept me from finishing college until just a few years ago. There are so many skills I learned during those years that I am rapidly putting into practice and/or rediscovering them to also incorporate. All those corporate leadership training meetings that taught things like time-management, organization, active listening, reading comprehension, etc. are coming in very handily. Truly, “Thank You, Lord”!

But all of those skills are only as good as the vessel they are stored in. I’m very thankful for how the Lord prepared me, even from before I was born, for this time. I have a quirky little knack for noticing patterns. I unconsciously look at things nobody else really cares about in a room–wallpaper, carpet, etc.–and start seeing what patterns appear. (Hey, I *told* you it was a quirky trait.) Anyway, that has helped me in Greek when I need to memorize charts of word endings that have little rhyme or reason. There are other examples, I’m sure, but the Lord made YOU just as uniquely special in your own special ways, so you get what saying!

I guess the point of this post is just to say that God is so good.

Hopefully you already knew that, though.

Have a fun Labor Day Weekend!

-Anth

Posted in Learning & Growing, Seminary | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“I Can Do What I Want and Still Be a Christian.” Oh, really?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Anthony Russo

Commenting on John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” my favorite Bible commenter and pastor, Matthew Henry, has this to say:

Does this mean then that a person may be saved and then live the way he pleases? Can he be saved and then carry on in the sinful pleasures of this world? No, he no longer desires to do these things. He wants to follow the Shepherd. We do not live the Christian life in order to become a Christian or in order to retain our salvation. We live a Christian life because we are Christians. We desire to live a holy life, not out of fear of losing our salvation, but out of gratitude to the One who died for us. The doctrine of eternal security does not encourage careless living, but rather is a strong motive for holy living.

When it comes to your soul’s true status before God, do not be fooled by what your friends, or family, or even maybe your pastor says.  If they claim to be Christians, but their lives don’t look like they’ve been changed by God, don’t follow their examples. And especially don’t be fooled by your own heart!  (Remember, it is deceitfully wicked [Jer. 17:9] and not to be trusted.) What Matthew Henry is saying here is the truth.  He loved people enough to tell it and tell it plainly. And now, all I can do is borrow his words and pass them along in the same spirit of earnestness and love.

If you wrestle in this area, I beg you to listen what pastor Henry is saying. If you do not have a radically different desire to live a radically different life than you have in the past, then your life bears no evidence of a genuine conversion experience, a genuine spiritual rebirth.  If this describes your life right now, don’t hang suspended between heaven and hell here on earth thinking you are probably OK.  The truth is, you almost certainly aren’t.  Please get alone with God and your Bible and make sure you are saved!

Posted in Challenge, Devotions, Learning & Growing, Quotations, Scripture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One of My First-Ever Devotionals: “How Would You Introduce Yourself?”

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Anthony Russo

I wrote this several years ago.  It isn’t the greatest, but I’ve always liked it.  I thought I’d lost but found it in some distant, neglected corner of the internet a couple years back.

If you had to introduce yourself—just on paper—to someone who doesn’t know you, how would you start? Oh, and you can’t give your name, or tell what you look like or how old you are, or what gender you are, or where you live, or….

In fact, let’s say the only introduction you have is to tell the reader about an accomplishment of yours—and not even one of your best ones. Lastly, try doing all of this using about 10 words!

Here, I’ll even help you:
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ .

How’d you do? Pretty tough assignment, huh? What’s amazing is that God introduces Himself to you and me in exactly that way. “Genesis” means “beginning”. Look at Genesis 1:1, the very beginning of the Bible (no, the Table of Contents doesn’t count and God didn’t write the Preface either!)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Let’s look at this more closely.

“In the beginning God” God existed even before the beginning. God is real and has always existed. Just as you wouldn’t attempt to prove your existence to someone, neither does He.

What does the word “God” mean? The book of Genesis was written in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew word for “God” here signifies “supremacy” and “strength”. In four words we understand God to be ageless and ultimate strength; and not a god, but the Supreme Being. Hold on, He didn’t stop there.

“…created the heavens and the earth.” God is creative, detailed, structured, completely comfortable working in grand scale with nebula and galaxies and the invisible scale with molecular particles, and the elements–hydrogen, nitrogen, einsteinium and all the rest I never memorized in high school but was supposed to.

God tells us quite a bit about Himself in just 10 words. The more one reads the Bible, the more one learns about Him. In just the very first sentence we learn He is ageless, supreme, logical, orderly, creative and caring enough to make this world not just environmentally hospitable to human habitation, but downright beautiful, and all for us to enjoy.

Whether you’re a Christian reading the Bible for inspiration or a skeptic looking for holes, ask God to show Himself to you as you read it. You’ll undoubtedly discover that the first book of the Bible, Genesis, really is only the beginning!

Posted in Blogging/Writing, Devotions, Scripture | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Rainy Day Planning – Wise or Disobedient?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Anthony Russo

In his famous and wonderful devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers warns “Do Not Calculate Without God”. So often we make our plans and neglect to honestly factor God and His will first and foremost in them.

By contrast Chambers lists three points in his devotional for July 5th (I was flipping through and came across it). First, the obvious, “Don’t calculate without God.” Second, “Don’t calculate with evil in view”; we know there is evil in the world, but we ought to live and plan in ways that don’t exhibit a guardedness because the world is evil. Third, “Don’t calculate with the rainy day in view.” It is this last one that I want to quote verbatim so you see his words, not mine:

You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ. Jesus said–”Let not your heart be troubled.” God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command–”Let not…” Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to do it, until you get into the habit of putting God first, and calculating with Him in view.

What do you make of that? Is he talking about long-term or short-term or well, every-term? Does it exhibit disobedience and/or distrust by saving for a rainy day?

Jesus used parables of wise and unwise investors. Charles Spurgeon, in the 1800s, took some flack after he concluded from the Scriptures that to buy into that new financial vehicle of the time, life insurance, was actually not a sin but an acceptable form of providing for one’s family. Randy Alcorn and other believers who write about financial stewardship (and the late Larry Burkett before them all) also speak of the importance of building up a little savings whenever possible.

If anyone has knowledge of Chambers–his life or other writings–and would like to leave a comment, I’d be very interested to hear a fuller treatment of his thoughts on this, although to write “You cannot lay up for a rainy day if you are trusting Jesus Christ” sure seems thought-provokingly plain.

Posted in Learning & Growing, Potpourri, Quotations | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

*New Sermon Added* “What is the Cost of Your Heart’s Desire?”

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Anthony Russo

I am once again grateful for the opportunity to preach the gospel. Over the weekend I preached at Kosmosdale Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. The people were gracious and loving. I have no doubt Amy and I were more blessed by them than we were a blessing to them.

2 Chronicles 11:13-17, “What is the Cost of Your Heart’s Desire?”, 15 Jan 2012 (Kosmosdale Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky).

And remember, you can find other sermons I’ve preached on the Sermons page.

Thanks and may God continue to bless the reading, preaching, and hearing of His Word!
-Anth

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment