– Adam Mabry in The Art of Rest
– Adam Mabry in The Art of Rest
There is a time for work and there is a time for rest and recreation. We can dishonor God by working without rest or exercise just as much as we can by resting and exercising without working. The key to learning how to redeem the time is learning how to hold every activity of life in proper proportion, to know what is appropriate for what occasion, and to do it all to the glory of the triune God.
– Ryan McGraw in How Should I Manage Time?
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
Spiritual Disciplines and the Sinkhole Syndrome – Donald Whitney (Ligonier)
Pursue the Lord with a relentless, lifelong, obstacle-defying passion. Resolve never to let your daily life keep you from Jesus daily.
Lay Aside Every Suitcase – Tim Challies
A suitcase is a perfectly good thing that may just kill you in an emergency evacuation. It is a perfectly good thing, but it isn’t good enough to risk your life for. And our lives are full of good things that may just slow us down, that may just hinder us from matters that are far more important—matters of eternal consequence.
Thank God For Your Job (Doesn’t Matter What Your Job Is!) – Tim Challies
As you enjoy rest from your labors, why don’t you take a bit of time to thank God for your labors. No matter what they are, they are evidence of his kindness and mercy toward you.
How to Help Your Children Become Better Sermon Listeners – David Prince
These thoughts are certainly not exhaustive and you may have other creative ways that come to mind, but the key is to not act like getting them in the building is the end of your parental responsibility.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
6 Things Jesus Does With Sin – Jared Wilson
This is how Jesus forgives sin: He condemns it, carries it, cancels it, kills it, casts it, and clean forgets it.
This. Is. The. Day. – Michael Kelley
It will do me no good to wish for another day. A different day. The day that someone else is having. This is the day that I’ve been given. This day, full of the mundane and the ordinary, full of the opportunity unexpected. This one, the one that’s beginning right now, is the day.
Faithfully Delivering the Gospel – Erik Raymond
So what are you, the evangelist, the Christian, to do? Talk to people about Jesus. The power is neither in you nor the sinner, but in the gospel!
Keller’s 5 Ways the Gospel Transforms Your Work – Nicholas McDonald
The way a Christian works is radically different from those around him or her. The gospel ought to transform the way a Christian works from the inside out.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!
Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:
When the Gospel Invades Your Office – Interview with Tim Keller (via Gospel Coalition)
It is quite possible to believe that your deepest identity should be in Christ, but still have a heart functioning as if it is grounded in your work.
8 Observations About Sacrificial Giving – J.D. Greear
Everybody had a part because God was not after a few resources of a few wealthy people; he was after the hearts of all his people.
Seven Reasons Why Evangelism Should Be A Priority Of Your Church – Thom Rainer
Pastors and other leaders must fall on their faces before God and ask Him to reignite their congregations with an evangelistic passion. When evangelism dies as a priority in the church, the church has already begun to die.
6 Simple Ways To Be Missional – Tim Chester (via Resurgence)
We all eat three meals a day. That’s 21 opportunities for church and mission each week without adding anything new to your schedule. And meals are a powerful expression of welcome and community.
How To Grow In Courage – Kevin DeYoung
You will not be bold to speak of Jesus unless you spend much time with Jesus. Courage comes out of communion.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our great God with your local church!
Most of us spend much of lives working. So why do we work? The Bible gives us several reasons to work:
The Bible gives us many reasons to work. Why do you work? Are you working to fulfill your purpose, provide for yourself, help those in need, and show love to God and people?
Tomorrow I am preaching about work and rest. Here are some good related posts for your weekend reading:
The Purpose of Work – Gene Edward Veith (via Gospel Coalition)
According to Luther, the purpose of every vocation is to love and serve one’s neighbor. The farmer tills the ground to provide food to sustain his neighbor’s life. The craftsman, the teacher, the lawyer—indeed, everyone who occupies a place in the division of labor—is providing goods and services that neighbors need. This is God’s providential ordering of society. But for a Christian, the service rendered can become animated with love.
Is the Sabbath Still Relevant – Ray Ortlund
If we did set apart one day each week for rejuvenation in God, we would immediately add to every year over seven weeks of vacation. And not for doing nothing but for worship, for friends, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading and thinking, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender words and personal prayers.
Helpless Sacks of Sand – Tim Challies
It came to me that the fundamental reality of sleep is that it assures us that we are not God. Apparently we all need the ongoing reminder. Psalm 127:2 says “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” We need sleep, and peaceful sleep is a good gift of a good God. Meanwhile, Psalm 121 says “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” We need sleep; God does not. Rather, the unsleeping God grants sleep to the people he loves, the people who need it so badly.
Enjoying Rest, Now and in the Life to Come – Randy Alcorn
What feels better than putting your head on the pillow after a hard day’s work? (How about what it will feel like after a hard life’s work?) It’s good to sit back and have a glass of iced tea, feel the sun on your face, or tilt back in your recliner and close your eyes. It’s good to have nothing to do but read a good book or take your dog for a walk or listen to your favorite music and tell God how grateful you are for his kindness. Rest is good. So good that God built it into his creation and his law.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day gathering with your local church to worship our Lord, and resting from a good week of work!
Let’s do numbers this weekend:
7 Motives in Our Work – We spend a lot of our lives working, but too many people live for the weekends when they can escape work. Here are seven motives to spur us on in our work.
36 Purposes of God in Our Suffering – Your suffering has a purpose! Read through this list, and be encouraged at what God is doing in you.
10 Marks of the Holy Spirit in a Believer – Do you see the Holy Spirit working in your life?
7 Questions to Ask As You Prepare for the Lord’s Supper – These are great questions to use to examine your life. I suspect the answers will not only spur you forward, but also make you incredibly grateful for the forgiveness that is ours in Christ. I just made a copy for my own personal use.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshipping the Lord with your local church!
What does my job have to do with Christ? Some Christians seem to think that they have to waste 40 hours a week working. Ministry is important; work is just necessary. Of course many non-Christians think they have to waste 40 hours a week working so they can afford to party all weekend. Many Christians might feel the same – though they may “party” in different ways. But is work really just a necessity? What if our job is a calling from God? What if we were created to work? What if we can glorify God in our work? And what if the Bible can practically change the way we approach work next Monday morning?
A couple of weeks ago, Bob Thune addressed these issues and more in a four part series. Each part is well worth your consideration; together they may change your entire approach to your work:
Brian J. Mikul 