Monthly Archives: December 2012

32 posts

Christmas May Come, Christ Is Coming

To say that December 25th is a date that is planned for would be an understatement. But, there is no guarantee that either you or the world will survive until next Tuesday. What is certain is that God will make things happen as he has planned. That is the difference between your planning and God’s planning.    The one great hope that we have is that Christ will return and make all things new! Tears will be wiped away. There will be no need for electric power as the radiant glory of God will supply all the power that we will need. All the inequities of life will be wonderfully and finally resolved.  Our broken bodies will be made whole. […]

Beware of Giving Gifts to Yourself!

Giving gifts to yourself is a dangerous activity. It can cost you far more than the price of the gift. No, I am not talking about the present under the tree that is labeled from Dad to Dad.  I am talking about the gifts you give to your wife or to your kids.    The danger is giving a gift to someone for the pleasure of seeing how much you are appreciated. For example, things are a bit on the difficult side with your teenage son. You give him a new iPhone, thinking that he will be pleased with you. This is where things get dangerous. When your son (or daughter) is not overwhelmed with your gift, you are hurt […]

The Power of Humility

One way to define humility is doing what God wants as opposed to doing what I want. Pride is doing what I want instead of what God commands. To be humble means to consider God before myself. This takes courage and love. The result is the power to live as God commands. As Jesus said. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Pray earnestly for the power of humility. Your children will be threatened by your pride, but they will be blessed by your humility.

LIfe does not Consist in the Abundance of Presents

  With Christmas presents comes Christmas squabbles. Parents, you are familiar with this theme. There is the Christmas rush and the present wrapping. There is Christmas dinner and then Christmas cleanup. Then, after all is said and done, the squabbles begin. Present envy may set in. Some children become excellent time keepers, as in, “Mommy, he has had the car for 17 minutes, when is it my turn?” Other children become hoarders, as in, “All the presents in this corner are mine, so stay away!” Or, there is the dispute over whose present is whose. All of the challenging things your remember from last Christmas, but over the course of 364 days have somehow managed to forget, are back.   […]

The Point of Christmas

  Biblical Christianity is not limited to one culture. The earthly biblical heritage of Christianity is the Ancient Near East, which has influenced Asian, African, and European traditions. In short Christianity addresses not the heart of a particular culture or ethnic background, but the heart of man. Sin is not limited to one culture. It is deeply ingrained in all cultures. Wherever there is man, there is sin!   Thus, God has revealed his righteousness to all the nations. All of the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God. God chose a time and place in the timeline of human history where the message of the gospel would be spread to all the earth. So, Christmas is […]

Hope for a Troubled Community

  There are troubled hearts in your community, even if it is not Newtown, Connecticut. The unsettling events of last Friday reverberate throughout every place where little children attend school. What appeared to be safe, may not be. The time of the Fall can only disguise it’s ugliness for a season. The enemy of our souls is engaged in non-stop attempts to make us think that this world is good and has all that we really need. He would like us to think heaven and eternity are mythical illusions that do not compare with what this world has to offer. But he can only keep this illusion up for short periods of time. Events like Newtown keep reminding us that […]

Thought for the Lord’s Day

  Are you safe? Are your children safe?   The answer depends upon how you define safe. If safety means protection from the evil and devastation of this world, then the answer is no, you are not safe. If safety means you are always in God’s care and that whatever the circumstance, he is working all things together for his glory and your good, then yes, you are safe.    This world is not our home. The ugliness of sin and death mark this world. The enemy wishes to distract us from these realities by fleeting, temporal pleasures. The reality is that we live in a world at war. Sometimes, we are reminded of this war by our own war […]

Tedd Tripp on Newtown

I asked Tedd Tripp for his thoughts about Newtown: Human beings are instinctively and compulsively worshippers. When we fail to worship God we make an exchange and worship created things rather than the Creator. All problems of living come from that great exchange. The Apostle says it like this: “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” Faithless, heartless, ruthless – this describes the evil of Newtown. Mankind’s problems are not solved on the level of behavior, they are solved on the level of worship. This helps answer […]

Why?

  In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings one question continues unanswered – Why? Some say mental illness, others say medications and personality disorder. Many are at a loss even attempting to answer the question of why.  The Governor of Connecticut simply but accurately said, “Evil has visited this community today”.    If we are to accept evil as the answer to why these deaths occurred, then we must ask where does evil come from. Is evil a random force that wanders the world looking for someone to attack? Or is evil more personal? Is evil something that you and I are intimately acquainted with?   G.K. Chesterton, the noted British author, is said to have responded to the question, […]

The Gift of Sex in a Post-Marriage Culture

  Imagine opening presents on Christmas morning. One person receives a number of gifts with delight. But then, upon opening the next gift he shouts, “…what a stupid gift”!  He then proceeds to the trash can where he angrily deposits the gift. Such a show of ingratitude would be almost universally condemned.    But, when it comes to the gifts that God has given to mankind, this sort of ingratitude is common. For example, take the gifts of marriage and sex. Modern culture has determined that sex is a gift that it wants to keep and marriage is a gift for the trash can.   So with no regard for the giver of marriage our culture, our legislators, our educators […]