William Petruzzo

I noted something interesting while reading in Colossians along with a commentary by R.C. Lucas.

“(3) At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison (4) that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. (5) Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. (6) Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

Paul here gives departing remarks to the church at Colossae. Our first two verses Paul makes requests of the Colossians that they would pray for him and his fellow workers opportunities to ‘declare’ the Gospel; that when they do, they will do so properly. Then, in the next two verses Paul moves on to discussing the responsibility of the Colossians; wisdom towards outsiders, using time wisely, gracious and salty speech, so that they will know how they are supposed to answer each person.

It appears that Paul would view his responsibility as aggressive while viewing the Colossian’s responsibility as passive. Paul, an apostle and preacher, is to ‘declare’ while the Colossian’s are to ‘answer.’ It seems, according to this here, a clear delineation between responsibility of the one called to preach and those not called to preach.

This is up for debate, however, I fear that the church has made an error in teaching that all believers are to ‘preach’ the Gospel. I think that I disagree with this. All believers are called to live godly lives of pure and utter devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ—in absolutely whatever that means; for some it will certainly be to preach, but for others I can easily see that it would be far more passive. Yet the holy lives of true Christians will be pervasive on the consciences of nonbelievers and it surely inspire questions for which we must always be prepared with an answer (1 Peter 3:15).

If the church has been exhorting all believers to ‘preach’ the Gospel it is likely she has told countless people to do what they are not called to do, leaving many in discouragement. In addition to that it’s likely that many potential relationships that could lead to holy conviction are stifled and cut short by a believer trying to operate outside of their gifting and calling.

Jesus, lead us humbly to truth. Give us grace to walk carefully and faithfully after you. Jesus, I pray that you would help us to understand, believe and apply your word to our lives, bearing good fruit for the glory of your name.

What hold my thoughts captive? I think the most basic and natural answer is myself. In a natural sense, I am the center of my universe. The things that happen are in relation to me and where they are not in relation to me, I am usually hard pressed to lend my mind to such matters. This is not the way it should be.

I have heard before in discourse fellows saying things like, “it is not like we always need to be thinking about God.” To this, I agree; kind of. I agree there are times that it will be necessary for us to think of ‘other’ things; but I suggest that they shouldn’t be ‘other’ things at all. When every thought has been taken captive (2 Cor. 10:5) and put into obedience to Christ, is there truly any matter, whether ‘directly’ relating to God or not, that is not placed under the Lordship of Christ? For example, if every thought has truly been taken captive and yet someone gives thought and attention to football, that thought then exists under the Lordship of Christ and that thought is glorifying God (Romans 14:6). However, let’s say that our thoughts are not taken captive and we give our thoughts to football? We have engaged in idolatry. What happens if we give our thoughts to our work or business? We have engaged in idolatry. What happens if we give our thoughts, even thoughts, to God? We have engaged in idolatry, because the thoughts are still held captive by self and therefore even the thoughts we have about God are wicked (Isaiah 64:6).

Stop! William, do not ease your conscience with this, saying “You see, think about whatever you will, because in God’s eyes, it is righteous.” It is much to easy to simply go on in a pattern of idolatry and wickedness of thought, under the guise that you have been permitted to do so. Have you been permitted to do so; can you be sure of this? Have your thoughts been taken captive to the obedience of Christ? Or do you maintain captivity of your thoughts and sometimes lend them sinfully to Christ? I urge that we wrestle with these ideas. Question if what we are thinking about is good or is it wicked.

And what happens if these thoughts are not taken captive and put into obedience to Christ? Well, I can almost assure you that they will not just stay in our heads forever. They’ll almost certainly seep out through out hands into whatever we touch and create a great deal of grief; whether it be unjust business dealings, hurtful lies to a spouse or loved one, or a violent rape. This is a dangerous line to walk; let’s take our thoughts captive to Christ!

Jesus, I pray for mounting humility in my thoughts. I confess the pride that lurks in the dark of my mind. Jesus, I pray that you would shine light on these dark places and burn them up! Jesus, I pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would create in me and in your church, holiness through and through, to your glory!

Why do we celebrate birthdays? It really is a curious thing. I suppose on one hand it’s something like saying, “congratulations, you survived another year.” which in the context of history (and even in our modern day, in some countries) might actually make some sense; what with the high mortality rate. But today, in this country it really makes very little sense. Sometimes it seems more logical to hold a congratulatory celebration for the parents, or if we’re discussing an adult, perhaps a celebration for the spouse. Why does so much emphasis and expectation end up with the birthday boy or girl?

When in reference to my own birthday, I hope to adopt a fresh attitude. I would like to shy away from shallow congratulations to myself, or from unwarranted expectations based on a cultural holiday that revolves around self. A birthday, as with any day, must be lived for Jesus; there are no exceptions to this rule. So I hope and pray for an attitude of thanksgiving. It was God who wove me together in my mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13), God is the sustainer of my soul (Ps. 54:4), I cannot even make one hair on my head white or black (Matthew 5:36) and so I have no room to boast because it is God who has preserved my way (Proverbs 2:8).

I hope that as the church in her members grows in years and stature, we would rejoice on those landmark days; not in man, but in Christ. For in the believer’s birthday it is God who deserves the congratulations and the glory, in which there is joy and satisfaction for us.

Jesus, I pray for a growing attitude of humility in me and in your church. Jesus, I pray you would root out of us all of the excuses and exceptions we make from giving you all of the glory and all of the praise. Jesus, sanctify us by the Holy Spirit and get your glory.

Continuing in Thomas Watson’s The Great Gain of Godliness, I’m pretty naturally thinking about holiness; the nature of our holiness, the need for our holiness, the benefits of our holiness, and the dangers of neglecting holiness. Today, Watson speaks about our holiness in terms of the fear of God. This is something we in the church almost never talk about. If we do talk about it, it’s not for very long and I’m willing to bet that not very many connect well with it. I admit that reading this chapter, I didn’t really connect very well with it. Even as the chapter draws to a close, I still didn’t fully have my fingers around what it means to fear the Lord. Maybe it’s a more profound topic than I give credit for. I suppose a profound God would call for a profound reaction.

Maybe we don’t talk about it because we don’t understand it; maybe we don’t talk about it because it’s uncomfortable to think of God in a way that isn’t fuzzy and at our beckon call. Regardless of why, the point remains that fear of the Lord is of very high importance. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (proverbs 9:10), God’s mercy is for those who fear him (Luke 1:50), although not necessarily directly connected in this instance, fear of God is placed in close proximity to strength and encouragement from the Holy Spirit, as well as growth in numbers (Acts 9:31). If a sinner does not fear God’s judgments, how can he repent and be saved?  If a man does not believe that he can be judged by God, how can he be expected to continue to cling to the cross? He risks sinking in wonton behavior, clinging only to his profession, which cannot save him.

So what does it mean to fear the Lord, I ask. I agree with Watson’s explanation saying, “God is so great that the Christian is afraid of displeasing him, and so good that he is afraid of losing him.” Then later he expounds further saying, “A child may have assurance of his father’s love, yet a fear of offending him.” We can see that this fear is not an unholy fear of condemnation, but an affectionate fear in light of the intensely massive nature of God and the completely undeserved kind disposition for us by God in Jesus Christ.

For us in the church today, where there is little difference between those inside the church and those outside the church, Watson’s words are shrill.

“The fear of God is a great cleanser… In the effect of it; it cleanses the heart and life. As a spring works out the mud, so it purges out the love of sin. The heart is the temple of God, and fear sweeps and cleanses this temple that it may not be defiled.”

If we wish to live lively and joyous lives in Christ, we must begin to take God in his word with the utmost seriousness. If we do this, we find that there are no circumstances in which sin is acceptable and under all circumstances we will find sin bitter to us and our lives with God. If we wish to see our sin put to death, we had better fear the Lord.

Jesus, I pray that you would set in me and your church a great humility, especially to see how undeserved your favor is. Lord I pray that you would inspire in us a holy fear of you. A fear as a child fears his earthly father, yet knows of his love. Jesus, I pray that by your holy spirit you would sanctify our hearts and lives; give us the strength to plant our feet firmly in you, to follow you, to trust you, to love like you, and most of all to glorify you, in all ways and at all times.

You know what I hate? The ads on MySpace. Often they’re really inappropriate, especially for some of the age groups that take residence on MySpace; but frankly they’re inappropriate for everyone. Occasionally, if you log on late at night, you’ll get the privilege of seeing ads for something like naughty.com or even sometimes gay.com. These are websites that are just a hair under the technical definition of pornography and so I guess they get away with it. Other times, you’ll more than likely be met with a slew of ads for match.com which have really very little to do with pornography, but are presented to appeal to a subtle sexual undertone. My life is filled with enough sexual undertones, I don’t need a looped feed of some ‘regular girl’ on her webcam to remind me of that. Then, if the sex ads aren’t enough there’s plenty of ads for movies and ring tones and emoticons and those interactive ads; gosh, and who isn’t sucked in by those? Seriously, I pretty much always try to out run the shark, beat up George Bush and slap the fat guys belly—I pretty much always regret it.

Recently, a friend of mine introduced me to a most useful tool. Adblock Plus is a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox which automatically blocks and collapses ads on pretty much all websites. It doesn’t mangle the display of the page and almost never, if ever, limits functionality (I have yet to find a website where Adblock inhibited my navigation). A small, unintrusive, Adblock icon appears in the Firefox toolbar which allows you to easily and quickly toggle Adblock’s functionality on or off so in the event that it has caused some problem with navigation.

In addition to preventing the website from rendering ads, it also offers the option to collapse parts of the website that would have displayed ads. For example, at the top of MySpace profiles, there is usually a long horizontal ad. With Adblock enabled, the ad not only is not shown, the space in which it would appear is gone entirely. Here’s an example:

That might not seem like the greatest achievement, but for me who has more than a thread of obsessive compulsive tendencies, I’d almost rather see the ad that purposeless space.

Adblock doesn’t only work on MySpace, it works all over the internet and it’s effective almost everywhere. I highly recommend that you install and use Adblock Plus. It pretty effectively removes the trash, helping us to keep the covenant we’ve made with our eyes.

Do I want to see my generation love the Lord and live godly lives? Then I would be wise to live a godly life. This is the topic of conversation in the beginning of Thomas Watson’s The Great Gain of Godliness. I find that although I have godly compassion for the church and a desire to see her reformed and changed, perhaps to an earlier beauty, I have quite an ungodly method for seeing it come about. Judgment and an unmerciful attitude are among my largest weapons. This is not how it should be.

The times in my life where I have lain at the bottom of the barrel, completely absorbed in sin and a kind of detachment from God, it is a great blessing when I’m allowed the company of a godly believer. It almost never fails to convict and encourage and inspire. Although it’s met usually on the front end with pride, the backend is experiencing a great working from the Holy Spirit wishing to pull me from my darkened state.

Thomas Watson writes:

“To be good in a profligate age does much to animate weak beginners; it strengthens feeble knees (Isa. 35:3) and shores up those temples of the Holy Spirit which are ready to fall. One man’s zeal is a burning torch for others to light at. How did the constancy of the martyrs inflame the love of many to the truth! Though only Christ’s blood saves, yet the blood of the martyrs may strengthen. St Paul’s prison chain made converts in Nero’s court, two of whom were afterwards martyrs, as history relates.”

I feel convinced in saying that if we wish to see a generation in this church seek hard after the Lord, we will seek hard after the Lord. Yes, although in the face of true Spirit inspired zeal, people’s artificial faiths in Christ will fail them, many will be strengthened to live as they should.

Jesus, I pray that you would strengthen our knees. Give me and your church the strength to stand holy according to you grace, even in the midst cultural and religious laxity. Jesus, I pray that we would focus most pertinently on our own holiness and walk with you. If it is your will, I pray that our zeal would create true zeal in others. Jesus, I pray that where you will, inspire men to be godly and zealous mouthpieces calling your church to passionate devotion to you, for your glory.

I enjoy the movies. I think I most enjoy the movies when I can walk into a movie theater and once the movie begins, I forget that I’m watching anything until the credits roll. I most enjoy movies when they can carry me off to some alternate reality for ninety-four minutes. That’s not the only time I’ll enjoy a movie, but it’s the only time that I really, really fall in love with a movie. Amongst movies, some of my favorites are suspense thrillers, or to a lesser extent, horror movies. But that’s likely on account of the feeling of suspense being unusual in my daily life, so if a movie can pull it off, it’s doesn’t have to go far to get me out of my current reality.

I have obvious gripes with movies that make play with demonic forces. I have issues with movies that point overwhelmingly to hell. But I think most of all, I have issues with movies that are unabashedly grotesque. Sometimes the promos even flaunt them that way. You’ve probably heard that ridiculous voice actor from the previews, “A grisly tail that will haunt you for weeks!” It’s not as much bothersome when the bawdiness is instigated by, or involved in some supernatural or otherworldly force (i.e., aliens, zombies, etc.). However, that’s not really the majority of these movies.

I recently read a review of the movie Untraceable. I have no intention of seeing this movie, especially after reading the review. The basic gist is that people gradually murder victims through carefully designed torture weapons simply by logging onto a website. Sounds great. Before this it was a whole host of other ultra realistic gore parades, including the Saw trilogy, The Hills Have Eyes, and Hostel, just to name a few; movies that recreate very real human suffering only for the sake of entertainment; any redeeming word to humanity was lost long ago in the gallons and gallons of (probably, although we can’t tell) artificial blood.

“In prison, they put iron tubes around his legs and tightened them with screws. Then they beat on the tubes with a hammer until the vibrations broke the bones in both legs. All this to make him confess to imaginary crimes against the government. He did not confess. Several Communist police officers then went to his home and one of them, a woman, held Vladimir’s baby in his hands and told Vladimir’s wife, ‘If you don’t sign an accusation against the prisoner [her husband], we will smash the had of the child.’ She refused… the woman police officer smashed the baby’s head against the wall several times, killing it.”

The above quote doesn’t come from a synopsis of a Hollywood movie; although it likely could have. It comes from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Vladimir was a Christian undergoing very real torture for his “crimes”. To speak hypothetically, let’s say that Vladimir were here today and went to the movies to see one of the installments of Saw. How do you suppose he would react to seeing a victim rigged into some terrifying murder and torture device?

Which brings me to my larger point, how do we go one minute and indulge in the very realistic fantasy of seeing someone brutally and graphically tortured and murdered purely for our own entertainment, to the next minute in which we are supposed to be compassionate, loving and broken hearted for those in pain. I submit that it is unlikely that the two can coexist. Either watching it on screen must break our hearts for those who are, even right now, experiencing similar horrors; or else we must have little or no compassion for those people and on some level delight in their pain. If we continue on this path, I doubt it will be very long at all before someone merges these horror films with reality television and we see a rebirth of the Roman Gladiators.

Jesus, I pray that you would change my heart. I pray that you, by your Holy Spirit would be persistent in sanctifying me. God, I pray that you would create in me an ability for the words of my mouth to meet the actions of my body. Jesus, I pray that you would give me and your church a broken heart for those in need, for those suffering, for those dying; for the sake of your glory, O Lord.

I’ve been working like a dog today. Well, as much like a dog as a web designer can (not that that’s what I am, but that’s what I was acting like today). Unfortunately, things did not roll smoothly out onto the web and I still have not rubbed out all the bumps. The early parts of this day were far less composed than it has ended up now. I was frustrated, angry and my mind was everywhere it shouldn’t be. Thank God, he allowed me to maintain at least some level of self-control, because I almost definitely would have thrown my laptop in the trash.

Finally, a point around one o’clock I realized that my mind wasn’t where it should be and I wasn’t adequately able to keep my thoughts pure and a healthy focus on God. I stopped what I was doing, walked into the kitchen, paced about for a long time, finally I retreated back to my bedroom and sat in my rocking chair. I leaned back, took some deep breaths and began to ask God for mercy and peace so that I wouldn’t continue further on my path into the darkness of my own mind. I sat there for a substantial amount of time just trying to be quiet and remain in a place of prayer. Eventually, I turned on eastern style meditation music from Nadaka and Karunesh and continued to just be quiet and listen. As aggressive thoughts would come to my mind concerning the struggle of the day, I would continue to ask God for what I needed from him to continue to act as he has called me to act. Eventually, I was calm and quiet enough to pick up my bible and study some from Colossians. A couple of hours later, when I returned to my work, I was able to do it consciously in light of Christ’s work in my life.

Now, I know we all have days like these, I thought I would ask all of you, how do you deal with those times? How do you pursue the Lord in those times?

I had planned today to write up a post this afternoon. However, when I sat down I found myself with little I felt confident writing about and when I wrote anyway I found it was forced and without much real feeling. So, I put it off and now its 10:30 and I finally feel confident about what I’d like the share today.

Tonight at small group we discussed, in a general sense, God’s power. I know, talk about a broad topic. Even just to skim over it would take well over the two hours we had; a point that was well made during our discussion. Well, in any case, the point as it rests with me, makes me think over the spectrum of God’s power; the natural and the supernatural.

All of the world, since the creation of the world, has been able to plainly see God’s power in nature (Romans 1:20). It is only the fringes of his power (Job 26:14). Like the simplicity of our breathing, it was only a word from the mouth of God and the foundations of all the earth were laid. God’s power is only barely touched on and seen in his creative power; it took him next to naught to create something out of nothing, and how much less is it that God would supernaturally rearrange what he has already created (Matthew 9:5)! I sometimes feel silly when I look at God’s supernatural movement like it’s the epitome of his power. I would look awestruck at his cleansing a man of leprosy or even that he would enable men to speak in languages not yet learned. But in reality, this is so little to God. How are we surprised that the living God could give man an unnatural ability?

For the foundations of the world, only a word was spoken. For the forgiveness of sins, God stepped down (John 1:14) and gave himself. What is it to God that he could create the foundations of the world and cause them to move and shift according to his every desire? But who are we that God should see fit to give himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins? I submit that the greatest display of God’s power we have before us is in the regeneration of our very souls; our own dead hearts brought back to life by the grace and power of God. I’m reminded of Colossians 1:24-27; “The mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints… Christ in you, the hope of glory!” It is Christ’s presence and power in our own hearts that gives us the ability to follow his commands; all the way from “repent and believe,” to “pray continually.” This is the power of God before us and in us; fallen man, able to please God, thanks to God in Jesus Christ, with power of God as distributed by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, I pray for a humble heart to look to you to supply me, and your church, with the power we need to live the lives you have called us to live to your glory. Father, I pray that our eyes and hearts would be opened to see your power in all of its facets and manifestations and in seeing it we would be more ready, in your strength, to give you the glory you’re due.

This week in John Owens’ Mortification of Sin, he continues to share some practical steps in mortifying sin. Last week, he discussed that, when perplexed by a particular sin, we ought to consider that sin in a historical sense as it applies to us; have we become comfortable living with this sin, have we already been convicted by God for this sin? This week, we look at sin as it regards to our future.

I would be a liar if I said that I found this chapter as powerful as some of the ones that preceded it. It’s likely that I didn’t understand all of his words as well; it’s also possible that I rushed through it out of duty. Either way, the chapter didn’t resound as heavily in my heart as did others, but none the less they’re some insights that I believe will affect me silently when the time comes.

The chapter is sectioned off mostly over the discussion of our guilt and the actual evil of the sin. In regards to guilt, Owens implores that we look at whether or not we have silenced our guilt. “[Sin’s] noisome exhalations darken the mind, that it cannot make a right judgment of things. Perplexing reasonings, extenuating promises, tumultuating desires, treacherous purposes of relinquishment, hopes of mercy, all have their share in disturbing the mind in its consideration of the guilt of a prevailing lust.” We find ourselves digging our own grave when our minds have silenced our guilt.

To the end that we would silence our guilt, Owens demands we must consider heavily the evil of our sin. Even the smallest and unnoticed of sin “grieves the holy and blessed Spirit,” The Lord Jesus Christ is wounded “afresh” by it, and from a man it robs him of his “usefulness in his generation.” Owen warns, “many men harbor spirit-devouring lusts in their bosoms, that lie as worms at the root of their obedience, and corrode and weaken it day by day.”

Jesus, I pray that you would give me the grace not to harden my heart against you in sin. I pray that I and your church would not silence our guilt, but own it and wait for you to absolve it. Jesus, I pray that where my heart turns a deaf ear to the guilt of my sin, you would reveal to me the evil in it and to your glory I would be wounded and brought to repentance.