Raising Giant-Killers Order Printed Copy

Author: Bill Johnson & Beni Johnson
Size: 6.79MB | 204 pages
|

Download Read Online

Continue with

Google Twitter

Email Register

Others like raising giant-killers Features >>

Ready Or Knot (12 Conversations Every Couple Needs To Have Before Marriage)

Love — The Secret To Your Success

Sex And The Supremacy Of Christ

About the Book

"Raising Giant-Killers" by Bill Johnson and Beni Johnson explores the principles and practices for raising children who know their identity as sons and daughters of God and walk in their full potential as spiritual warriors. The book offers practical insights and guidance for parents on how to cultivate a Kingdom mindset in their children and equip them to live out their faith boldly in the world.

Charles Colson

F Scott Fitzgerald once said: "There are no second acts in American lives." Charles Colson might have caused him to reconsider. In 1972, Colson, who has died aged 80, boasted to his colleagues in Richard Nixon's White House that he would "walk over my own grandmother" to get Nixon re-elected. His path led not over his grandmother, but through the Watergate scandal to prison, and then to a remarkable transformation into an evangelical Christian leader, bestselling writer and prison reformer. "Chuck" Colson called himself Nixon's "hatchet man", and it was in this role that he drew up the president's famous "enemies list". High on that list was Daniel Ellsberg, the US military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. The papers were a series of secret reports commissioned by John F Kennedy's defence secretary Robert McNamara which contradicted the public policy statements of three American administrations over the Vietnam war. Nixon assigned Colson to discredit Ellsberg. Colson, armed with a budget of $250,000 from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, had already hired his former college classmate E Howard Hunt to create the White House unit known as "the plumbers", as they were intended to stop embarrassing leaks. Hunt's team burgled the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and made plans to have Ellsberg beaten, while Colson leaked smears to the press. In early 1972, Colson got White House approval for a plan concocted by Hunt and G Gordon Liddy, another of the plumbers, to "gather intelligence" for the upcoming election. Hunt's burglars were caught by a sharp-eyed security guard inside the Democratic party's headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. An address book found on one of them led back to the White House, but the scandal failed to have an impact on the election, which Nixon won. Colson joked with Hunt that Watergate would be remembered as a brilliantly conceived escapade to "divert the Democrats' attention from the real issues, and therefore permit us to win a landslide we probably wouldn't have won otherwise". Without realising it, Colson had created the template which now dominates modern politics. But after the election, the Watergate investigations persisted. As Nixon's aides toppled one by one, Colson led the effort to smear those testifying, including another White House lawyer, John Dean, whose evidence against Nixon was particularly damning. Finally, Colson, too, resigned, in March 1973. A year later, he was indicted for his part in the cover-up. Facing an impeachment trial, Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974. Colson's religious conversion began while he was awaiting trial. Thomas Phillips, chairman of the defence contractor Raytheon, gave him a copy of CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, and he joined a congressional prayer group. When the 60 Minutes interviewer Mike Wallace challenged his sincerity, Colson decided to atone. Colson's lawyers negotiated a plea bargain of guilty to one count of obstruction of justice relating to the Ellsberg break-in. Sentenced in 1974 to one to three years, he served seven months in federal prison and was released in January 1975. Ellsberg himself said that he doubted the conversion, noting that Colson continued to deny more serious crimes. Colson was born in Boston. His father, Wendell, worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Colson attended Browne & Nichols, an elite school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on a naval reserve programme. After graduation, he served in the marine corps, then became an aide to the Massachusetts senator Leverett Saltonstall. Through Saltonstall, he met Nixon, then US vice-president, and in his own words, instantly became "a Nixon fanatic". After getting his law degree from George Washington University, he worked on Saltonstall's successful 1960 re-election campaign, before founding a law firm which became influential. In 1964 he wrote a memo to Nixon, who had lost the California gubernatorial election, outlining his plan to return Nixon to prominence; and in 1968 he joined Nixon's campaign. Nixon won the presidency in 1969 and appointed Colson his special counsel. In prison, Colson embraced born-again Christianity. In his biography Charles W Colson: A Life Redeemed (2005), the former Tory cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken says that Colson "transferred his huge drive, intellect, and maniacal energy from the service of Richard Nixon to the service of Jesus Christ". After prison, Colson wrote a bestselling memoir, Born Again (1976), which was filmed in 1978. He also founded a series of non-profit organisations, such as Prison Fellowship Ministries, which aimed to convert the convicted. Colson wrote more than 30 books, channelling the royalties into his ministries, to which he also donated the $1.1m Templeton prize, for promoting religion, which he won in 1993. In 2000, the Florida governor Jeb Bush reinstated Colson's voting rights (in that state, a convicted felon may not vote), saying: "I think it's time to move on. I know him, he's a great guy." In 2002 Colson joined fellow evangelicals in signing the Land Letter, urging President George W Bush to pursue a "just war" in Iraq. In 2008 he received the Presidential Citizens medal from Bush. Colson is survived by his second wife, Patricia, and by two sons, Wendell and Christian, and a daughter, Emily, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce. Charles Wendell Colson, political aide and prison reformer, born 16 October 1931; died 21 April 2012

what if my singleness never ends

It happened suddenly this past May, the moment I’d prayed for and sought after for quite some time: the moment I became okay with lifelong singleness. Something inside me relaxed as I sat at a coffee shop, my mind not even on relationships but preoccupied with a menu over dinner with friends. And then suddenly, I felt content to be single — not only for another few months, or even years, but even until the day I die, if God chooses that for me. “I don’t want to skip what God chooses to give me during singleness.” More than ever before, the years stretching out before me don’t seem like a romance-less, spouse-less, and (okay, let’s face it) sex-less gray void. It was a beautiful moment that could come only from God, a moment of triumph over an idol that has long battled for the throne of my heart. Whether it’s for a season or a lifetime, I’ve found that I don’t want to skip what God chooses to give me during singleness. Already Loved The more weddings I attend (which is several a year at this stage of life), the more the feeling sinks in that I may never be a bride. But the feeling isn’t altogether sad. Because I’m already dressed in white, you see. My friends’ immaculate dresses and the wedding day itself symbolize something mysterious and beautiful: the “robe of righteousness” God’s people already wear (Isaiah 61:10) and the “fine linen, bright and pure” we will put on at the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:8). I’m already pursued by someone who wove the very sinews of my being together. I’m already loved with a love that will outlast every other. I’m already known more intimately than I can fathom. It’s so easy to read that last paragraph and think “so cliché,” especially since this is yet another Christian article about singleness. Just be still. Do you realize what that paragraph means? You’re known just as you are (1 Corinthians 13:12). Even the inmost places of your heart — the darkest, the brightest, the most wounded, the most joyful, the most romantic — God knows and comprehends them to their depths. He cares for your unspoken and most intimate needs. There isn’t a thought you can speak before God knows it’s there (Psalm 139:4). Dwell on that. Do God’s presence and promises carry so little preciousness that we can scoff and declare them “cliché”? Faulty Assumptions So often, we spout inane phrases to single people like “God will bring you the right guy.” They reveal the heart so completely: I have to have a romantic relationship in my life at some point to be whole. We might subtly think, I don’t have to have it now, God. Or even next month. But at some point, God, you’ve gotta bring someone for me to marry. But he doesn’t. God does not have to bring us someone to marry. He simply is not obligated to do anything for us that is not for his glory and for our joy in him. And since we’re not all-knowing, we cannot claim to know what will give us the most long-term joy. We can make guesses, certainly. But the ultimate decision is up to our God, who has never ceased to provide exactly what his people need — from the garments of skin worn by Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21) to our own daily bread (Matthew 6:11). “I am already loved with a love that will outlast every other.” I’m not saying you won’t have difficult days where you yearn to be a husband or wife (I have those days too!), but I am saying that Jesus will meet you in those difficult times. He is gloriously gracious like that. The Spirit is willing and able to teach your heart many things, including contentment in singleness as long as God sees fit — and even if it’s lifelong. Don’t get me wrong: seeking marriage is great. If you’re interested in a godly someone, use wisdom and discernment and be intentional about it. But don’t fret. You may marry that person, and you may not. Whatever happens, don’t let it overshadow what God has already done for you and the glorious place you are headed. Three Suggestions “That’s great,” you may say as you read this. “But how can I do that?” I don’t pretend to know the complete answer to that question, but here are three suggestions that have helped me. 1. Recognize that you can’t be content on your own. Contentment is a work of God (Philippians 4:11–13). Pray to him for it. Lay your will and your heart down completely, and not in a way where you’re trying to be holy and spiritual so that you can get the “true prize” in your eyes. God can change your heart from that too; just ask. He is a Father who listens to his children. 2. Second, don’t surround yourself with romance. I’m not saying avoid all your friends’ weddings — each is a time for rejoicing and celebrating God’s work in their lives! But don’t inundate yourself with romantic comedies and TV shows and books and other media that are constantly focused on romance. Doing this can easily irritate wounds and give a foothold for envy and comparison to wreak havoc on your emotions. 3. And third, enjoy singleness. Seriously. If you’re not content in singleness, then you won’t be content in marriage. Spouses and significant others are not contentment charms; wedding vows are not magic incantations that produce lifelong fulfillment. “If you’re not content in singleness, then you won’t be content in marriage.” Give your time to ministering to friends and your community. Pursue your interests intently. Learn to manage your money. These activities do not have to be less fulfilling just because you are spouse-less! Believe it or not, if you do marry, there will be times when you yearn for singleness, and it isn’t likely to come again (at least not in the same way). A Better Goal So I come alongside you as a fellow single, encouraging you to join me in laying down the idol of romance. Let’s prepare now to better serve a future spouse or, if we never marry, to enjoy Jesus no matter married or not. Marriage is great, but it isn’t ultimate. The honor of “ultimate” remains with our true romance: the God who creates, sustains, intervenes in, and pursues the hearts of his people from eternity to eternity (Psalm 90:1–2). Amen.