Right Thinking In A World Gone Wrong Order Printed Copy
- Author: John Macarthur
- Size: 1.19MB | 215 pages
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About the Book
"Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong" by John MacArthur discusses how Christians can navigate the moral and ethical challenges of modern society by adhering to Biblical principles and values. The book emphasizes the importance of renewing our minds and aligning our thoughts with God's truth to resist the pressures of a morally corrupted world. MacArthur encourages readers to think critically and biblically in order to live a life that honors God in a culture that has strayed from his teachings.
Rich Mullins
Born Richard Wayne Mullins on October 21, 1955, in Richmond, IN; died on September 19, 1997, in La Salle County, IL; son of John and Neva Mullins. Education: Attended Friends University, Wichita, KS, late 1980s.
The talents of Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Rich Mullins and his work with the group Zion were first noticed by Christian music superstar Amy Grant. The inclusion of his song "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" on Grant's Age to Age album in 1982 soon lead to deals with Reunion Records and the start of a successful career as a songwriter and singer. With nearly ten albums and numerous Contemporary Christian hit songs to his credit, Mullins's career was cut short by an automobile accident that took his life on September 19, 1997, in Illinois.
Raised near Richmond, Indiana, Mullins began writing songs in his head as he drove a tractor over the fields of his family's farm. He taught himself to play the piano at age four and soon mastered a number of other instruments as well, including the guitar and hammered dulcimer. Long before his birth, however, factors over which he had no control were beginning to shape the world in which he would grow up. In Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven by James Bryan Smith, the singer tells of some family history and how it came to affect his life: "My dad grew up back and forth between Kentucky and Virginia because his father was a coal miner. And when my dad was 14 my grandpa came home and told my grandma to load up the truck 'cause they were gonna move.... And my grandpa said, 'Well, Rose, we're going to Detroit.' And she said, 'Why in the world are we going to Detroit?' And he said, 'Because I don't want my boys to grow up to be coal miners.' And so they got as far as Indiana and ran out of gas--and that's how I got here."
As a boy, Mullins was known as Wayne, his middle name. Although he went by Richard when he went off to college and shortened that to Rich when he launched his music career, he preferred to be known as Wayne by his family. Mullins was particularly close to his mother, Neva, who was raised a Quaker. He admits, however, to having been somewhat embarrassed by his father, who was raised in the heart of Appalachia, "which is a very polite way to say that he was a hillbilly," Mullins told Smith. Mullins said that it was not until he was nearing the end of high school that he began to understand the true meaning of the biblical injunction to "honor thy father and mother." In Smith's book Mullins is quoted: "[I]f you cannot honor your father and mother, then you can't honor anybody. Until you come to terms with your heritage, you'll never be at peace with yourself. That was a real breakthrough moment for me. So, what I needed to do was come to understand the Appalachian life, so that I could know more about my father, who had been a stranger to me all my life."
In 1974, after finishing high school, Mullins attended Cincinnati Bible College in Ohio, working as a youth minister in a local church. A couple of years into college, he formed a band of his own. The band only stayed together for about a year, and during that time it performed Christian music at schools and colleges throughout the Cincinnati area. In the late 1970s Mullins left college to work with Zion Ministries and perform with their band, aptly named Zion. In the summer of 1981 a copy of an album recorded by Zion--made up mostly of songs written by Mullins--found its way to Christian singer Amy Grant. The up-and-coming Grant and her managers were impressed by Mullins's "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" and decided to include it on Grant's next album, Age to Age, released in 1982. Mike Blanton, an adviser to Grant and founder of Reunion Records, signed Mullins to his first publishing deal as well as his first artist deal.
Mullins's first album for Reunion, self-titled, was released in 1986 and includes such songs as "Place to Stand," "Elijah," and "Few Good Men." He followed that in 1987 with Pictures in the Sky, which includes "When You Love," "Be with You," and "Verge of a Miracle." Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth, Mullins's third album for Reunion, was released in 1989 and features "Awesome God," "Other Side of the World," and "If I Stand." Also hitting music stores in 1989 was Never Picture Perfect, which includes the singles "I Will Sing," "While the Nations Rage," and "First Family."
In 1988 Mullins moved to Wichita, Kansas, to study music education at Friends University, a nondenominational Christian institution. While studying at Friends, he continued to record and perform whenever he could. In 1991 and 1992, he released two volumes of a compilation entitled World As Best As I Remember It. After completing his studies at Friends, Mullins joined a Compassion International mission to the vast Navajo Reservation in Arizona to teach music to the local children and spread the Christian gospel to whomever he could reach. As part of his work in the Navajo Nation, he formed a music club for some of the younger residents. In May of 1995, he moved to the Navajo Nation, settling into a trailer adjacent to the reservation. He lived there with fellow musician Mitch McVicker, and the two were involved in a project to collect musical instruments for the children of the reservation.
Throughout his career, Mullins has been nominated a total of 12 times for Dove Awards, presented each year to the best in Contemporary Christian music. He never received the award, but close friend Doris Howard told Release magazine that he probably didn't mind. "Nashville didn't own Rich, but then, he cared nothing for the things of this world."
On September 19, 1997, the Jeep in which Mullins and McVicker were traveling from Chicago to Wichita overturned on Interstate 39 in La Salle County, Illinois. Both men were thrown onto the road from their vehicle. A tractor trailer following close behind swerved to miss the Jeep but instead hit Rich, killing him instantly. McVicker, though injured critically, recovered.
Rich Mullins's Career
Joined Christian group Zion, late 1970s; released self-titled album for Reunion Records, 1986; recorded total of nine albums of Christian music for Reunion, 1986-96; wrote several Contemporary Christian hits, including "Awesome God" and "Sing Your Praise to the Lord"; studied music education, devoted time to relief efforts among Navajo Indians of the Southwest, mid-1990s.
was my life better back then
Our family serves in the Himalayan mountains, with the desire to see the church spread and flourish far into the unengaged villages confettied on these snowy peaks. The people here, as you might imagine, have a grit that I haven’t inherited from my suburban childhood. Wrinkled shepherds lead their goats to menacing heights with learned ease. If you peek inside a brightly painted cement home, you might see a woman browning onions over a fire, her daughter wringing out clothes, and her toddler sleeping to the buzz of cartoons. I’ve always dreamed of this sort of a place. As a middle-schooler, I read Jesus Freaks  aloud to the kids at my art table, and when playing Would You Rather  on the topic of death, I would argue that martyrdom is the best way to go out. If I could have seen the place where I would raise my children, I would have thought all of my dreams had come true. What I didn’t expect was that life here would feel like a meat-tenderizer to the heart. I didn’t see the grief coming in like a tidal wave. I’m learning a language that puts me in situations where I’m exposed and embarrassed. We are always the ones asking questions and bending our preferences to better serve those around us. Homeschooling five kids and cooking food from scratch doesn’t make me feel like Wonder Woman, but just very, very tired. How was I to know how sharp the sting of this calling would be, the pain of dying daily? I have formed a bad habit when I’m hurting. When too many guests come for chai and my character is as robust as the brown apple core in my toddler’s sticky grip, I exit mentally. I cherry-pick a golden memory and think how those were the days . Imagined Land of Yesteryear The past is a commonplace to run for escape. Isn’t the entire world wishing for life to go back to normal, before COVID reared its ugly head? How often do we pine after the freedoms of life before kids, only to ache for that noisy house a decade later? Don’t we wish relationships could morph back to what they had been before the argument? If only time could rewind the consuming cancer, the regretted affair, and the old age from surprising us. When the call to live in the present feels like cruelty, dealt out by God’s own hand, we can drown in self-pity and enter an ugly world. A world based on our memories of the past, but altered. Everything was right back then. Such good old days are often talked about in passing, and most people agree how much better it would be if only we could return. We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear. “We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear.” The worst part in exchanging the present for the past is that we can make ourselves gods. We become interpreters of what’s good and what’s not. We don’t lean on the Lord’s providence, but think we know what we need. We remember ourselves ten pounds thinner and everyone a lot happier than they truly were. We are most deceived about ourselves, the memories usually a highlight reel of us at our prime. Running Somewhere Maybe you aren’t tempted to live in the past like me. But Luke 15 makes a good case that all of us are running somewhere when the present feels difficult to swallow. Here are two sons discontent at home. When life isn’t what they want, the younger son runs to another country to feed his appetite for pleasure (Luke 15:11–13). Meanwhile, the older brother stays physically near his dad, but his heart is far from home (Luke 15:28–32). Where are we running when life is not what we want it to be? Perhaps we seek success, to create a comfortable home, or to be thought well of in our workplace and church. If we seek escape in these places, as I have in memories of the past, we won’t like where we end up. Life away from the Father is empty. Like a popped balloon, joy whooshes out and we are left limp, deflated. The sons’ attempts of finding life elsewhere leave them homeless and toiling like slaves (Luke 15:14–16, 29). Even if we have a lifetime of sermons in our head, do we live what we claim to know? If we did, how could we ever run from someone so ready to love us, who waits with unparalleled patience and pursues us wherever we are, however painful the present moment? God wants us home with him. So much so that he left perfection for a world writhing in pain. He took on the violence of hell so that his children wouldn’t have to. Home Among the Thistles Maybe we are at a crossroads. Perhaps, like myself, your shoes are well-traveled. You’ve also formed bad habits in order to escape the places where life hurts the most. You’ve called God names and aren’t certain you can live with the one who ordained life’s present pain. Look again at Luke 15 and dare to believe this is your story, too. The house is alive with music, and the table is set. You smell meat roasting in herbs and touch the silk of the slippers placed on your feet. See your Father run to embrace you. Hear his laughter that fills your heart with a happiness you were born to enjoy. “We can make our home among the thistles because God promises to be there too.” Or hear the father’s words to his older child: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). These words are for us, right now. Do we believe it? If so, we can make our home among the thistles because he promises to be there too. He will never, ever leave us. And because we have his promised nearness, all that is his is now laid before us as a feast. Every spiritual blessing is at our fingertips when we live at home in our Father (Ephesians 1:3). Especially  when our circumstances are January gray, he’s waiting for us to see the rainbow of his love. Black-Edged Envelopes Charles Spurgeon once testified, The worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days, and when God has seemed most cruel to me, he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest, tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father’s wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. . . . Fear not the storm, it brings healing in its wings, and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven. I am receiving more black-edged envelopes right now than I would care for. Dying daily has been less like Perpetua facing the beasts, and more like getting out of bed every morning to face the responsibilities of a calling that requires an unsavory dose of humility. This painful present, this everyday death is unnoticed by most, and as with the objects in a room when the lights are off, I can’t seem to find the outline of my old identity. And yet, the storm of today will not end in shipwreck. I’m not at the random mercy of the winds. The current rolling of thunder and high waves only assist me in getting home safe and sound. The presence of my Father and his continual invitation has repeatedly snapped me back from the past, allowing me to see the wonders in front of my face, like my children, the food on my plate, and the way the goats follow the voice of their shepherd down the valley with the sun dripping into the horizon.
