Some of you- the more obsessive cumpulsive type- you may be concerned about getting your membership applications in on time considering that December 1st is a Friday. 

If you are in this group your anxiety will be relieved by knowing that we will accept membership applications this Sunday, the 3rd. 

Others of you may see this as a great opportunity to procrastinate for two more days.

Others of you may find this post to be a reminder since you had completely forgotten about filling out the membership application.

Isn’t it great to be a part of such a diverse body!

Regardless, please take the time to thoughtfully fill them out and then bring them Sunday to your Grace Group leader.

The most recent issue of The Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood contains three articles that can be accessed online.  The journal is put out by CBMW (there website is full of great resources).  The three articles are as follows:

• Nicole Whitacre, “Future Homemakers“
• Carolyn Mahaney, “Homemaking Internship“
• Carolyn McCulley, “When You Don’t Have a Better Half: Encouraging Biblical Roles as a Single Woman.“

The importance of our view of womenhood and training women for womenhood cannot be overestimated.  Biblical womanhood is a beautiful thing and women fulfilling God’s design bring glory to their Creator.  If you are a woman please read these.  Feel free to comment below on your thoughts, disagreements, or questions on these issues.

Mark Lauterbauch, in his fourth in a series of posts on the gospel and 1 Peter, relates some helpful thoughts about how the beleiver is to love his community.  Below are his conclusions.

Peter tells them also to LIVE SUCH A GOOD LIFE or live an HONORABLE LIFE among the Gentiles.  In other words, Christians are to be present in the world but living differently from the world.  And the differences are more than what we don’t do — the difference includes what we do.  We are to do good works. 

Good works are about how I live — and good works serve other people. They are works of caring for needs, generous giving, and pursuing justice in the world.

I have been thinking about this some — this means that my life is to make the community in which I live a better place — that is what good works do.  My neighborhood should be safer and more caring because of our presence.  My work should be different because I am there.  There are people with needs that should be met by me because I am doing good.

How does this tie into the Gospel story?  Peter has already established that they are part of God’s redeeming plan and story.  And God’s story includes this truth for our day — we live in a day in which God is showing kindness to the world. He is making the sun to shine on the evil and the good. He is delaying judgment because he is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3). So Christians display the kindness of God by living lives abounding in good works.  And Christians are generous in doing good because God has been extravagantly generous with us in his grace.

Jonathan Edwards said that true love meant a large heart — the inclusion of the good of others as though it were my good.  Peter is saying the Gospel enlarges our hearts.  And our good works commend the Gospel to people who can see but may not want to listen.

Do we love the people around us?  Do we consistently wish for and seek the best for our community?  Do the people in our neighborhood know of our love?

The intake of Scripture is incredibly useful in fostering our growth and stirring our affections.  God’s Spirit works through His word.

In light of this I would reccomend listening to this dramatic recitation of Hebrews 9-10 (it kind of seems like he is preaching it like a sermon).  It was recorded at the WorshipGod06 conference and is about 11 minutes long.  I was a little skeptical about it but was truly blessed in watching/listening to it as Christ and His supreme work was passionately presented. 

The Washington Post, in conjunction with Newsweek has begun a kind of online forum to discuss matters of religion entitled “On Faith.”  They pose a question and then get response from a number of different perspectives.  The question this week is-

If some religious people believe they have a monopoly on truth, then are conversation and common ground possible? If so, what would be the difficulties and benefits of such a conversation?

Al Mohler is one of those asked to respond and gives a solid and helpful article.  Here is a little taste of it.

…when evangelical Christians show up for conversation about the things that matter most, we show up as the people who believe that God has spoken truthfully to us in the Bible–and supremely in Jesus Christ. Do we believe that we possess a monopoly on truth? No. But we do believe that God has spoken, and that we must be faithful to his Word. In other words, we are making a claim that God has revealed himself in a way that gives us access to absolute truth. Furthermore–and here again we must be very honest–we believe that God has revealed himself in the Bible and in Jesus Christ in a way that is unique, definitive, particular, and universal in claim. 

It is also quite interesting to read some of the comments that were made by readers of his article.  Our world, especially the intellectual and academic elite, is not particularly friendly towards absolute truth.  I would guess that some of the other responses to this question may also be enlightining in understanding how the world around us thinks.

As I was reading “Communion with God” by John Owen this evening there were a couple of quotes that were especially good and I thought worth sharing.

“It was his only Son that God sent into the world to suffer for sin (John 3:16, Rom. 8:32). Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful than when the punishment of it fell upon the Son of God.  When God made his Son to be sin for us, he showed how utterly impossible it was for him to let the least sin go unpunished.”

“God was not pleased with the blood, the tears, the cries, and the terrible torments of the Son of his love.  But God required that his law be fulfilled, his justice satisfied and his wrath propitiated for sin.  Nothing less than the death of his Son could fulfil these requirements. S o if we would learn the real truth about sin, we must look at Christ crucified.”

“The whole purpose of sin and why God allowed sin into the world is revealed only in Christ.  Sin was allowed entry in to the world in order that God’s glorious grace may be praised in the pardoning and forgiveness of sin.  Outside Christ, sin in its own nature only brings dishonour to God.  But in Christ, God is seen to be a God pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin.”

“So a true saving knowledge of sin is to be found only in Christ and him crucified.”

If you have at all kept up with the scandal involving mega church pastor Ted Haggard I would highly recommend reading this post by Tim Challies. 

It is not so much an analysis of what happened as much as an examination of our own hearts and sinful tendencies.