Here are helpful thoughts and plans for reading the Bible personally and as a family in 2019:
Infographic: You Have More Time for Bible Reading than You Think (Crossway)
10 Suggestions For Your Personal Devotions in 2019 – Tim Challies
Reading The Bible Fast And Slow In 2019 – Paul Carter (Challies)
How to Read Through the Bible in a Year With Kids– J. R. Briggs (ABS)
10 Ideas and 10 Tips for Family Devotions in 2019 – Tim Challies
Here are some good posts for Christmas:
God’s Passion for God at Christmas – John Piper (Crossway)
Even as a Secular Holiday, Christmas Makes the Gospel Accessible – Tim Keller (TGC)
How to Love Hard People at Christmas – David Mathis (DG)
An Open Letter to the Depressed Christian at Christmas – David Murray (Crossway)
Christmas for the Weary– Sam Allberry (TGC)
Far as the Curse Is Found Nancy Guthrie (DG)
Hope you have a merry Christmas!
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
How to Love People You Don’t Like – Greg Morse (DG)
He saw beyond the unlikeable to make them his beloved.
Sin Is Immaturity – Tim Challies
With every year that comes and goes, the more disturbing it becomes to see the childishness that remains in me.
The Key to Happiness Is More Stuff . . . Right? – Erik Raymond (Crossway)
Contentment actually is inward rather than outward, and it’s a work of God’s grace rather than a work of our flesh.
4 Truths About Christian Giving – J. I Packer (Crossway)
When we set ourselves to think about Christian money management, in whatever connection, from buying groceries to supporting missionaries to investing in industry to financing a holiday, the first thing we have to get clear on is that the money that is ours to manage is not ours, but God’s. Yes, we have been given it to use, but it remains his. We have it as a loan, and in due course we must give account to him of what we have done with it.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!
Here are some good posts about preaching:
Preach the Word. Just Preach the Word. – Paul Martin
10 Point Sermon Checklist – Peter Grainger
Moving Beyond One-Dimensional Sermon Applications – Michael Kruger
Our task is to hear God’s voice, believe his words, and follow Jesus even when life is hard.– Edward Welch in Side by Side
What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness (meekness)? – I Corinthians 4:21 ESV (Other Translations)
I, Paul, myself entreat (urge, beseech, appeal to) you, by the meekness (humility) and gentleness of Christ. – II Corinthians 10:1a ESV (Other Translations)
Paul is weary of Corinthians, who are like wayward children, and yet he wants to treat them with gentleness. He doesn’t want to come with a rod, but with gentle love. Notice he doesn’t demand, command, or threaten. But clothed with the gentleness of Christ, he entreats, he urges, he beseechs, he appeals to them. His discipline is gentle.
Sometimes a rod is required. In righteous anger, Jesus chased all buyers and sellers in temple out with a whip. But, usually, we aren’t very good at righteous anger. I used to think that anger was part of discipline. But usually that anger was about me being inconvenienced and having to deal with a situation – nothing righteous about it. And discipline can be done without anger. Even using a rod can and should be done with a gentle loving spirit.
So what does your discipline look like?
Is your default setting to be gentle?
Or to be angry and harsh and violent?
How do you need to change?
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
Distraction Can Cost You Everything – Jon Bloom (DG)
So whatever it takes, we must pay attention to what we hear. For Jesus’s ways and words are often counterintuitive, and we live in a destructively distracting age. And everything hangs on how well we hear Jesus.
Supernatural Comfort When the Days are Dark – Jared Wilson (FTC)
We may not always (or ever) understand the ways of God’s providence, why he makes us certain ways or leads us through certain things. But one thing we can know: looking at the cross, we are very loved.
A 10-Point Social Media Strategy – Ligon Duncan (via Justin Taylor at TGC)
1. Relentlessly encourage, edify, and inform.
Together Again to Enjoy Him: What Makes Sundays More Satisfying – David Mathis (DG)
Our God is the all-satisfying fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13). When we seek to quench our deep soul-thirst in him, corporate worship becomes the stunning opportunity to gather together not just with fellow believers, but with fellow enjoyers of God.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with your local church!
We are longing for the Garden, Living Water flowing through
Bright as crystal in this Eden, Life with God for me and you
We are longing, We are thirsting, We yearn for Christ to return
In this Garden – the Tree of Life, No more death, disease, aging
No more curse, no more cosmic strife, No more pain, sorrow, weeping
We are longing, We are thirsting, We yearn for Christ to return
In this Garden reigns the good King, Evil gone – there is no night
We will serve Him, His praise we’ll sing, Dwelling in His brilliant light
We are longing, We are thirsting, We yearn for Christ to return
In this Garden – His name bearing, Forever we’ll see His face
Close communion ever growing, Behold God’s amazing grace
We are longing, We are thirsting, We yearn for Christ to return
To the tune of “Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending”
Who we love above all else is who we worship, and who we worship controls us.– Edward Welch in Side by Side
The more we experience the Father’s love, the more we will learn to trust him, even in times of extreme need and desperate helplessness.– Phil Ryken in Loving the Way Jesus Loves
Brian J. Mikul 