Life - Is What You Make It Order Printed Copy

Author: Peter Buffett
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About the Book

"Life Is What You Make It" by Peter Buffett explores the concept of finding true fulfillment and purpose in life through making conscious choices and taking responsibility for our own happiness. The book offers practical advice on how to cultivate a fulfilling life by aligning our actions with our values, passions, and strengths. Buffett emphasizes the importance of authenticity, self-awareness, and gratitude in creating a meaningful and joyful existence.

John Owen

John Owen’s life was incredibly difficult. Born in 1616 and dying in 1683, Owen lived through the deaths of his first wife and all of his children, several of whom died in very early childhood. He supported his last surviving daughter when her marriage broke down. He contributed to a political revolution, watched it fail, saw the monarchy restored and wreak a terrible revenge on republicans, and lived in and around London during the persecution that followed. For twenty years he would have seen the decapitated heads of his friends on display around the city. He died fearing that the dissenting churches had largely abandoned the doctrine of the Trinity and justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone; and, with Charles II about to be replaced by his openly Catholic brother James, believing that the English Reformation was almost over. Owen was one of the most published writers in the seventeenth century. He published around 8 million words. These writings included books on theology and spirituality, politics and economics, and ranged in length from the largest commentary ever published on the epistle to the Hebrews to a short Latin poem that has never been reprinted. For not all of Owen’s works have been kept in print. The most widely circulating nineteenth-century edition, most of which is published by the Banner of Truth, did not include Owen’s sermon manuscripts that are kept in various English libraries, nor the book for children that Owen published in 1652. Owen was one of England’s earliest children’s authors. The catechisms that Owen published (1645) outlined what he expected children in his congregation to know. These catechisms were published before the Westminster Assembly published its better-known examples. But Owen’s catechisms are in many ways simpler. The Primer (1652), which Owen prepared after the death of several of his children during the years of poor harvests and disease at the end of the 1640s, showed what Owen expected of an ideal Christian home. Its routine would be built around Bible reading and prayer, he believed, and his little book included sample prayers that children could learn to pray in mornings, evenings, and at meals. Owen argued that those who led church services should take account of the needs of children. Services that were too long, he believed, did no one any good. Adult believers should not need written prayers, he believed, and these should be banned from public worship. But children were different and needed all the help they could get. Owen enjoyed many warm friendships. His social network included many of the most famous writers in seventeenth-century England. Among his friends and rivals were John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Bunyan, and Lucy Hutchinson. Owen fell out with Milton and became the subject of one of his sonnets. Owen helped Marvell publish one of his most controversial political pamphlets. He encouraged his publisher, Nathanial Ponder, to publish Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. And he appears to have supported Lucy Hutchinson during her move into London, when she attended and took notes upon his preaching and translated large parts of his Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661)—a translation of which has been published with the title Biblical Theology. Owen’s letters reveal his kindness and care as a pastor, especially to mothers grieving their children’s death. Owen was deeply political. He preached to Members of Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I, and pinned his hopes for the reformation of church and society on their efforts to transform England into a protestant republic. During the 1650s, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, Owen served on important committees that sought to establish a religious foundation for the new regime. But he grew dismayed by the ways in which the Cromwell family, and the administration they led, seemed to turn away from godly values. In 1658, he worked with leading army officers to create a crisis that, he likely hoped, would call the regime back to its earlier ideals. It failed, and instead created the crisis that was resolved by the restoration of the monarchy, the return of Charles II, and the persecution of dissenters that followed. During the Restoration, Owen kept his head down, and, as persecution slackened in the later 1660s, published pamphlets that argued that dissenters were the economic lifeblood of the English nation. But he was chastened by his attempts at political intervention and came increasingly to realize that his focus should be on things eternal. Owen often changed his mind. As his developing attitudes to political intervention suggest, Owen committed himself to some beliefs and behaviors that he came to regret. In his early years, he changed his churchmanship from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism. He innovated as a Congregationalist, installing as a co-elder and preacher a man who would not be ordained for several years. He argued for the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, though it is not clear that he ever persuaded any of his congregations to practice it. He thought carefully about the end times and came to believe that, in the latter days, a large number of Jewish people would be converted to Christianity and would return to live in the Promised Land. He dismissed a great deal of discussion about the millennium, but became convinced that the binding of Satan had yet to be achieved. Owen changed his mind because he kept on studying the Bible. Owen was biblical, through and through, and depended just as much on the Holy Spirit. He certainly believed in a learned ministry–after all, he had taught theology at Oxford and done his best to promote godliness within the student body. But he also trusted the Holy Spirit to guide ordinary Christians in small group Bible studies that did not need to be policed by a formally trained expert. Aside from his own Bible study, which advanced on the serious scholarship represented by the three thousand titles that were included in the catalog of his library published soon after his death, Owen encouraged church members to meet together to study Scripture in private. Owen trusted the Bible and the work of the Spirit after writing about both. Owen was not a philosophically-driven, rationalist theologian. His writing abounds in biblical citations. It is molded and contoured by biblical revelation. But he warned that Christians could approach their study of the Bible with absolutely no spiritual advantage to themselves. Christians who approached the study of the Bible without absolute dependence upon the Spirit who inspired and preserved it would gain no more benefit than Jewish readers did from their Scriptures, he argued. Christians should never choose between entire dependence upon the Bible and the Spirit. Owen believed that the goal of the Christian life was knowing God. Before Owen, no one had ever shown clearly how Christians relate to each person of the Trinity. Owen described the goal of the gospel as revealing the love of the Father, who sent the Son as a redeemer of his people, who would be indwelt, provided with gifts, and united together by the Spirit. Owen’s Communion with God is among his most celebrated achievements—and no wonder. It is the exhalation of his devotion to Father, Son, and Spirit, and the discovery of the limitless love of God. Owen is much easier to read than many people imagine. There is a mystique to Owen—a widespread feeling that his books are too difficult and best left to expert theologians. But Owen’s greatest books were written as sermons for an audience of teenagers. Publishers have begun to modernize Owen’s language in new editions of his works. Now more than ever, it’s time to pick up Owen and find his encouragement for the Christian life.

Kneeling Among Lions - Learning to Pray Like Daniel

Tucked away in the book of Daniel, sandwiched between stories about fiery furnaces and lions on the one hand, and visions of statues, beasts, and rising kings on the other, is an extended prayer with a shockingly immediate answer. Daniel 9 contains an extended, earnest, and heartfelt prayer by the prophet. And before he even says “Amen,” the angel Gabriel is standing before him, ready to give insight and understanding to the broken-hearted prophet. What did Daniel pray that caused God to immediately dispatch an angel with an answer? And can Daniel’s prayer instruct us today in how to pray? Plot Against Prayer Daniel’s prayer is a dated prayer. “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus” (Daniel 9:1). And the particular timing mentioned draws attention to one of the most famous stories in the Bible. At the end of Daniel 5, Darius the Mede conquers the Chaldeans and dethrones Belshazzar. In chapter 6, he appoints 120 local rulers as governors over his kingdom, with high officials overseeing them. Daniel is one of these high officials. Indeed, he is distinguished above all of the high officials because of the excellent spirit (or is it Spirit?) residing in him (Daniel 6:1–3). Darius plans to elevate Daniel over all the other officials, provoking them to jealousy. They then plot to find fault with Daniel in hopes of bringing him down. After examining his life, they conclude, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God” (Daniel 6:5). Soon enough, they do find a ground for complaint against Daniel — his habits of prayer. Daniel’s custom is to pray three times per day with an open window facing Jerusalem. The jealous officials manipulate Darius into passing an irrevocable decree against praying to anyone except the king (Daniel 6:6–9). And Daniel’s defiance of this decree famously lands him in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:10–16). What is the relevance for the prayer of Daniel 9? It’s likely that Daniel 9 is the sort of prayer that Daniel was praying with that famous window open. What’s more, if we’re attentive to the whole Scriptures, we can better understand why Daniel was praying with a window open facing Jerusalem. Solomon, Jeremiah, and Daniel In 1 Kings 8, Solomon is dedicating the temple of the Lord. As he nears the end of his prayer, he contemplates the possibility (and even likelihood) that the people of Israel will sin grievously against God. When they do, God will, in fulfillment of the warnings of Deuteronomy, give them over to their enemies so that Israel will be carried captive into a foreign land. Nevertheless, God will remain faithful to his promises and his people, even as he sends them into exile. In Solomon’s request, notice the specific direction his exiled people ought to pray: Yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, “We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,” if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). (1 Kings 8:47–51) Solomon specifically mentions repenting and praying from exile toward Israel, toward Jerusalem. Thus, Daniel’s actions make perfect sense. He is following Solomon’s instructions in hope that God will have compassion and restore his people. Beyond Solomon’s dedication, the immediate cause of Daniel’s prayer is Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the seventy weeks. Recorded in Jeremiah 25, the prophet rebukes Israel for her stubbornness and promises God’s judgment through Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who will lay waste to Israel. Babylon will be triumphant for seventy years, after which God will bring judgment upon them for their own sins. Daniel has this prophecy in mind when he offers his own prayer of repentance (Daniel 9:2). Lessons from Daniel’s Prayer These particulars matter. Daniel offered this prayer at a specific moment in redemptive history, under the covenant that God made with Moses, during the time when Jerusalem was the center of the spiritual universe. Today we are in a different redemptive era, under the new covenant, when the heavenly Jerusalem is the center of the universe. Nonetheless, there are truths that span the covenants. Despite our differences in time, redemptive era, location, and circumstances, Daniel’s prayer was still “written for our instruction, that . . . we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). So how does Daniel’s prayer give us hope? Confess Clearly First, Daniel says “Amen” to God’s judgment. Daniel’s prayer is fundamentally a prayer of confession and repentance. Again and again, Daniel acknowledges the sin of God’s people. “We have sinned. We have done wrong. We have acted wickedly. We have rebelled. We have turned aside from your commandments. We have not listened to your prophets. We have committed treachery. We have not obeyed your voice.” Twenty times, Daniel acknowledges that Israel has sinned. You will look in vain for any rationalizations in this prayer. Daniel is not asking God to excuse Israel’s sin; he is asking God to forgive Israel’s sin. And forgiveness begins with saying “Amen” to God’s judgment. “Daniel teaches us to mince no words in confession, to use no euphemisms, to soft-pedal no transgressions.” And this instructs us. We all are prone to justify and rationalize our sin, to ask God to excuse us for what we’ve done, rather than asking him to forgive us for what we’ve done. But Daniel teaches us to mince no words in confession, to use no euphemisms, to soft-pedal no transgressions; indeed, the great variety of terms for sin and wickedness in his prayer teaches us to labor to be clear before God about the precise ways that we have fallen short of his standards. Remember Specifically Second, Daniel remembers God’s word and God’s works. In confessing, Daniel directly quotes Deuteronomy 7:9, and frames his prayer by Israel’s failure to obey the law of Moses (Daniel 9:11). In punishing Israel, God is simply confirming the oaths and curses he laid down in Deuteronomy 28. Even more than that, Daniel remembers the great works of God, especially the exodus, when God brought his people out of Egypt with a mighty hand (Daniel 9:15). “God is pleased with Bible-shaped and Scripture-saturated prayers.” This too instructs us. God is pleased with Bible-shaped and Scripture-saturated prayers. It is good and right for us to orient our confession, our repentance, and our supplications in light of God’s laws, his promises, and his warnings. By using Scripture to frame our own prayers, we approach God in a way that he has established, with words that he has inspired, and thus we have greater confidence that he will hear and answer. Plead Confidently Third, Daniel pleads for God’s mercy. Even as he says “Amen” to the judgment of God, Daniel appeals to Yahweh’s mercy and forgiveness (Daniel 9:9). Daniel knows that judgment is not God’s final word. And thus, he asks for God to again shine his face on his sanctuary (Daniel 9:17), and to turn aside his anger that has cast his people into exile. In doing so, Daniel demonstrates his deep faith in Yahweh’s fundamental character toward his people: he is a God compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Exodus 34:6–7). We too can approach God’s throne with confidence because we know it is a throne of grace. Whatever chastisement and discipline he brings, mercy reigns in the heart of God. He will by no means clear the guilty, but he loves to forgive those who turn to him in humble faith. Unifying Thread Finally, what ties these elements together is God’s righteousness — his unswerving commitment to uphold the glory of his name. Underneath Daniel’s “Amen” to God’s judgment, underneath Daniel’s remembrance of God’s word and works, and underneath Daniel’s appeal to God’s mercy is Daniel’s sure faith that God is uppermost in God’s affections. To the Lord belongs righteousness, and therefore he has punished his people (Daniel 9:7). His judgment is a fulfillment of his commitment to his word; he will not overlook transgressions against his law (Daniel 9:11–12). He is righteous to bring this judgment. But more than that, he is righteous in showing mercy. Daniel appeals to God’s love for his name. God made a name for himself in delivering Israel from Egypt (Daniel 9:15). And now, Daniel roots his plea for mercy in God’s righteousness (Daniel 9:16). Israel has become a byword; the nations mock at the once-great nation and the once-great city of Jerusalem. But this nation and this city are called by the name of Yahweh. And therefore, Daniel’s final plea is not based on Israel’s righteousness, but on God’s name. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. (Daniel 9:17–19) So too for us. When we approach God, we do not come based on our righteousness. How could we? Instead, we beg God to act on our behalf for his own sake. Indeed, as those who live under God’s new covenant, we appeal to him in the name of his Son Jesus. We plead for God to hear and forgive and pay attention and act on our behalf because we are called by the name of his Son, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with his blood-bought people.