What is your Bible intake plan for 2008?

Have you settled on a plan to intake the Scriptures in 2008. There are many many helpful "plans" available. Which plan is the best? The one you use! It really matters not whether you cover the whole Bible, the New Testament, the Old Testament, or simply read the Gospel of Mark over and over again. But planning usually helps. Me? I've had my butt kicked by Robert Murray McCheyne's plan for years... but I keep coming back to it. Now I've found that someone has made it a 2 year plan... half the reading!! Here's the link

US Letter size.

“The proof of spiritual maturity is not how pure you are, but an awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace. Spiritual maturity is not measured in the rules you keep. Spiritual maturity is not measured in the Bible answers you know in small groups. Spiritual maturity is not even about what you do. Primarily, Spiritual maturity is knowing who you are in Christ.” --Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew

I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters. This is a momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort--the sort of comfort that energizes. . . in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love, and watching over me for my good. Three is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me. . . He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see (and I am glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. . . not merely that we know God, but that He knows us
-- (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 37).

Sweet Baby Jesus, Temptation & Johnny Cash

To save us all from Satan's power, when we had gone astray....

That great line from "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" reminds us that Christ has come to deliver us from sin... its penalty AND power. And so here's a brief video on the life of Johnny Cash, with an emphasis on temptation & Christ

Immanuel... God with us

Preaching on Isaiah 7:14 over a century ago, Charles Spurgeon closed his sermon with this flourish:

"God with us." It is hell's terror. Satan trembles at the sound of it; the black-winged dragon of the pit quails before it. Let him come to you suddenly, and do you but whisper that word, "God with us," back he falls, confounded and confused. "God with us" is the laborer's strength; how could he preach the gospel, how could he bend his knees in prayer, how could the missionary go into foreign lands, how could the martyr stand at the stake, how could the confessor own his Master, how could men labor, if that one word were taken away? "God with us" is the sufferer's comfort, the balm of his woe, the alleviation of his misery, the sleep which God gives to his beloved, their rest after exertion and toil. "God with us" is eternity's sonnet, heaven's hallelujah, the shout of the glorified, the song of the redeemed, the chorus of angels, the everlasting oratorio of the great orchestra of the sky.

Thanks, Spurgeon, for reminding us of our deepest resource for life today: "God with us."

Sunday December 23 with Christ Community

the only thing hap'nin on Sunday morning at Oak Hall School is 10:15am worship service...

we'll be finishing our look at how Christ is incarnated as our Prophet, Priest, and King

sunday afternoon... if you'd like, there is a group of CCC folk meeting at Palm Gardens at 5pm to do a bit o' Christmas Caroling for the folks there... scroll down for details

Have yourself a Martin Luther Christmas

The true believer’s response to the true meaning of Christmas is beautifully expressed in a carol that Luther wrote for his young children—a carol commonly known by its opening words: “From Heaven High.” The carol seems to have been written for a Christmas pageant to be performed in Luther’s church. First an angel sings, announcing the Savior’s birth. The final stanza of the angel’s song goes like this:

Look now, you children, at the sign,
A manger cradle far from fine.
A tiny baby you will see.
Upholder of the world is he.

These words serve as the cue for the church’s children to come forward and worship the Christ. With reverent wonder they sing:

How glad we’ll be if it is so!
With all the shepherds let us go
To see what God for us has done
In sending us his own dear Son.
Look, look, my heart, and let me peek.
Whom in the manger do you seek?
Who is that lovely little one?
The Baby Jesus, God’s own Son.
Be welcome, Lord; be now our guest.
By you poor sinners have been blessed.
In nakedness and cold you lie.
How can I thank you—how can I?
O dear Lord Jesus, for your head
Now will I make the softest bed.
The chamber where this bed shall be
Is in my heart, inside of me.

Then the whole congregation joins the song, celebrating Christmas the Martin Luther way, and the way of every true believer in the Christ of Christmas:

To God who sent his only Son
Be glory, laud, and honor done.
Let all the choir of heaven rejoice,
The new ring in with heart and voice!

Lauren Winner

Recently I was talking with a friend about a very gifted woman named Lauren Winner... and i thought i would make you aware of her and her work.

Lauren Winner is the author of Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, and Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. She has appeared on PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and Christianity Today. Winner has degrees from Columbia and Cambridge universities and recently completed her doctorate in the history of American religion. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Griff Gatewood.

Download her talks here (MP3s, 7MB):
Girl Meets God
Not Just Another Church Talk About Sex
Rest in a Frenetic Culture

4 different 10 minute segments on Kindling Muse

--Interview on "Real Sex" at Covenant Seminary website here

-- Link to tons of other resources of Lauren Winner

All depends on incarnation

Underline this thought: assurance, peace, access to God, knowledge that He is our Father, and strength to overcome temptation all depend on this-the Son of God took our flesh and bore our sins in such a way that further sacrifice for sin is both unnecessary and unintelligible. --Sinclair Ferguson

Risen with healing...

I love "Hark the Herald" & it has such rich lyrics.... i'm always grabbed by this line

Light & Life to all He brings...........Risen with healing in His wings.

Christ coming to us as our Physician is good news for the sin-weary soul... the following makes a great prayer...

Physician of my sin–sick soul,
To thee I bring my case;
My raging malady control,
And heal me by thy grace.

Pity the anguish I endure,
See how I mourn and pine;
For never can I hope a cure
From any hand but thine. --John Newton, complete hymn here

Caroling at Palm Gardens

There is a group from Christ Community planning to Christmas Carol at Palm Gardens, Sunday afternoon--DEC 23rd--at 5pm.

Palm Garden of Gainesville
227 S.W. 62nd Boulevard
Gainesville, FL 32607

Much Love

The promises of Scripture tell you that your Savior-God will guard you, guide you, keep you, feed you, care for you, uphold you, forgive your daily shortcomings, free you from Satan's snares and bondages, and shepherd you through this world to the next, where you will see and enjoy Him forever.
--J. I. Packer

Wondering About the Incarnation

“How are we to think of the incarnation? The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it. For it was a great act of condescension and self humbling. ‘He, Who had always been God by nature’ writes Paul, ‘did not cling to His prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped Himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave to nature and being born as mortal man. And having become man, He humbled Himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death He died was the death of a common criminal. And all this was for our salvation.” --J I Packer, Knowing God.

“From the first sin in the garden of Eden to the final judgment of the great white throne, human beings will continue to embrace the love of God as the gift of everything but Himself. Indeed there are ten thousand gifts that flow from the love of God. The gospel of Christ proclaims the news that He has purchased by His death ten thousand blessings for His bride. But none of these gifts will lead to final joy if they have not first led to God. And not one gospel blessing will be enjoyed by anyone for whom the gospel’s greatest gift was not the Lord Himself.”

John Piper, God is the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2005), 12.

He Himself

The plan of salvation teaches me, not merely that I can never do anything to earn, increase, or extend God's favor, or to avoid the justified fury of His wrath, or to wheedle benefits out of Him, but also that I never need to try to do any of these things. God himself has loved me from eternity. He Himself has redeemed me from hell through the cross. He Himself has renewed my heart and brought me to faith. He Himself has now sovereignly committed Himself to complete the transformation of me into Christ's likeness and to set me, faultless and glorified, in His own presence for all eternity. When almighty love has thus totally taken over the task of getting me home to glory, responsive love, fed by gratitude and expressed in thanksgiving, should surface spontaneously as the ruling passion of my life. It will be my wisdom to brood on and mull over the marvelous mercies of God's plan until it does.

--J.I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness, page 76

It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.

--George MacDonald

O For a Thousand Tongues...

Sunday Chris Hiatt mentioned that "O For 1000" was written by Charles Wesley on the anniversary of his conversion to Christ. And Chris mentioned that the song originally had 18 stanzas. Well, as someone who grew up in the Methodist church I am privileged with the heritage of zeal for Christ that the Wesley brothers had. Those guys knew they were sinners and that Christ was a Savior! So when Chris mentioned it I remembered that the last stanzas are noteworthy. And they follow:

Harlots and publicans and thieves
In holy triumph join!
Saved is the sinner that believes
From crimes as great as mine.

Murderers and all ye hellish crew
In holy triumph join!
Believe the Savior died for you;
For me the Savior died.

With me, your chief, ye then shall know,
Shall feel your sins forgiven;
Anticipate your heaven below,
And own that love is heaven.

Watching an elderly man bust a move

There really is nothing sweeter, is there? than watching someone you thought to ONLY be distinguished, wise, and formal... bust a move on the dance floor.

That is how I felt reading this article from Richard Gaffin. I've long respected him from afar and he's helped me tremendously form my understanding of the Bible's teachings on certain matters... but I stumbled across his sermon on my text for Sunday and read this:

We tend to think of Christ as a divine being who is far removed from us. But he has become one with us, and he has been tempted, really and truly, just like you and I in every respect, but with one important difference–he did not yield to temptation. He overcame temptation. And so "he is able to help those who are being tempted" (2:18).

Jesus knows the desert, with the stresses and temptations that you and I are exposed to. He knows it by his own intimate experience. And so Jesus also knows something that some who call themselves Calvinists overlook. He knows that the certainty of our salvation does not cancel out the seriousness of our present situation. He knows that only those who endure to the end are going to be saved (Mt. 24:13). And he knows that enduring to the end is not something that happens automatically. He knows that for us to endure to the end will not happen without prayer. In particular, it will not happen without his prayer.

That really helps me see Jesus as my priest and how valuable it is to have a priest like Him. And puts my heart right out there on the dance floor with Dr. Gaffin!

Youth Group Boys at Christmas Party