Official BLUE Trailer

 

Go here to order or learn more.

 

Politics and Bread: Spiritual Matters, Indeed

"Our goal is not to fill you with enough spiritual hot air to float you a foot above the earth. Our goal is to teach you to pray in such a way that material matters like politics and bread will be for you spiritual matters" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 50).

Divine Means: Christian Practices

"But the practices of Christianity are not to be despised because they are not saviors. Gold is not food, you cannot eat it, but you would not say it is useless and throw it away. Your soul's eternal well-being most certainly does not depend on the practices of Christianity, but it is certain that without them, as a general rule, your soul will not do well. . . . No one but a fool would think of building a house without ladders and scaffolding, and just so, no wise man will despise means" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 75-76).

Life-Prayer: Prayer-Life

"We live as we pray" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 49).

Special Rules for Young Men by J. C. Ryle

Special Rules for Young Men

• For one thing, resolve at once, by God's help, to break off every known sin, however small.
• Resolve, by God's help, to shun everything which may prove an occasion of sin.
• Resolve never to forget the eye of God.
• Be diligent in the practice of your Christianity.
• Resolve that wherever you are, you will pray.

*From J. C. Ryle's Thoughts for Young Men (pp. 65-84).

Prayer-Bomb

"The Lord's Prayer is like a bomb ticking in church, waiting to explode and demolish our temples to false gods" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 47).

Friendships

"There is no telling the harm that is done by associating with godless companions and friends. . . . You must remember, we are all creatures of imitation: precept may teach us, but it is example that draws us" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 60).

Extol - Sting of Death

Extol is my favorite metal band. This song is their newest release, an extra track from the Extol Deluxe Edition available now on iTunes. Enjoy!

Sting of Death Lyrics

Anxiety, fear

A life in chains

A clammy hand that grips the heart

Squeezing the joy out of everyday life

The perishable will clothe itself with the imperishable

The mortal clothed with immortality

O`death where is your victory?

O`death where is your sting?

Inadequacy, shame

A notion of being small, nobody, nothing

A pain from deep within

Knowing I`m not the one I should have been

Loneliness, emptiness

Withdrawing into myself

Confused about truth

Lost in the egocentric sphere of my pathetic life

O`death where is your victory?

O`death where is your sting?

The Shape of Prayer . . . The Shape of Liturgy

"Note that we began, not with moral problems and ethical dilemmas; we began with prayer. . . . We are a people whose moral lives are shaped liturgically. Our ethics is a by-product of our worship" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 47).

Read with Prayer

"Read [the Bible] with the prayer that the Holy Spirit's grace will help you understand it" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 57).

Read Your Bible

"The Bible is God's merciful provision for sinful man's soul, the map by which he must steer his course if he would attain eternal life. . . . Young men, I charge you to make a habit of reading the Bible, and not to let the habit be broken" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 56).

Learn How To Move Like A Christian

"We have no idea of how to live until we first know who God is. So when we say that God's name is holy, that tells us how we ought to live. Knowing the Creator tells us where the creation is meant to move" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 46).

Difficulties and Obstacles and Fears - Overcome by Believing in Promises of God

"Difficulties which seem like mountains shall melt away like snow in spring. Obstacles which seemed like giants in the distance, will dwindle into nothing when you actually face them. The lion that blocks the way that you are traveling and causes you great fear, will prove to be chained and unable to harm you. If men believed the promises more, they would never be afraid of their assigned duties [underline added, CCS]" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 55).

Tumultuous Way of Ahab

Ahab has just gone postal on his quadrant and declared a "curse" against "Science." The following is Starbuck's musing, addressed to Stubb, regarding Ahab's tumultuous way: "I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!" (Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 493)

Worship

"Jesus' famous statement in John 4:23 that the Father seeks worshippers is unparalleled, for nowhere in the entire corpus of Holy Scripture do we read of God's seeking anything else from a child of God. God desires worship above all else. . . . A look at the massive emphasis in the Old Testament reveals God's mind on worship's priority. Exodus devotes twenty-five chapters to the construction of the Tabernacle, the locus of divine worship. Leviticus amounts to a twenty-seven chapter liturgical manual. And the Psalms are a spectacular 150-chapter worship hymnal. Divine worship has always been the occupation and sustenance, the priority, of the believing soul" (R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, 111).

"God is no hard master."

"God is no hard master. He will not, like Pharaoh, require you to make bricks without straw. He will make sure that the path He requires us to walk is never an impossible road. He never gave commands to man which He would not give man the power to perform" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 54).

Foolish World

"The world is only too ready to wink at youthful sins. The world appears to think it is a matter of course that young men must "sow their wild oats." The world seems to take it for granted that young people must be irreligious, and that it is not possible for them to follow Christ. Young men, I ask you this simple question--Where will you find anything of this in the Word of God? Where is the chapter or verse in the Bible which will support this talking and reasoning of the world? (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 52-53).

"The Glorious, Golden, Glad Sun"

"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp--all others but liars! (Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 420).

Training

"Think for a moment why you were born into the world. . . . You were placed here to train for eternity" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 50-51).

"Go to Christ."

"Young men, I set before you Jesus Christ this day, as the treasury of your souls; and I invite you to begin by going to Him. Let this be your first step -- go to Christ" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 48).