HAPPY 490TH CELEBRATION OF THE REFORMATION!

This is my pastor’s letter of encouragement today. It was just what I needed today…everyday! I am so grateful for Pastor Biggs’ faithful teaching and shepherding of his flock, of which I am privileged to be a part! For more of Pastor Biggs’ excellent teaching, visit A Place For Truth.

Are you despairing of your own righteousness today, realizing that you are more sinful before God than you had thought before? Are you realizing that when all is said and done you just are not righteous before God? Or perhaps you are thinking more highly of yourself and your good works before God?

If you are doing either of these things, you are looking to yourself and your own righteousness to affirm and assure yourself before God. When you look to yourself you make null and void the work of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:21).

If you have sought your salvation and righteousness in yourself, and you have realized the depth of your sins before God in words, thoughts, and deeds, then you know how Martin Luther felt when he cried out to his friend John Staupitz, saying: “Who can abide the Day of the Lord’s coming? And who shall stand when he appears?!” (Mal. 3:2).

Luther knew that if he were to be judged before God based on his own merits, then he would be damned and condemned and so his soul was not able to find peace.

Even when we find our righteousness and hope in Christ through faith, we need to daily be constantly reminded of Christ’s righteousness and merits for us- -not our own righteousness as the motivation for all we do. Our best works and good deeds before God are as filthy rags the Bible says.

When Luther was in despair, his friend Staupitz loved him enough to say these words:

“Why do you torment yourself with all these speculations and these high thoughts of your works before God? Look at the wounds of Jesus Christ, to the blood that he has shed for you: it is there that the grace of God will appear to you.

Instead of torturing yourself on account of your sins, throw yourself in your Redeemer’s arms. Trust in him- - in the righteousness and merits of his life- -in the atonement of his death. Do not shrink back; God is not angry with you, it is you who are angry with God.

Listen to the Son of God not your own thoughts; meditate on His Word to you. Jesus became man to give you the assurance of divine favor. He says to you: You are my sheep; you hear my voice; no man shall pluck you out of my strong hand.” ~John Staupitz to Martin Luther, ca.1509.

Be reminded of the truth of God’s grace and righteousness for you found in Christ alone today! This is the simple gospel that God restored in the Reformation and why it must be continued to be preached in the Church today! Do you believe the gospel?

HAPPY 490^TH CELEBRATION OF THE REFORMATION!

^ESV Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In Christ,

Pastor Biggs

Stop Tinkering

“Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God, we do not see ourselves--blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One.”
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), The Pursuit of God [1948]

I need this relief. Badly.

O For a Closer Walk With God

In today's bible reading, this lovely and haunting hymn by William Cowper was juxtaposed in the Book of Life with Jesus' high priestly prayer for his disciples (and all believers!). I thought it was interesting that the authors would make this connection...which seems so appropriate to me, as it is so often my own experience. I especially like the verse that begins with "The dearest idol I have known"...

O for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame,
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!

Where is the blessedness I knew,
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.

Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made Thee mourn
And drove Thee from my breast.

The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be
Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
And worship only Thee.

So shall my walk be close with God,
Calm and serene my frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads me to the Lamb.

Jane Austen on the "mega-church"

In Mansfield Park, chapter 9, Fanny and Edmund are discussing the importance of the clergyman with the disdainful Miss Crawford. Miss Crawford has just observed that don’t have much influence over their congregations, even if they preach “two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own (my footnote says that many preachers of that day would read the well-known and eloquent Rev. Hugh Blair’s sermons rather than preach their own...nothing new under the sun, hmmm?)

Edmund supposes she is speaking of large congregations in London, while he is referring to the rest of the nation.

“We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the largest part only as preachers…”

Twenty Years Ago...

Last month...



My prayer my sweet sons today:

As he pursues his heavenly journey by Thy grace
let him be known as a man with no aim
but that of a burning desire for Thee,
and the good and salvation of His fellow man.
~Divine Support, The Valley of Vision

Give him a desire to show forth Thy praise,
testify Thy love,
advance Thy kingdom.
~New Year, The Valley of Vision

Solemn Vows

Josh and Abby asked Jack to use the Book of Common Prayer wedding service, and I was struck by how few references there were to feelings (love, joy, etc), and how many there were to "solemn vows". Truly, for all the joy and smiles and laughter, it also was a solemn occasion, as Josh and Abby vowed lifelong commitment, and all in attendance vowed to support them in that commitment.

A related item… Wes Callihan had this article in his Scholegium newsletter today.

COGITEM -- Liturgy as a Language

Our pastor recently remarked that there is a liturgical reformation occurring (he's thinking primarily of reformed protestant churches) and it set me thinking about why that should be so. One reason surely is that liturgy is a language that allows us to express ourselves. If you have never learned to play the piano, you cannot simply sit down to one and express the innermost depths of your soul with great overhand swings at the keyboard, Rachmaninoff-style, no matter how passionately you feel like the desire. But if you've studied and practiced and learned the language of piano-playing from those who have gone before, you can express yourself with great freedom. That freedom came from submission to a tradition, the tradition of How To Play The Piano. If you have never learned to speak Spanish, you cannot suddenly start communicating freely with the person next to you on the bus in Guadalajara; but if you've studied and practiced, then you can express yourself. You are freed from the bonds of ignorance and enabled to do something that you never could before, because of your submission to How Spanish Is Supposed to Be Spoken.

In the same way, the liturgies of the Christian Church are a language which, if learned and submitted to, allow us to express ourselves in worship to God in the great communion of the saints. Where did we get the idea that "worship" can be whatever we want it to be? We can't just say anything we want and expect our seatmate on the Guadalajara bus to understand us, and we can't just bang on the piano a la John Cage and expect the audience to understand what we feel, and so we can't expect to do just any old thing in church and expect it to be meaningful. Liturgy is a language that has developed (in many dialects, certainly, but one language) in the Church over centuries and if we learn it, submit to What Worship Is, we participate in a language others have for centuries and still do speak and so we join with them in worship, and we can express ourselves with much more freedom than if we just bang on the keyboard.

Dearly beloved...

Sorry this is the best pic I have of the two of them...seems appropriate that it's with their youngest siblings! Karen and others have much better pics, but I didn't have my camera so handy at the wedding. So, more later.

It was a lovely and spectacular day. It was one of the most picturesque spots I can imagine for a wedding, overlooking a vineyard, and with the Sierras in the distance...topped off by a full moonrise over the vineyard later in the evening. Bride and groom were lovely, happy, and beaming. We are so happy and blessed to have such a sweet new daughter, the perfect wife for our son! It was amazing to watch our son take his solemn vows with this godly and lovely young woman...the baby girl/toddler/child/teen/woman that we have been praying for the last 20 years. God has answered exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we could have asked or desired.

A few more of my pictures:

Groom and Best Man with cigars..

all groomsmen with cigars

handsome group...but they made me cry...where did those little boys with guns go??

Josh and Dad

the rest of us

a big treat...our dear friends (and one set of Joshua's godparents) Kevin and Laura Nary (from our early married days) came from So. CA for the wedding...we had a great time visiting and catching up...haven't seen them in 7 years!! Their grown up kiddos Megan and David (our godson) came too!

Two Kinds of Reading by C.S. Lewis

"There are two ways of enjoying the past, as there are two ways of enjoying a foreign country. One man carries his Englishry abroad with him and brings it home unchanged. Wherever he goes he consorts with the other English tourists. By a good hotel he means one that is like an English hotel. He complains of the bad tea where he might have had excellent coffee. He finds the natives quaint and enjoys their quaintness…In the same way there is a man who carries his modernity with him through all his reading of past literatures and preserves it intact. The highlights in all the ancient and medieval poetry are for him the bits that resemble – the poetry of his own age.

"…But there is another sort of travelling and another sort of reading. You can eat the local food and drink the local wines, you can share the foreign life, you can begin to see the foreign country as it looks, not to the tourist, but to its inhabitants. You can come home modified, thinking and feeling as you did not think and feel before. So with the old literature. You can go beyond the first impression that a poem makes on your modern sensibility. By study of things outside the poem, by comparing it with other poems, by steeping yourself in the vanished period, you can then re-enter the poem with eyes more like those of the natives; now perhaps seeing that the associations you gave to the old words were false, that the real implications were different than you supposed, that what you thought strange was then ordinary and that what seemed to you ordinary was then strange.

"...I am writing to help, if I can, the second sort of reading. Partly, of course, because I have a historical motive. I am a man as well as a lover of poetry: being human, I am inquisitive, I want to know as well as to enjoy. But even if enjoyment alone were my aim I should still choose this way, for I should hope to be led by it to newer and fresher enjoyments, things I could never have met in my own period, modes of feeling, flavours, atmospheres, nowhere accessible but by a mental journey into the real past. I have lived nearly sixty years with myself and my own century and am not so enamoured of either as to desire no glimpse of a world beyond them. As the mere tourist’s kind of holiday abroad seems to me rather a waste of Europe – there is more to be got out of it than he gets – so it would seem to me a waste of the past if we were content to see in the literature of every bygone age only the reflexion of our own faces."

~C.S. Lewis, "De Audiendis Poetis", Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature

Owen and Tennyson

well...long time, no post. I bet you've all been waiting with bated breath...

I'm reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King this summer for Book Tea. It's wonderful, although I might find it pretty hard going if I hadn't read James Knight's version for children of Morte d'Artur and Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain first.

I'm also reading John Owen's Mortification of Sin. These two, surprisingly, complement each other nicely.

When the fair Elaine falls in love with the dashing Sir Lancelot,

"The shackles of an old love straiten'd him,
His honour rooted in dishonour stood
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."

He was faithful to his unfaithful love for Queen Guinevere. Consequently, Elaine pined away unto death and then dramatically (to say the least) made a point of letting Lancelot know. It's worth reading if you don't know the story...and you must read it to understand Anne's perilous river journey which ended with Gilbert's rescue in Anne of Green Gables.

Here's Owen on sin's effect on our judgement:

"Sin's loud voice darkens the mind so that it cannot make a right judgement of things...so that it does not rightly judge the guilt of sin."

Homeschooling Encouragement

Go here for an encouraging article as a dad reflects on what he's learned by homeschooling.

ht Drew Campbell

Humbled By the War I Cannot Win

Paul Tripp has an excellent personal paraphrase of Romans 7 and Psalm 51 on his website today. Just what I needed today as I have been beset and given in all day to impatience and frustration. Thanks be to God!

Here's an excerpt, go here for the entire thing.

I am thankful for God’s grace, but there is daily evidence that I'm still in need of help.
That battle inside me cannot be solved by
Theology
Strategies
Principles
Techniques
Plans
Preparation
Helpful hints
Outlines
I have been humbled by the war I cannot win.
I have been grieved by desires I cannot conquer.
I have been confronted by actions I cannot excuse.
And I have come to confess that what I really need is rescue.
So, have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love
According to your great compassion
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions
And my sin is always before me.
I embrace the rescue that could only be found in you.
Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Scots Wha Hae

To go along with our reading of The Scottish Chiefs, we're memorizing Robert Burn's "Battle of Bannockburn". Robert Bruce's speech in that poem is the Scottish National Anthem. You can listen to it here, bagpipes and all. You should see E & D recite and act this out on the tramp!

Mark Twain on the Sovereignty of God

...although I seriously doubt he would have meant to honor God with this, yet his Presbyterian upbringing and bedrock presupposition is there.

This is from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, describing the death of Injun Joe and the tiny drip of water in the cave which provided some small comfort to him as he was slowly starving to death.

That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was "news." It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this flitting human insect's need? and has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come?

Homeschool or Classical School?

Cindy at Dominion Family has some interesting thoughts on this issue.

I posted this comment on her blog the day before in response to a related post:

It’s my 2 graduated scholars, both godly and intelligent young men whom I respect and enjoy, that keep me going…wouldn’t trade my relationship with them for anything…and I find it hard to believe it could have been built any other way…

And…how would I ever find the time to read aloud for 2 hours a day to my younger crew if they were in school?

Nope…not worth it. Too much I’m not willing to sacrifice for the “potential” academic benefits…which I’m not even sure exist.

This is on my heart b/c I’ve had several conversations about this from younger moms fearing their lack of ability to do high school with their boys.

Should I Be Worried?

My 6 year old son’s response to the very sparse description of Laura & Almanzo’s wedding in These Happy Golden Years:

“Awwww, they didn’t even kiss!”

From Lies of Pen and Tongue…

No wonder this one was left out of the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal. From the 1940 Hymnal, this seems very timely, especially for Anglicans:

O God of earth and altar,
bow down and hear our cry,
our earthly rulers falter,
our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divide,
take not thy thunder from us,
but take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
from lies of tongue and pen,
from all the easy speeches
that comfort cruel men,
from sale and profanation
of honor, and the sword,
from sleep and from damnation,
deliver us, good Lord!

Tie in a living tether
the prince and priest and thrall,
bind all our lives together,
smite us and save us all;
in ire and exultation
aflame with faith, and free,
lift up a living nation,
a single sword to thee.

~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1906

You can hear the tune here.

(I found reference to this hymn in an online journal called Earth & Altar: A Journal of Anglican Life and Worship, an interesting read for Anglicans and Anglican sympathizers.

Light Enough to See My Darkness

from the Valley of Vision, Mortification:

...I have light enough to see my darkness,
sensibility enough to feel the hardness of my heart,
spirituality enough to mourn my want of a heavenly mind...

True words...true of this heart and life. When I look at myself and realize the truth of these words, and the struggle Paul portrays of my life in Romans 7, I am tempted to despair. But...

"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus." ~ Romans 7:25a, 8:1

All the more reason to look to Christ instead of myself, and what I can do in my frail flesh.

Good news. Gospel. Christians need it...every day!

Why Is Church History Important?

~ the question we discussed in Sunday School today, as my pastor is beginning a ??-long series on Church History...how cool is that??

Okay, here are some of the answers we came up with:
1. There's nothing new under the sun. The same heresies are repeated over and over, just with new buzzwords and cultural application.
2. We repeat mistakes if we don't know mistakes of the past (true for all of history).
3. We see God's preserving hand of the true church through the ages.
4. We get context for Scripture, and avoid chronological snobbery (C.S. Lewis)
5. Each age has its own blind spots, including ours!
6. Throughout history, we see God's corporate sanctification and maturing process of the universal (catholic with a little "c") church.
7. We are to comprehend our faith "with all the saints" (Ephesians 3:18)
8. Hebrews 11:36-40: we are part of the family that is listed here...there's more to the story, and it includes us.
9. I Timothy 4:11-16 speaks of the handing down of doctrine and life...must know the life and doctrine of the apostles and church fathers in order to imitate it.

So...all five of you that read this blog...I'd like to know why YOU think Church History is (or isn't) important.

Sola Scriptura or Sola Cultura?

Read this response by John Yates and Os Guiness to a scurrilous op-ed piece in the Washington Post entitled "Episcopalians against equality".
Heres's an excerpt from the list of problems with Episcopalian revisionism of the historic faith revealed in the Scriptures:

Episcopal revisionism negates the authority of faith. The "sola scriptura" ("by the scriptures alone") doctrine of the Reformation church has been abandoned for the "sola cultura" (by the culture alone) way of the modern church. No longer under authority, the Episcopal Church today is either its own authority or finds its authority in the shifting winds of intellectual and social fashion -- which is to say it has no authority.

I'm pleased to see that our Episcopal church of yore (Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, VA) is voting to join Truro and The Falls Church. Pray for these courageous churches as they stand against heresy.

HT Jeanne :)

Why Children Should Memorize Poetry...

...from a beautiful out of print volume on my shelf called "The Children's Library: Poems", Doubleday & Sons, 1904:

"There are people who believe that in the matter of poetry there is no "ought", but this is a false belief. There is a duty, even there; for every American citizen ought to know the great national songs that keep alive the spirit of patriotism. Children should build for their future -- and get, while they are children, what only the fresh imagination of the child can assimilate.

They should store up an untold wealth of heroic sentiment; they should acquire the habit of carrying a literary quality in their conversation; they should carry a heart full of the fresh and delightful associations and memories connected with poetry hours to brighten mature years. They should develop their memories while they have memories to develop." ~Mary E. Burt, editor

More on Epiphany...

From Wes Callihan's very informative and interesting Scholegium newsletter :

Epiphany is the end of the Christmas season. It's sometimes called Twelfth Day (hence Twelfth Night the evening before) because it's the twelfth day from Christmas. The famous Twelve Days of Christmas are those from Christmas to Epiphany. They include the Feast of the Innocents (commemorating the slaughter by Herod of the children), the Feast of the Circumcision (commemorating Jesus' parents keeping the law by having him circumcised on the eighth day), and the Feast of Stephen (commemorating the first martyr).

Epiphany itself began in the very early Eastern church as a nativity celebration but by the middle ages it became, in the Western church especially, a declaration of the manifestation of Christ to the nations as the Hope of the Nations. The Magi were Gentiles, and thus represented the nations, and so in Christian story they became kings, who are heads of their people, because of all the prophecies of kings bringing their kingdoms to the Messiah: "kings will walk in the brightness of thy rising."

So Epiphany is a glorious celebration of the King of the Nations, the Ruler of the World, the Eternal Augustus, the Everlasting Princeps, whose empire has no end in time or space. When we pray "Thy kingdom come", we should remember that Christians have already been praying that for two thousand years and the answer to that prayer was immediate (Already) and is still growing (Not Yet). In his birth, life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ triumphed (past tense) over his enemies, and He will reign till He has put all His enemies under His feet, and that will indeed happen. He wins, they lose. Epiphany is a wonderful time to remind ourselves that that phrase in the Lord's Prayer MEANS SOMETHING. This is 2007 A.D. -- In the Year of the Reign of Our Lord and King Jesus Christ. He owns the world.

You can subscribe to Scholegium here...it's a wonderful mix of history, astronomy, and the tutor's musings.

Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, according to the church calendar.

On his excellent and informative blog, Grantian Florilegium, George Grant writes:

The celebration of Epiphany is the culmination of what is traditionally called the "Twelve Days of Christmas." The word literally means “revelation” or “sudden unveiling” or “manifestation.”

The day, which historically has been celebrated with as much joy as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, commemorates the day when wise men from the East were conducted by a miraculous star to the nativity in Bethlehem. The Magi were thus the first to comprehend that Jesus was not merely the prophetic fulfillment of Jewish aspirations since the beginning of time. Instead, He was the hope of the world, the light of the world, and the joy of every man’s desiring. They beheld the very glory of God that day--for in the city of David, the Savior was born.

As a result, Epiphany is the celebration of the ultimate proclamation of good news. Good news, indeed.

Epiphany was the name of our Episcopal (Anglican!) church years ago…our mission statement was “to make Christ known to the world.” Yes, indeed, good news!

The traditional collect from the Book of Common Prayer for Epiphany:

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know Thee now by faith, to Thy presence, where we may behold Thy glory face to face; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

In Other News...

Okay, that last one wasn't really the last...

There's this big news...





















My oldest (by one minute) son Joshua proposed to his sweetheart, Abby, on the Golden Gate Bridge in SF, and...

...she said YES!!



They've only had eyes for each other since age 15...

...and we are thrilled!


:)

A deep grasp of the sovereign grace of God…

And, finally for tonight…I think you’ll find John Piper’s excellent “Challenge to Women” from the archives of Desiring God to be very thought-provoking, if not terribly politically correct. You can find all fifteen challenge points here.

The one that resonated with me is Number 6:

That you be women who have a deep grasp of the sovereign grace of God undergirding all these spiritual processes, that you be deep thinkers about the doctrines of grace, and even deeper lovers and believers of these things.

I know I believe and assent to God’s sovereign grace, but a “deep grasp”? I read, and try to think deeply about the doctrines of grace, but I’m aftraid I’m a lot like the great philosopher Winnie-the-Pooh…”I try to remember, then, when I remember, I forget…”

To the best of my understanding, thinking deeply about the doctrines of grace is what “Semper Reformanda” (Always Reforming) is all about!

And I am sure, that the deeper grasp and the deeper thinking will lead to the deeper love and belief.

Lord, help me to…

…deeply grasp your sovereign grace…

…deeply think about your doctrines of grace…

…deeply love and believe those truths…and live like it!

Indicative and Imperative

Catchy title, huh? Nice for us grammar geeks, but what about everyone else?

It is a hugely important distinction, and it affects everything about my Christian life.

Here’s what it means: In Scripture, the Indicative tells us who we are, and the Imperative tells us what we must do. The Indicative truth of Scripture tells me who I am in Christ...for example, from Ephesians: chosen before the foundation of the world, holy and blameless, redeemed, forgiven, lavished with riches, beloved of God, made alive with Christ, raised and seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Of course, Paul is careful to make sure I also know what I was before God saved me…dead, dead, dead (repeated over and over), and totally unable to save myself.

Okay, this is not news for most Christians. But, the key is this: the Imperative flows from the Indicative and not the other way around. In other words, what I am to do (Imperative) is simply be who I am (Indicative). My tendency has been to get this backwards and upside down…if I “do” the commands of Scripture…particularly the New Testament commands concerning the Christian life…then I will be accepted by God, or in “right relationship”. (I did already understand that my “legal standing” with God was secure as a Christian, regardless of whether I did the Imperative or not.)

Instead, what God has been teaching me through my pastor and other faithful preacher/teachers, is that “doing” the Imperative of Scripture is simply living like I am who I am (sing Popeye theme now…I yam what I yam…)

In Galatians, who I am is expressed in terms of a son or a slave. I am a son (daughter) of the king…now LIVE like it! Not to gain favor, approval, or blessing …Scripture says I already have those things…but just because it is who I am. Of course, because I am still clothed in sinful flesh, I can’t do it perfectly (that gets into the Already and the Not Yet…another post on some other day). If (when) I fail, I am simply to repent, look to Christ’s finished work instead of my feeble works, and go on…I am not to wallow in despair or agonize over my inability to live the “victorious” Christian life. That would be looking to myself and my works to gain approval, instead of looking to Christ’s finished work that has already brought me God’s approval and blessing, remembering that there is nothing I can do…or NOT do…that will change that one little bit.

Since Scripture tells me I am united with Christ, one of my goals for my Bible reading and study this year is to learn all I can about Christ throughout the Scriptures, so I can better understand who I am.

Most of this came from my pastor, Charles Biggs, as he preached through the book of Galatians for the last few months of 2006. (You can download his sermons here.) I heartily and enthusiastically recommend that you listen…they are life-changing…sounds very cliché, I know, but it is true. And he says it all so much better than I can in this rambling post.

Semper reformanda!!

A Resolution for 2007…and an excuse for 2006

I do hereby resolve to post more regularly this year for my reader (s?).

The Girltalkers are discussing how to keep resolutions, so I’ll be following that thread! I am the conusummate resolution breaker. Other than reading my bible through in a year once or twice (I mean…really finishing…every word), I think most of my resolutions are broken by Jan 2.

The things that I have been reading and studying this past year have been so obviously sovereignly directed by God, and the thoughts and emotions have been overwhelming at times. It has been a season of really sitting at the feet of Christ, and learning the marvelous truths of the gospel over…and in some ways, for the first time, even though I have been a Christian for 20+ years.

In the midst of all this, I think I have been like Mary, pondering these things in my heart…hence the infrequent posting. (Of course, there are other factors…a husband, 6 kids, homeschooling, writing books…but I digress…)

So, to make up for it, I have two other posts to make tonight. J