My church and our sister churches are having a week of prayer this week. Our theme is “Pray for Life!” I thought I might invite you to join us. For Monday our focus is on praising the Source of Life:
Monday – Source of Life
Read Psalm 8
Praise the Lord for his majesty, beauty, splendor, and glory.
Praise the Lord for his beautiful creation.
Praise the Lord for his amazing love towards us.
Praise the Lord for his great salvation for us in Jesus.
Tis that time of year when many, myself included, make New Year resolutions. How do we want the coming year to look different from the past? Below are several helpful links.
Questions for the New Year – Donald Whitney provides several questions to help us think about the new year.
New Years Resolutions – Here are the categories I use as I think about the coming year.
Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions – Sometimes it helps to see what others resolved to do.
A New Years Day Challenge – A good challenge from R. C. Ryle for any day of the year.
Resolution Principles – Ten helpful principles for making and keeping resolutions.
How to Make Your Resolutions Stick – Mike Cosper offers four very good principles for actually keeping your resolutions.
My we press forward this year in following Christ for the glory of God!
I have collected several lists of the best books of the year from around the web. There are lots of good books to consider reading! If you don’t feel like wading through the lists, here are the top two choices. Three lists included these two books:
Several books had mention on two lists; I’ll let you discover them:
Top Ten Books of 2012 – Kevin DeYoung
TGC Staff Cite Best Books from 2012 – Gospel Coalition
My Ten Favorite Reads of 2012 – Trevin Wax
Top 12 Books of 2012 – Tony Reinke at Desiring God
My Top Books of 2012 – Tim Challies
Best of 2012 – Andreas Kostenberger
Crossway also compiled some top book recommendations from their staff and some of their authors. These lists are broader than 2012 reads.
Tis the time of year to make lists of the best books of the year. Of all the books I read, three stood out as the best. They are:
Holy Available
by Gary Thomas
The basic idea is that Jesus is still active today, and we need to be available to be used by him. You can read my Book Look for a fuller summary. It is incredibly quotable. I quoted from it several times here on the blog:
Humility: The Forgotten Virtue
by Wayne Mack
I read two books on humility this year which complemented each other well. This one digs into the Scriptures to explore our humility before God and with one another. You can read my Book Look for further information. This book also provided some good quotes:
Humility: True Greatness
by C. J. Mahaney
This one briefly looks at our humility before God, and then at the humility of Jesus. Half of the book then explores practical ways to grow in humility. This last section was especially helpful. Here is the Book Look for more information. A few quotes:
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.
Yesterday we said that one application of delighting in the Word was to memorize it. I have been reading the Redwall series to my kids. They love it, and so naturally they have memorized some of the lines. They love Narnia, and can quote lines from the books and the movies. If we delight in the Word, shouldn’t we be able to quote lines from it?
But the Bible is a big book! What verses should we memorize? One good approach is to memorize verses that you have been reading and meditating on. Which verses seem to jump out at you as a special challenge or comfort from God? Memorize those verses.
But there are also some basic passages that touch on the basic teachings of the Bible, and basic issues that everyone of us face as we fight the good fight of faith. The folks at Children Desiring God have chosen 260 passages as basic passages which they call Fighter Verses. They have created a five year program that has you learning one passage a week. Many churches use this program to encourage each other to memorize Scripture together. I encouraged the folks at my church last week to try it in the coming year. I just started working through it myself. Perhaps you might want to try it too.
I encourage you to visit their site. It is packed with helpful Scripture memory resources. They have a bookmark with all of the 2013 verses on it, plus a strategy for learning and remembering them. If you want to create memory verse cards, they have a link to easily do that. They also have a blog post each week reflecting on the verse you will be learning. Plus there are apps for your tablet or smartphone to help you learn the verses. They have audio resources and more. Explore their site, and ask God if he might have you use this resource in the coming year. And if not, how else might he be calling you to memorize his Word in 2013?
Lake Superior Shore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
Waterfalls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
Here is a good old song based on Psalm 115:1 – “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory!”
Bond Falls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
