What will the New Year bring??

Here is a good exhortation from Peter Leithart as we face a New Year:

We begin a New Year on Tuesday. New Year’s Day is a time for assessment and self-evaluation, for reflecting on the past and looking toward the future. It is also a time of uncertainty.

Amid all the uncertainties, we can be completely sure about two things. We can be sure of change. Neither we nor our world will be the same a year from now. For creatures, and creation, change is one of the constants of life.

But in the midst of change, we can also be sure of one thing of absolute stability: Our God is in His heaven and rules over all, our Father loves us in His Son and has given us His Spirit. He is utterly faithful, and He has promised to be our God in all circumstances.

That means that no matter what challenges you face in the coming year, no matter what changes you have to respond to, you can rely on your Father.

Is there a fire of affliction awaiting you? It will not harm you; God only designs your dross to consume and your gold to refine. Are you going to pass through deep waters? Remember Israel and Jonah. Will the Lord lead you by a viper’s den? He says that a weaned child can play by the hole of the cobra. There may be a cross in your future, but remember what our Father did, and does, for the crucified.

Whatever the New Year brings, it will [be] from your Father, and you can trust Him. Whatever comes, it cannot harm you. When the disciples feared the storm, Jesus rebuked them and called them men of little faith. As the New Year begins, confess your little faith and ask the eternal God to help your unbelief.

HT: In Light of the Gospel

I could wish that I myself were accursed….

I’ve read of Paul, the apostle’s zeal for evangelism many times before, but never has it struck me as it did at a funeral the other day. I was at the viewing, had done my best to minister to the family, and I had some time before I was to perform the funeral service. I was feeling the responsibility to truly care for this family in providing comfort in Christ, yet nearly all I spoke to were distressed and seemingly unconnected to Christ.

Sitting in the funeral parlor, I began contemplating Paul’s words written in Romans 9. Did he really say what I recall him saying -- that he would rather himself be cut off from Christ if that would cause his unbelieving kinsman to come to Christ?? Was he truly willing to be eternally separated from the God He loved and the gospel He celebrated and proclaimed if that would mean his fellow countrymen would gain Christ?

Indeed, he did say that. In fact, he begins by saying, “I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 9:1). In other words, this was not overstatement… this was not an over-the-top sermon illustration… this was not a ploy to shock people into giving him an ear. He really meant it.

He then goes on to state that he was experiencing increasing anguish and great sorrow over this (9:2). His heart ached and ached for his unbelieving, Hell-bound, fellow Jews who were blindly living in unbelief. And this swells to a crescendo as he states, “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (9:3).

This is a clear manifestation of the second part of the great commandment – to love our neighbor as ourselves. Talk about self-denial for the sake of others!! That is a true love only wrought by God’s grace.

After the funeral, I was convicted about this. Did I honestly have the zeal of Paul for those people gathered in that funeral home? Does my heart ache for my unbelieving friends and neighbors? Do I have an increasing burden and anguish for my lost loved ones? Do I really… I mean really love my neighbors as myself?

May God do a work of grace in my heart. And my hope is that I will then be freed to pray earnestly, speak boldly, love unconditionally, and sacrificially give myself for there eternal joy.

Family snow ball fight

Non-Crappy Starring You! eCards on JibJab

A warm study on a blustery day

I’m in my office, Bach playing on my iPod (my kind of study music), a cherry candle burning (I suppose that's my feminine side....), a cup of coffee steaming on my desk, a light snow falling outside my window… my setting is delightful, but what I am doing is even more so.

For the next several hours I get to study. But it’s not for a test or quiz. In fact, it’s ultimately not to write a sermon (which is what I am doing). I get to spend several hours contemplating Jesus as “Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6). What a privilege… that God delighted to reveal Jesus as Wonderful Counselor; that God means for me to see and savor and delight in and be nourished by the fact that Jesus is my Wonderful Counselor. And for several hours I get to meditate on this!

And get this… I get paid to do this!!

What a grace of God to allow my heart to see this reality, and that the people I serve give me time to study on their behalf.

May God lead and nourish my soul. And may it burn in me and spill over tomorrow as I try to unpack the riches of this glorious description of my Savior.