1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The Ministry of Encouragement, by Ray Ortlund
"If there is any encouragement in Christ . . .” Philippians 2:1
Tomorrow many of us will be preaching. What is our goal? Not bashing people over the head with the law. That may make us feel better about ourselves, as if our opinions were needed, but it is not the ministry of Christ. What do we find in him? Encouragement. It’s so obvious to Paul, it’s the first thing he mentions when he inventories our wealth in Christ here in Philippians 2.
Do we find encouragement in one another? Sometimes. But that supply is limited. We come together at church not to amass the encouragement we bring in but to receive the encouragement he is pouring out. If we come to church only to draw strength from one another, that’s all we’ll get. And we will end up empty and angry at one another. Putting community first destroys community. Our encouragement is in Christ, and he is inexhaustible.
Those of us who are preachers — tomorrow, through the gospel, let’s lavish on our fellow-sinners the endless encouragement that is right now exploding out of the glorious risen Christ. If attendance at your church is down because people are out of town for Christmas travels, that doesn’t diminish your ministry at all. The Lord Jesus Christ is rich with encouragement, he is a big spender, and he is the measure of your ministry.
thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/
Tomorrow many of us will be preaching. What is our goal? Not bashing people over the head with the law. That may make us feel better about ourselves, as if our opinions were needed, but it is not the ministry of Christ. What do we find in him? Encouragement. It’s so obvious to Paul, it’s the first thing he mentions when he inventories our wealth in Christ here in Philippians 2.
Do we find encouragement in one another? Sometimes. But that supply is limited. We come together at church not to amass the encouragement we bring in but to receive the encouragement he is pouring out. If we come to church only to draw strength from one another, that’s all we’ll get. And we will end up empty and angry at one another. Putting community first destroys community. Our encouragement is in Christ, and he is inexhaustible.
Those of us who are preachers — tomorrow, through the gospel, let’s lavish on our fellow-sinners the endless encouragement that is right now exploding out of the glorious risen Christ. If attendance at your church is down because people are out of town for Christmas travels, that doesn’t diminish your ministry at all. The Lord Jesus Christ is rich with encouragement, he is a big spender, and he is the measure of your ministry.
thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/
Friday, December 18, 2009
Anticipation by Tullian Tchividjian
Every year around this time people ask me what Advent is. The word “Advent” literally means “coming” or “arrival.” It’s the four weeks of the year leading up to Christmas when Christians all over the world look back to the first coming of Jesus and look forward to his second coming. In one sense, Christians are always to be doing this. But these four weeks are meant to be an intensified celebration of Christ’s first arrival which, in turn, is meant to fuel our anticipation of his second arrival. This means that Advent is a season marked by hopeful anticipation.
With Advent in mind, I was thinking a lot this week about the nature of anticipation. There were three things in particular that I was looking forward to, things I was anticipating: the wedding of a friend, a football game, and the arrival of out-of-town guests. Whether it’s something as significant as the wedding of a friend or something as trivial as a football game, the capacity to anticipate is a gift from God–God designed us to anticipate. So it’s fine to anticipate things like the ones I mentioned. But, as I thought a bit harder, I realized that those anticipations are never meant to serve as ends in themselves. They are intended to nurture and expand our God-given anticipatory capacities so that we will anticipate something greater: secondary anticipations are designed by God to point to the primary anticipation.
To borrow a thought from John Piper, the weakness of our anticipation for Christ’s return is not because it is uneventful or unimportant. It’s because we keep ourselves stuffed with smaller anticipations. As C.S. Lewis said, “We are far too easily pleased.” A friends wedding, a football game, and the arrival of out-of-town guests will never fulfill our deepest anticipations. These are shadow like anticipations; Christ is the substance. These are stream-like anticipations; Christ is the ocean. These are beam like anticipations; Christ is the sun.
So the next time you find yourself anticipating everything from a good meal to a good vacation, take a moment to trace that anticipation to its end: Jesus. This is what Advent is meant to do. Anticipating Jesus fulfills every other anticipation because the arrival of anticipated weddings and football games cannot change a human heart; they can’t take away our guilt and cleanse our conscience; they cannot make all things new. Only Christ can do these things.
May the remainder of this Advent season fill you with hope filled anticipation realizing that Christ’s first coming was his pledge that he will one day return to “make all things new.”
www.crpc.org/blog/
With Advent in mind, I was thinking a lot this week about the nature of anticipation. There were three things in particular that I was looking forward to, things I was anticipating: the wedding of a friend, a football game, and the arrival of out-of-town guests. Whether it’s something as significant as the wedding of a friend or something as trivial as a football game, the capacity to anticipate is a gift from God–God designed us to anticipate. So it’s fine to anticipate things like the ones I mentioned. But, as I thought a bit harder, I realized that those anticipations are never meant to serve as ends in themselves. They are intended to nurture and expand our God-given anticipatory capacities so that we will anticipate something greater: secondary anticipations are designed by God to point to the primary anticipation.
To borrow a thought from John Piper, the weakness of our anticipation for Christ’s return is not because it is uneventful or unimportant. It’s because we keep ourselves stuffed with smaller anticipations. As C.S. Lewis said, “We are far too easily pleased.” A friends wedding, a football game, and the arrival of out-of-town guests will never fulfill our deepest anticipations. These are shadow like anticipations; Christ is the substance. These are stream-like anticipations; Christ is the ocean. These are beam like anticipations; Christ is the sun.
So the next time you find yourself anticipating everything from a good meal to a good vacation, take a moment to trace that anticipation to its end: Jesus. This is what Advent is meant to do. Anticipating Jesus fulfills every other anticipation because the arrival of anticipated weddings and football games cannot change a human heart; they can’t take away our guilt and cleanse our conscience; they cannot make all things new. Only Christ can do these things.
May the remainder of this Advent season fill you with hope filled anticipation realizing that Christ’s first coming was his pledge that he will one day return to “make all things new.”
www.crpc.org/blog/
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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