A group of Christians known as the Northwest Spiritual Movement that helped to rekindle Bian’s passion for spreading the gospel. To encourage himself to keep going, he wrote a long poem in memory of unsung Christians who had been preaching before him. He never planned to write 100 lines, but he could not put down his pen.

When, in 1943, Japanese soldiers occupied a rural area of the province of Hebei, China, eighteen-year-old Bian Yunbo walked over six hundred miles south-east to Yang County, where a high school accepted refugee students. There, he first heard the gospel from a missionary from the China Inland Mission (CIM), Doris E. Onion.
Onion impressed Bian with her concern for his soul and her fervent prayers for him, particularly at a time when he entertained thoughts of jumping into the Han River. She didn’t know about this temptation, but was awakened in the middle of the night by a voice that sounded like Bian’s, and prayed for him.
“She was quite thin,” Bian wrote, “wore the clothes of a Chinese peasant woman, did not speak Chinese well, but like an elderly mother she had a face full of kindness. She didn’t say a lot, but she left you with the feeling that you just had to listen to her counsel. I was led to put my faith in the Lord through her.”[1]
 This conversion took place after he understood the pervasiveness of sin and the “pain and bitterness” it produced. He was baptized in the same river where he had contemplated death. “Thanks to God,” he wrote, “that stretch of river did not become my grave, but rather became the place symbolizing my death, burial, and resurrection in the Lord.”[2]
Keeping up his studies with limited resources was not easy, but Bian worked hard. In 1944, he was admitted into the largest university in China. Although he became a leader in the Christian Student Fellowship, his ultimate goal was to become a famous playwright. It took a bad case of pneumonia, at a time when no medications were available, to wake him up to his selfishness and pride.
A few months later, he decided to devote his life to spread the gospel. He returned to Yang County, where he discovered that Onion had left due to poor health. He then determined to continue her work, in spite of his worsening pneumonia. To his surprise, the hardships of his itinerant life didn’t impact his health. Instead, the pneumonia cleared up completely.
Following the advice of his church elders, in 1946 he went back to university to be better prepared to preach. He declined, however, an offer to study at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and another offer to co-author a research with a professor. His mind was, at that time, focused on the work in China.
But this local work was not without disappointments, particularly when he discovered that some Chinese were preaching for financial profit, and others liked to cause dissension. He tried to comfort himself by singing some hymns, “but some of the normally deeply moving verses became expressions of resentful, tear-filled complaint.”[3]
A Life-Changing Poem
It was a group of Christians known as the Northwest Spiritual Movement that helped to rekindle Bian’s passion for spreading the gospel. To encourage himself to keep going, he wrote a long poem in memory of unsung Christians who had been preaching before him. He never planned to write 100 lines, but he could not put down his pen.
“The deeds and images of many, many nameless preachers seemed to appear before my eyes, and I wept with them, shared their past defeats and victories, giving thanks together, calling out to one another to run the race set before us. It was as if hand in hand with them, heart melded to heart, in mute communication, they detailed one after another testimony and experience.

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Most things in the Christian life are not complex. We pray, we tell people that Jesus died for them, we read our Bibles, we fast, we attend church. But though those things are not complex, they are difficult. 

I have a Bible reading plan, four different Bible apps on my phone, the capability to listen to the Bible on audio, and around 7 paper Bibles. And I didn’t read my Bible the day before I started writing this post. Therefore, it would seem that the absence of the Bible in my life came not from a lack of resources, plans, or technology, but rather from a lack of discipline.
I think that this is important to point out, because often, when we moderns have a failure in our life, we tend to attribute it to not having the right tools. Now, tools are helpful, tools definitely can help you towards your goals, but tools without discipline are useless. We tend to think of things as complicated when they are really just hard. You are not gaining weight primarily because your watch doesn’t track your calories, you are gaining weight because you can’t stop eating what you know you should not be eating. Reading a finance blog may be helpful, but you don’t need to read one to realize that you can’t buy something for $120 when you have $100 in the bank.
I remember telling one of my friends what was necessary to be a good small group leader. It boiled down mainly to 1) pray for everyone in your group every day, and 2) call and check up on each one at regular intervals. All you need is a phone and your knees. But I struggled so much to do it simply because I wasn’t disciplined enough. And I think therein lies the secret to why we overcomplicate things so much.
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Next time you open your Bible, don’t only ask, “What would Jesus do?” and try to do that thing. Ask, “What does this passage tell me about how wonderful Jesus is?” We need to be worshippers, not only activists. 

What would Jesus do? It has turned up on bracelets now for decades, and many Christians find it a helpful thing to consider. After all, Jesus was without sin, and if we want to live a life that pleases God, surely Jesus is a useful example! And yes, of course we see aspects of Jesus’ life on earth that we should follow. The way Jesus interacts with people, the humility he showed, the confidence in prayer; all of these are things we would benefit from reflecting on.
Yet, if this is the main way we think about Jesus, it is clearly not enough.
Let me explain. I heard a sermon recently where the preacher was explaining Mark 10:46-52. That’s the passage where Jesus healed the blind man outside Jericho. After getting Jesus’ attention, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” After saying that he wanted to see, Jesus healed him, and the man went on to follow Jesus.
The main application the preacher drew from this was that we should notice those people whom others might not, the disabled, the quiet, the ones with problems. And we should ask them what we can do for them. In doing this, we are being like Jesus. That is a valid application of Mark 10, sure. We should do this. The world would doubtless be a better place if we were more observant of the downtrodden and moved to help them.
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Virtual church as a permanent option, hurts Christian discipleship. It trains Christians to think of their faith as autonomous. It teaches them they can follow Jesus as a member of the “family of God,” in some abstract sense, without teaching them what it means to be a part of a family and to make sacrifices for a family.

The COVID-19 pandemic was challenging for churches around the world precisely because, in so many places, the saints had difficulty gathering and learning to cherish the Word of God together. After a few months of not gathering during the early days of COVID-19, I felt as if I were losing track of my church. Friends would ask, “How is your church doing?” I had a hard time answering. I was making regular phone calls and sending text messages to individual members, but I couldn’t get my mind around the whole body. The church felt like rainwater on a parking lot after a storm—spread thin, with puddles here and there.
The elders worried most about spiritually weak members who were struggling in their faith or facing particular temptations. We worried about those who already seemed to be drifting spiritually, those with one foot out the door months before the pandemic forced them out altogether.
Yet not gathering affected everyone—the spiritually mature and immature alike. Each one of us needs to see and to hear our fellow saints regularly. Otherwise, it’s only colleagues at work, friends at school, or TV characters whose patterns we observe.
What Are We Missing?
Once the pandemic began, many churches livestreamed their services, and many voices extolled the enduring value of “virtual church.” Pastors who had previously decried the idea now opened up “virtual campuses” and staffed them with full-time pastors, promising that the campuses would continue indefinitely. This was an exciting development in the history of fulfilling the Great Commission, some said.
And yet we wonder: What goes missing when your “church” experience is nothing more than a weekly livestream? For starters, you think less about your fellow members. They don’t come to mind. You don’t bump into them and have the quick conversations that lead to longer conversations over dinner. Beyond that, you remove yourself from the path of encouragement, accountability, and love.
Praise God that we can download biblical truths. But let’s praise God that the Christian life is more than just an information transfer. When church is only online, we can’t feel, experience, and witness those truths becoming enfleshed in the family of God, which both fortifies our faith and creates cords of love between brothers and sisters. Virtual church is an oxymoron.
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It may just be that the circumstance in your life that has brought the most pain and produced the most tears will be the very stage upon which God’s power is most visibly made manifest.

It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.– John 9:3
As Christ-followers, we want to make our lives count for the gospel. We long to do something that would be so significant, so lasting, that God’s glory would be forever displayed in what we have done. If we could, however, we would also like to select how this takes place. After all, who wouldn’t rather bring glory to God by humbly handling great success as opposed to glorifying the Lord by faithfully enduring suffering?
In John 9, we are introduced to a man who has been blind since birth. The suspicion of the disciples kept with the traditional assumptions of the day. Surely, they reasoned, this man is in this condition because of his sin or the sin of his parents. While the rationale sounds harsh to our modern ears, it merely echoed the thoughts of that time and culture.
In the first century, the assumption of the disciples was not that unusual, but the answer Jesus gives was quite profound. Jesus clarifies that the man’s physical limitations are neither a direct punishment for specific sin the man committed nor retribution for his parents’ rebellion. There was something altogether different happening. Jesus enlightens his followers by explaining that the condition of the man is such that “the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).
The physical condition of this man had purpose and design. I do not doubt that if offered a choice, he would have much preferred to proclaim the works of God on the mountaintop of blessing rather than in the valley of suffering. Just like us, the man did not choose this particular disadvantage in his life. What he did, however, was decide to obey the Lord (verse 7).
Are you suffering? Do you have a physical limitation or perhaps some other difficult issue with which you must contend?
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Written by M. R. Conrad |
Saturday, August 28, 2021
Diligence and efficiency are admirable qualities extolled in the Proverbs. Redeeming the time is a command in Scripture (Ephesians 5:16). Being busy serving God and others is a worthy use of the time He has given us. However, we often slide into unbalanced excess which can send us into periods of spiritual dryness.

You feel like you’ve done your duty, but something is missing. The intimacy you once experienced with God has fled. You feel spiritually dry. What’s wrong with your spiritual life? “Why are these people so slow?” I fumed as I weaved my way between shoppers at Walmart. I had just returned to the U.S. from urban Asia where the throttle of the pace of life is always wide open. Go! Go! Go! My to-do list burned a hole in my pocket. There was no time to waste. No time to sit still. No time to be quiet.
Have you been there? Your internal clock is ticking as you read the Word of God. All the responsibilities of the day intrude on your thoughts. When God’s allotted time is done, you check the devotions box and move to the next item on the checklist. You feel like you’ve done your duty, but something is missing. The intimacy you once experienced with God has fled. You feel spiritually dry. What’s wrong with your spiritual life?
Noise, Hurry, & Crowds
Long before Jim Elliot left the Pacific Northwest to serve as a missionary in Ecuador, he confronted spiritual dryness in his walk with God.[1] He diagnosed his problem as a lack of quietness in his life.
In a letter to his mother from his college dormitory, twenty-one-year-old, Elliot quoted Isaiah 30:15: “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” He went on: “I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. If he can keep us hearing radios, gossip, conversation, or even sermons, he is happy. But he will not allow quietness. . . . I am finding your counsel to get enough sleep most practical, Mother. Not only to be fit for the day and able to relax, but for spiritual awareness and reception one must simply be rested if he is to be blessed. Let us resist the devil in this by avoiding noise as much as we can, purposefully seeking to spend time alone, facing ourselves in the Word. . . . Satan is aware of where we find our strength.”[2]
Cultivating Quietness
We must quiet ourselves before God and His Word so that we can hear His voice and follow His leading. Amid the conflict and turbulence of life, we must “be still and know” that God is God (Psalm 46:10). We must lay aside the urgent, yet distracting, matters of the day so we can commune with Him.
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The Church has been richly blessed by the formulation and the preservation of the Apostles Creed. Perhaps it makes sense to recite it daily during family devotions, or when you get up in the morning. Keeping this creed in our hearts and at the forefront of our minds may assist in equipping us for remembering that every day serves as an opportunity for serving the Lord!

The Apostles’ Creed, as we possess it today, was not the first formally adopted or crafted creed. That honor belongs to the Nicene Creed. However, versions or parts of the Apostles’ Creed, serving as a baptismal confession, can be traced back to Irenaeus of Lyons (180), Tertullian of Carthage (200), Cyprian of Carthage (250), and Rufinus of Aquilega (390) among others. The creed of Marcellus of Aneyra from 340 reads:
I believe in God the Father Almighty.And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;Who was born of the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary;Was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried;The third day he rose from the dead;He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;From thence he shall come to judge the quick [living] and the dead.And in the Holy Ghost;The Holy Church;The forgiveness of sins;The resurrection of the body.
Despite the various articulations of the rule or standard of faith, there was a lot of unity on the core tenets of Christianity. Eventually, these various forms were merged into the Apostles’ Creed.
However, it took longer still for it to be universally adopted. In his History of the Christian Church (Vol. 1), Philip Schaff suggests that:
“if we regard, then, the present text of the Apostles’ Creed as a complete whole, we can hardly trace it beyond the sixth, and certainly not beyond the close of the fifth century, and its triumph over all the other forms in the Latin Church was not completed till the eighth century, or about the time when the bishops of Rome strenuously endeavored to conform the liturgies of the Western church to the Roman order.”
The Apostles’ Creed has as its foundation Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and the baptismal instruction in Matthew 28:19: “… baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” While the Apostles’ Creed is sometimes divided into “twelve articles of the Christian faith” it would be fair to suggest that there are three main divisions:

God the Father and our creation
God the Son and our redemption
God the Holy Spirit and our sanctification (cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 8).

A Hedge Against 3 Heresies
The Apostles’ Creed was articulated, not only as a baptismal confession, but also as a defense of orthodox Christianity. In the early church, Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism were threats to the unity and purity of the church.

Gnosticism

In his book, A History of Christianity (2 Volumes), historian Ken Latourette explains that:
“[Gnosticism] regarded pure spirit as good, but thought of that spirit as having become imprisoned in corrupt matter. Salvation was the freeing of spirit from matter.”
They also had a view of God that is quite convoluted. Latourette notes that, in general, Gnostics “held that there exists a first Principle, the all-Father, unknowable, who is love and who alone can generate other beings” and since love demands companionship, the all-Father brought forth other beings into existence who collaborated to create this world. “The present world was ascribed to a subordinate being, the Demiurge, who was identified with the God of the Old Testament.”
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Some schools, though, are already promoting sexual or gender issues—issues that are controversial based on parental and religious beliefs. Likewise, many race-oriented issues are especially controversial. Those influenced by Critical Race Theory focus heavily on Black and White populations even though the United States may be the most racially diverse of all nations.

Around the country, parents are vocally challenging curricula related to race issues in the K-12 schools of their children and on their school boards. Not a few of these curricula contain elements taken from Critical Race Theory, which separates at least two races into two categories: “oppressed” and “oppressors.”
My local newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ran an op-ed article, “Why St. Louis-area classrooms need more open discussions about race.” The authors are two St. Louis-based women: Sienna Ruiz, a research coordinator at the Washington University School of Medicine, and Akilah Collins-Anderson, working on her doctoral degree in public health sciences at Washington University. The article ended with this sentence: “Schools should provide critical thinking tools about race because it shapes everyone’s lives, whether parents accept it or not”—an exceptionally bold statement. The obvious question it raises is, “Are the ‘critical thinking tools’ that parents must accept unbiased and fair?”
First, it needs to be firmly stated that the public schools’ main purpose is to teach basic subjects as thoroughly as possible to prepare students for their futures. Traditionally, this has meant giving them the knowledge and skills to serve them well for either a vocation or higher education’s demands as well as to enhance citizenship.
This type of education takes time and demands sufficient priority. Students should graduate with basic English and math skills, and knowledge of science and both national and world histories. No one should need remedial reading classes in college if K-12 schools accomplish their purpose. Adding issue-centered courses should not diminish time spent on core subjects.
Some schools, though, are already promoting sexual or gender issues—issues that are controversial based on parental and religious beliefs. Likewise, many race-oriented issues are especially controversial. Those influenced by Critical Race Theory focus heavily on Black and White populations even though the United States may be the most racially diverse of all nations.
This exaggerated focus dismisses the fact that students are multi-racial, not simply Black or White. It’s like forcing one to watch black and white movies when technicolor is not only available, but it also represents the most enjoyable of movies. It’s passé and terribly narrow-minded to remain stuck on one binary issue of race when we are so beyond that issue. It’s unfair to students who are Asian, Hispanic, African, Middle Eastern, or Native American—and all the many subsets of those broad classifications.
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All of us are in great need of seeing our salvation from God’s perspective. The current trend in the 21st Century in some parts of the visible Church is for the focus to be on being a Christian for temporal gain. However, those who see the truth of their sin and totally lost condition until God saved them will not consider this life to be the focal point of it.

41 Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” 42 They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:41-44 (NASB)
One of the aspects of our Christian faith that we lose sight of sometimes, and it gets us in trouble when we do, is how vital it is that we remain totally amazed that we ever got saved at all. We make a huge error when we forget this because that path leads to self-righteousness, self-absorption, and an ungrateful heart towards God. Even though we may not be fully aware that we are in that place of self-focus, we cannot be Spirit-led when we are full of self.
God works in people’s hearts by sovereign grace, taking away their imperviousness to his word, taking away their inability to respond to that word, and changing the disposition of their hearts so that instead of saying “Nonsense” when they hear the word of Christ, they say, “That’s just what I need,” And they come.Are you a Christian? A believer? Then you came to Christ because you found yourself willing, longing, desirous, wanting to, as well as, perhaps, not wanting to but knowing you must. How was that? It was because God worked in your heart to give you this desire. He changed you. It was his irresistible grace that drew you to the Savior’s feet. Praise him for it! It was one expression of his love to you. – From: To All Who Will Come pp 184-185 by J.I. Packer
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There is only one cure for a lack of fruit in our Christian lives. It is to go back to Christ and enjoy (yes, enjoy) our union with Him. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith insists that Christians may be “certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (18:1) and goes on to assert that this “infallible assurance of faith” is “founded upon” three considerations:

“the divine truth of the promises of salvation”
“the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made”
“the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God” (18:2).

The possibility of “certain” and “infallible” assurance is set against the backdrop of medieval and post-Reformation Roman Catholic views that paralyzed the church with an “assurance” that was at best “conjectural” (wishful thinking), based as it was on rigorous participation in a sacramental treadmill. Few epitomized the contrast more starkly than Cardinal Bellarmine (1542–1621), the personal theologian to Pope Clement VIII and ablest leader of the Counter-Reformation, who called the Protestant doctrine of assurance “the greatest of all heresies.” What, after all, could be more offensive to a works-based and priest-imparted system of salvation than the possibility that assurance could be attained without either? If Christians can attain an assurance of eternal life apart from participation in the church’s rituals, what possible outcome could there be other than rampant antinomianism (the belief that God’s commandments are optional)?
But what exactly did the Westminster divines mean when they implied that our assurance is “founded upon” inward evidence? Behind this statement lies a practical syllogism:
(major premise) True believers demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit.(minor premise) The fruit of the Spirit is present in me.(conclusion) I am a true believer.
It should be obvious that the subjectivity of this argument is fraught with difficulty. While the certainty of salvation is grounded upon the (objective) work of Christ, the certainty of assurance is grounded upon the (objective) promises God gives us and the (subjective) discovery of those promises at work in us. And it is this latter consideration that gives rise to one or two problems.
Theologians have made a distinction between the direct and reflexive acts of faith. It is one thing to believe that Christ can save me (direct act of faith). It is another thing to believe that I have believed (reflexive act of faith). Apart from the first consideration (that Christ is both willing and able to save) there can be no assurance of faith. Indeed, it is pointless to move forward with the discussion about assurance apart from a conviction of the truthfulness of this statement: “Christ is able to save those who believe.”
Assuming, then, that there is no doubt as to the ability and willingness of Christ to save those who believe, how may I be assured that I have this belief? The answer of the New Testament at this point is clear: there is an “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). True faith manifests itself in outward, tangible ways. In other words, the New Testament draws a connection between faithfulness and the enjoyment of assurance. True believers demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, and this fruit is observable and measurable.
Four Ways of Knowing
The Apostle John addresses this very issue in his first epistle: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). Apart from belief “in the name of the Son of God,” there is no point in furthering the discussion about assurance. The question at hand is, “How can I know if my belief is genuine?” And John’s answer emphasizes four moral characteristics of the Christian life.
First, there is obedience to the commandments of God. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:2–3). True faith is not and can never be antinomian.
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