I hope you all have a merry Christmas tomorrow. Here are a few good Christmas posts:
God Became a Man – Justin Taylor
Some good classic quotes on the incarnation from Spurgeon, Augustine, and more.
Why a Virgin Birth? – Douglas Wilson
Good answer to the question…
5 Ways to Play With Your Kids This Christmas – Trevin Wax
Dads, this one is for us. You may not like every idea, but the post gets us thinking in the right direction.
Here are some good posts to ponder for Thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving Quotes – Three Passions
A Prayer of Praise and Thanksgiving – The Valley of Visions (via Tim Challies)
Thanksgiving and the Appropriate Number of Prepositions – Tim Challies
(You must be thankful to, not just thankful for)
What Really Happened on the First Thanksgiving – Justin Taylor
Family Feuds and Tensions over the Holidays – Justin Taylor
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving giving thanks to our great God!
Last week I shared some past posts on Passion Week. Here are three past posts on Easter:
Questions for Easter Gatherings – Great questions to ask at your Easter gatherings to lead into discussions of the cross and resurrection.
Easter Week Reflections – Reflections for Easter and following week.
Christ The Lord Is Risen Today – An investigation into the hymn that many will sing on Easter Sunday. I can’t wait!
Here are some posts on the death and resurrection of our Savior for your weekend reading:
His Death
Go To Dark Gethsemane – Kevin DeYoung
The Cross Offers A Glimpse Into The Heart Of God – Trevin Wax
May Christ’s Shed Blood Make Me… – Puritan Prayer (via Trevin Wax)
His Resurrection
The Resurrection: The Reason For Hope – D. A. Carson (via Crossway)
The Neglected Resurrection – Matthre Barrett (via The Gospel Coalition)
Easter and the Great Wedding To Come – Jason Johnson (via The Gospel Coalition)
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day celebrating the resurrection of our Savior! He Is Risen!
Interestingly (at least to me), my most popular post right now was written a year ago that features links to a timeline and map of the last week of Christ. If you haven’t seen it, you can find it here.
As we prepare for Passion Week, perhaps it would be worth noting some other past posts:
Passion Week Reflections – Daily reflections I wrote a few years back for Palm Sunday through Easter.
Passion Week with Children – A link to daily crafts and activities to help children stay focused on what this time of year is all about.
And then some quotes:
His Love For You – C.J. Mahaney
For Us – J. C. Ryle
Our Sins Drove The Nails – J. C. Ryle
Donald Whitney has 31 helpful questions for us to ask as we look at the coming year. Below are the first ten. You can follow the link to read the rest.
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?
For more helpful questions and articles by Donald Whitney, see here.
In response to God’s grace and by His grace:
Which habits are you already practicing that you will continue?
Which habit are you already doing that you will seek to enhance? How?
Which habit will you seek to begin this year?
Some Habits
Here is your Christmas edition of Passion Points, and it includes some really interesting reflections for Christmas. An excerpt from each post is included.
Calvin & Claus – Every Christmas, poor Calvin is a tortured soul, torn between his desire to be “good” so that Santa will bring him lots of presents – and the (at least for a little boy) overwhelming temptation to smack the little girl next door with a perfectly formed snowball.
Scrooge, Overjoyed – Writing in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens tells us that Cratchit’s wife initially refused to participate in a toast to Scrooge on Christmas. We’re tempted to follow her example. We let bitterness, anger, and discontentment dim the light of Christ’s birth from shining brighter in our lives.
The Best Christmas Songs Tell The Truth – Sins, sorrows, curse, Satan, alienation, death. Doesn’t sound much like holiday cheer, does it? But this is the context of the comfort and joy of the Christmas announcement. Bethlehem’s star is only visible against the black sky of sin and death.
All Oppression Will Cease, Even in North Korea – Dictators and despots will continue to learn from their predecessors and build bureaucratic machines of terror and oppression. But only for a time. The fact remains that a day is coming when in Jesus’ name, “all oppression will cease.” Even the oppression of totalitarians in North Korea.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day/Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior who changes everything!
Brian J. Mikul 