Are you getting into the Christmas spirit yet? Here is a great quote from J. I. Packer on the true spirit of Christmas.

“The Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor–spending and being spent– to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others–and not just their own friends–in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be.” (J. I. Packer, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus, p. 72.)

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Recommended Gifts and Resources for Christmas:
     

John Piper looks at the flip side to the objection that parts of the Bible are too difficult to understand:

It seems to me that if everything were easy and straightforward, no controversy at all, nothing complex, nothing apparently out of sync with my little human brain and its ability to discern contradictions, then I bet there would be a question here like, “If this is really God’s word, why is it so simple?”

I have often thought the same thing. If I understood everything about God and his Word, I would begin to wonder if this was really God’s Word at all. A God that finite human beings can fully understand wouldn’t be much of a God. I would be more inclined to think we made him up. The difficult parts of the Bible just serve to confirm what the Bible clearly proclaims anyways: He is God, and we are not.

        ”The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the
        things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,
        that we may follow all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

        ”For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we
        shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall
        know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Related posts:
    • The Bible Memory Version
    • Amazon Kindle’s Most Popular Bible Highlights

I found this quote about preaching both encouraging and illuminating.

What other form of speech has these five effects: to delight God, to astonish angels, to discourage devils, to encourage saints, and to restore sinners? I’ve done my time preaching to virtually empty halls and churches, and it is a great fillip to remember that three of the five audiences of a sermon are unseen. (Ron Boyd-MacMillan, Explosive Preaching: Letters on Detonating the Gospel in the 21st Century, p. 79)

(fil’lip [noun]: 1. the snap made by a finger which is held down toward the palm by the thumb and then suddenly released; 2. a light blow or tap given in this way; 3. anything that stimulates or livens up; piquant element)

HT: Biblical Preaching

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Are you a spiritual Siskel or Ebert? If so, pastor C. J. Mahaney tells you what you need to do.

Too many churches are populated by spiritual Siskel and Eberts who think their function in the church is to observe, is to criticize, is to evaluate. They are self-righteous. They are self-appointed … They need to repent.

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C.J. Mahaney, February 2, 1999
1999 Desiring God Conference for Pastors
 

Here’s a good reminder from Jerry Bridges:

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

- Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, p. 19

Dallas Willard, commenting on the request, “Give us today our daily bread,” from the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13):

The emphasis is on provision today of what we need for today … So we do not ask him to provide today what we will need for tomorrow. To have it in hand today does not guarantee that we will have it tomorrow when we need it. Today I have God, and he has the provisions. Tomorrow it will be the same. So I simply ask today for what I need for today or ask now for what I need now.

This is how children do it, of course. A mother who discovers that her child is saving up oatmeal, pieces of toast, or strips of bacon for fear of not having food tomorrow has cause to be alarmed. The world being what it is, we can all too easily imagine situations in which the child’s action would be reasonable. But in any normal situation parents will be astonished and pained that the child does not trust them to provide for it day by day …

Now, to make it clear about the teaching and the prayer, it is quite all right, as earlier noted, to have things now that we intend to use tomorrow and to work or even pray in a sensible way for them. What hinders or shuts down kingdom living is not the having of such provisions, but rather the trusting in them for future security. We have no real security for the future in them, but only in the God who is present with us each day. (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 261, Kindle location 4991)

I am in between jobs right now, and so I found this a very encouraging word. Today I have God, and that is enough.

Here is a striking quote from Charles Spurgeon that conveys both his strong burden for evangelism and his great heart for the lost. May God give us grace to grow in these areas.

Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

- C. H. Spurgeon: “The Wailing of Risca” (Sermon No. 349; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 9th, 1860, at Exeter Hall, Strand)

Check out Charles Spurgeon’s Election for the Kindle/iPad/Nook here.

From Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity:

Creatures below us, and above us, bring glory to God; and do we think to sit rent free? Shall everything glorify God but man? It is a pity then that man was ever made.

- Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, p. 9 (from the section on Man’s Chief End )

I like Greg Dutcher’s definition of idolatry:

“An idol is a lousy substitute for God.” (from You are the Treasure That I Seek (but there’s a lot of cool stuff out there, Lord, p. 31)

Related post: No Idols (sermon on the Second Commandment)

“Spiritual discipline means simply this: Do what you don’t want to do, and you will become what you want to be.”

    – Patrick Morley (Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror, p. 234)

From the Christian Post:

“I have a theory why so many pastors burn out: They start out walking with Jesus but they end up working for Jesus.”

(Pete Briscoe of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrolton, Texas, recalled hearing from someone at a time when he was depressed)

Update: I found a similar saying in Oswald Chambers’ devotional My Utmost for His Highest:

“From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66 ). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. (Chambers; Devotional for March 9)

“Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was — a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” (Reference: John Newton, commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:10)