Day 7: Read the Bible in a Year

 

One of the greatest 'growth disciplines'  for any Christian is using a 'read the Bible in a year' scheme.

While it requires discipline and resolve, there is no substitute for reading the Bible cover to cover, because we're forced to read even the bits that we might naturally avoid and discover treaures we might otherwise miss. So often, I have also found that my reading for a particular day has been uncannily appropriate for a situation or struggle I have been facing.

 

Can I therefore challenge you to make a new years resolution to read the whole Bible in 2013?

 

I can promise you - you won't regret it!

 

There are lots of different Bible reading schemes available to suit every lifestyle, preference and diary pattern. The link below is to a blog I came across a few weeks ago which has helpfully gathered together in one place a collection of the most popular reading schemes available.

 

They are all free to download... you really have no excuse!

 

CLICK HERE to get to them.

 

The blog has got some helpful tips to get you started and you can then view and download the various schemes from here as well.

 

 

DIRECT LINK: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/sgm/post/Nate-Treguboff-Bible-Reading-Plans-for-2013.aspx

Day 6: A Cat for the New Year?

For most 21st century Christians, the word 'catechism' is a dirty word. And the concept of catechizing my children - well that's almost child abuse isn't it?

 

Well think again!

 

New York pastor and author Tim Keller teamed up with the Gospel Coalition last year to produce a new catechism for all the family based on some of the historic catechisms of the past.

 

And it's BRILLIANT!

 

(It's even has it's own free iphone and ipad app!)

(Or there's a web-based version for people who don't own i-things)

(And there's even a pdf version for people who are computer-phobic)

 

As most catechisms do, it's made up of questions and answers, through which biblical truths are taught. Each question comes with an adult answer and a shorter child-friendly answer. The idea is that all the family learns together. There are 52 questions, the idea being that you learn one question a week for the whole year.

 

We've done catechisms as a family for a few years now. I generally compile one once a year that we work through during our summer family holiday. (These are available on the church website - click HERE)

 

Each Q&A in the New City Catechism comes with a supporting bible passage, a short explanation, a prayer and a video clip from Bible teachers such as Tim Keller, Don Carson, Kevin DeYoung, John Piper to name just a few.

 

In short, this is a superb and rich resource!

 

With the new year nearly upkn us, why not make a New Years resolution to  work through it as an individual or as a family this year?

 

If you're not convinced - click HERE for the rationale.

 

If you're interested click HERE to go to the website.

 

 

DIRECT LINKS:

Rationale: http://www.newcitycatechism.com/intro.php

Website: http://www.newcitycatechism.com/

 

 

Day 5: 31 things to pray for your children (or grandchildren)

I recently came across the following really helpful list of '31 Things to Pray for your Children'.

Why not print it out, stick it in your Bible, and use it to help you pray every day of the month for your children or grandchildren.

If you don't have children, why not pick a family you know and pray this for their children?

When we do Child Thanksgivings at church we always ask the congregation to stand up and commit to pray and support the family in question. What better way to do this than to pray for them in the ways suggested here?

Oh, and while you're at it... why not pray these things for yourself as well?

31 Things to Pray for Your Children

1. for their moral purity (Prov. 5;7-23; 1Thess. 4:3-8)
2. to obey and respect authority (Ex. 20:12)
3. God would draw them to Himself at an early age (John 3:3)
4. protected from the schemes of Satan (Eph 6:10-18)
5. know and love God’s Word (Ps. 119:9-11)
6. that they would glorify God in whatever health or life circumstances He gives them, rejoicing always (1Thess 5:18)
7. for them to be wise (wisdom of the Lord – Prov. 1:7)
8. have and be a special friend (David and Johnathan – 1 Samuel 20)
9. they would endure hardship in fellowship with Christ (Col. 1:24)
10. that their “yes” would be “yes” and their “no” would mean “no” (Matt. 5:37)
11. equally yoked to a godly spouse (2 Cor. 6:14)
12. humble, desiring for God to have the glory (2 Tim. 4:18)
13. that their life would be used to promote God’s kingdom (Matt. 28:18-20)
14. understand grace and so live out the law of Christ (Titus 2:11)
15. that my girl(s) would have a quiet and gentle spirit and my boy(s) would be the spiritual leader of his family
16. hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness (Matt. 5:6)
17. identify with femaleness/maleness
18. hate evil and avoid it and get caught when they disobey (Prov 4:14)
19. hard worker (Col 1:28-29)
20. think biblically (2 Cor. 10:5)
21. an encourager to others (Heb. 10:24)
22. love the Church (Eph. 4:14-16)
23. be salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16)
24. be secure in who God has made them to be (Eph. 1)
25. know they are deeply loved (Ps. 103)
26. live selflessly, not selfishly (2Tim. 4:5)
27. love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matt. 22:37-39)
28. love others (Matt. 22:37-39)
29. that they would have honesty with the Lord, themselves, and others (1 John 1:1-9)
30. be faithful stewards of all the treasures and talents God gives them (1 Tim 6:6-10)
31. live by an eternal perspective (Phil. 3:20)

Day 4: God goes camping

At Christmas we celebrate the fact that God went camping.

In the Old Testament, when God’s people were in the wilderness searching for the Promised Land, God gave instructions for an ornate tent to be constructed, called The Tabernacle.

 

Whenever the Israelites set up camp, they did so around the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the focal point of their community. The first thing they saw every morning when they walked  out of their tents was God’s Tent.

 

The Tabernacle was the sign of God’s presence among his people.

 

It was through the Tabernacle that God related to his people.

 

However, because God is holy and we are sinful, there were lots of rules that had to be observed by God's people in order for them to experience God among them.

 

The people had to offer sacrifices to make atonement for their sin. They had to go through priests who mediated on their behalf. And even then they were barred from God’s immediate presence.

 

But at Christmas God pitched his tent in a different place.

 

The Apostle John starts his Gospel by describing the coming of Jesus, the Son of God, who he describes as ‘the Word of God’.

 

He says this:

‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:14)

 

In the original Greek language in which John wrote his gospel, the word translated in our Bibles as ‘made his dwelling’ is the word ‘tabernacle.’

 

When Jesus was born, God set up his Tent on earth in a new way.

 

And boy, was this tent an upgrade!

 

In Jesus – God came to live among us, by becoming one of us.

 

Because of Jesus we no longer need to offer sacrifices, go through priests, or stand at a distance.

 

Jesus offered himself as the full and final sacrifice for sin.

 

Jesus came to be our High Priest – the only mediator we need to come to God.

 

Jesus ushers us into the very presence of God.

 

When Jesus died the temple curtain, which acted as a large ‘no entry’ sign, stopping people coming into the presence of God, was torn in two.

 

Jesus death had opened the way up for us to know God intimately.

 

The writer of Hebrews says this:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-25)
 

Because of Jesus, we can draw near to God!

In Jesus, God invites us into his tent.

And so, learning from God's people in the wilderness, we too are to 'camp around Jesus'. He is to be the focal point of our lives and our church community. He is to be our first - and best - thought in the morning, and our hope for the future.

 

 

Day 3: Advice for Avoiding Family Feuds

 

 

How is Christmas with the family going so far?

 

For many families the festive season is a time to come together and spend a few days getting thoroughly fed up with each other!

 

If that resonates with you, then you will find this short article from CCEF a real help.

 

And even if things are going swimmingly, it's a really helpful  reminder of how we can love the members of our families better.

 

CLICK THIS LINK to read it.

 

(The Christian Counselling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) has been around since 1968. They do a great work resourcing the Church with helpful material for exploring the wisdom of the Bible and applying its grace-centered message to the problems of daily living.)

DIRECT LINK: http://www.ccef.org/family-feuds-how-respond

Day 2: Christmas Flash Mob

 

The church a friend of mine goes to in Maidstone took part in an amazing 'Christmas flash mob'  at the beginning of December this year.

 

If you're not familiar with the term 'flash mob', here's Wikipedia's definition:

 

A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.

However, THIS flash mob was far from pointless!

 

It was designed to be a public act of worship, reminding busy Christmas shoppers of the deeper meaning of Christmas.

 

I hope you'll agree that they did this in a powerful, at times moving, and yet also humurous way! (Keep watching to at least 3mins 46secs because there's a distinct gear shift at this point!)

 

I'd have love to have been there!

Direct Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnZ3OctnFCs

Day 1: The Dignity of Dependence

Happy Christmas Day and welcome to the first of these '12 Blogs of Christmas'.

 

If you can join us, we'd love to see you at our 10am Christmas Day service at Woodgreen Church this morning.

 

 

For this special day, a thought from John Stott about the staggering truth of the incarnation and what it teaches us about the dignity of depending on God.

 

Critics of Christianity sometimes call it a 'crutch for weak people'.

 

But the incarnation shows us that there is nothing demeaning in depending on God.

 

Christmas reminds us that the most appropriate way to respond the God who made us to know him, is to depend totally on him.
 

'Christ himself takes on the dignity of dependence. He is born a baby, totally dependent on the care of his mother. He needs to be fed, he needs his bottom to be wiped, he needs to be propped up when he rolls over. And yet he never loses his divine dignity. And, at the end, on the cross, he again becomes totally dependent, limbs pierced and stretched, unable to move. So in the person of Christ we learn that depedence does not, cannot, deprive a person of their dignity, of their supreme worth. And if dependence was appropriate for the God of the universe, it is certainly appropriate for us.'

 

John Stott, The Radical Disciple, p.113.

 

 

 

12 Blogs of Christmas

 

It's nearly here! Christmas Day is a few days away.

 

For most people, Christmas is a time to stop, rest and reflect on the year that has gone. It's a time of holiday, a break from the hamster wheel of life.

 

Last year I blogged for each of the 12 days of Christmas, starting Christmas Day. Many of you contacted me afterwads to say how helpful you found them.

 

So I'm going to do it again this year.

 

I'm officially on holiday from Boxing Day until 4th January, but I've just finished '12 blogs of Christmas' and they are scheduled to appear in time for breakfast on my blog site or in your inbox if you subscribe by email.

 

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed compiling them and that you find them thought-provoking, heart-warming and helpful as you reflect on 2012 and prepare for 2013.

 

(You can sign-up to get them sent straight to your inbox by putting your email address into using the form on the right.)

The Christmas Chord

For those of you who have asked, this is is the video I showed on Sunday night at our Community Carols by Candlelight: The Christmas Chord.

 

It's an easy video to pass on to friends or family and it does get across something of the wonder of the Christmas story in a very powerful and moving way...

And when we remember this little guy,
We remember he is Son of the Most High.
In a crib, with straw in his face
Yet God's trump card against the sin of a broken race.

Direct Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkx-iqqI7So

Responding to Sandy Hook

27 people dead, 20 of them children under 10, shot by a 20 year old gunman, who killed his parents and then himself.

Sandy Hook School has just joined that terrible list of places that will forever be associated with school shootings: Columbine... Virginia Tech...  Sandy Hook.

When horrific acts of brutality like this occur, we react with shock. We ask: 'how could this happen?' Within the heart of even the most hardened atheist there is an instinct that says 'this is not how things were meant to be'.

This instinct comes from the fact that we were created by God to live in a perfect world, under his Lordship, in harmony with nature and each other. However because we rebelled against God, our relationship with him and each other was put out of joint.

We are broken people who live in a broken world. And the shooting at Sandy Hook is yet another grim reminder of the reality of that fact.

Writing on the Gospel Coalition website, Jen Wilkins eloquently put it like this:

'There is no spin to put on a story like this. Yes, we will hear stories of heroism begin to emerge over the next hours, and they are stories we will need to hear. But there is no way to soften the blow.

Nor should we want to.

As a mother watching someone else's horror play out on a screen, I want to feel this to the core of my being. I want it to inform my thoughts and actions in a way that leaves me changed. Because on days like today we learn just how broken sin has left us, just how bleak is our landscape without a Saviour.

Days like today give us no choice but to hate. They leave us only with a choice of where that hatred will land: Will we hate God, or will we hate sin?

I choose to hate sin. On days like today I will reflect again on the ravaging effects of rebellion against God, multiplied across millennia, manifested in a freshly printed headline. The more shocking the headline, the more I must come to grips with my minimized reckoning of the severity of sin.'

And yet, while incidents such as Sandy Hook should cause us to hate sin, we must remember that there is One who hates sin more deeply than we ever could.

God hated sin - and loved us - so much, that he sent his Son to conquer sin and redeem us. He enacted a plan of salvation that will culminate in a new heavens and a new earth, free of sin, and the heartache it brings. 

And so as our hearts go out to all those who have lost children in this tragedy, we can at least draw comfort from the fact that the God we pray to knows exactly what it is like to lose a child in a brutal and unjust act of violence.

God is able to draw near to the brokenhearted,  because he knows exactly what it's like be brokenhearted.

John Stott once wrote:

'I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain how could one worship a God who was immune to it?'

We must pray that those who are mourning will know the comfort and solace only a God who has been there himself can bring.

'The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.' (Psalm 34:18)