Couple of good posts on New Years and Resolutions-

First from Vitamin Z, quoting Gene Edward Veith.

We have to admit that our own resolutions to improve our lives, however well-intentioned and sincerely meant, often have little effect. We cannot even keep our resolutions to lose weight or work out at the gym, much less eliminate our sins of lust and cruelty.

Surely Edwards would agree with Martin Luther, who, in his spiritual counseling, would urge tormented souls to stop looking at themselves. Instead, they should look outside themselves to Christ on the cross.

Salvation, both would insist, is extra nos (outside ourselves), founded on the unshakable grace of God and on the objective work of Christ. When we look inside ourselves we see our sin and our weakness, leading us only to despair. But when we look outside ourselves to the promises in God’s Word, we can find joy, confidence, and assurance.

Second, from the Blazing Center blog.

The New Year always offers hope for a new start, hope for change. So on Dec. 31, many people make daring resolutions to do things like run 18 miles a day, floss before, during and after meals, and quit listening to Barry Manilow.  Years ago I abandoned making audacious New Years’ resolutions, because I have the willpower of a famished hyena face to face with a medium rare sirloin steak.

Yet I have hope to change.  Because I have an iron will and incredible self-discipline?  Nope.  My hope for change is Christ.  If you’re a believer, Jesus is your hope too.  Here are a few reasons why:

• Because the Father loves you so much he gave his one and only Son to save you.  If the Father loves you that much, surely he’ll help you change.

• Because the Son the Father gave you is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, and the Prince of Peace who cares for you like an Everlasting Father (IS 9).  Jesus employs all his amazing attributes for you.

• Because God will get glory by transforming you.

• Because God has predestined you to be conformed to the image Christ (RO 8.29).

• Because God has promised to complete the good work he began in you (PHP 1.6).

• Because the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control in your life.

• Because Jesus’ rule in your life will keep increasing and advancing (IS 9.7).

• Because Jesus himself is interceding for you day and night (HE 7.25).

We should use all God’s means of grace to grow – reading and meditating on Scripture, prayer, fellowship, worship, communion.  But our hope for change is our mighty Savior, not ourselves.  So take courage – Jesus is at work in you!

For the next two years ASGF is embarking on a two year journey through the Bible we are calling Rooted.   The goal is to read through the entire Bible in the next two years.

You can find the plan for year 1 laid out here and some encouragements on how to go about it here.

I thought about giving a list of reasons or benefits to joining us in this- but I think I’ll leave that to you.  How many reasons can you think of to do this?  How many benefits to joining in on Rooted can you think of?

Matt Schmucker and his wife Elisabeth recently wrote an article for 9marks ministries entitled, “39 Lessons, 20 Tips and 10 ‘Don’ts’ for Parenting.”   This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from the article.

Under the heading- “20 MORE TIPS FOR RAISING GOD-HONORING CHILDREN”

1. One’s conscience is not the same as the Law of the Lord. If conscience is defined as “That inner-voice that acts as a guide as to the rightness or wrongness of a behavior,” then your conscience is only as good as your knowledge of God’s Word. An informed conscience can be a trustworthy thing if it is drawing from God’s Word, God’s Law. An uninformed conscience is incredibly dangerous. Inform your child’s conscience by pouring in God’s Word.
2. We often speak of a home with the aroma of Christ (peace, hope, forgiveness and love—all for God’s glory). Alternatives are homes with the aroma of
   • a bus station—people just passing through
   • a war zone—people fighting all the time

   What does your home smell like?

3. “Moral children” does not equal “Christian children.”
4. Do a “sermon review” with your children sometime on Sunday. Have each child recap what he or she learned in Sunday School or “big church” and then help them apply it to their own hearts and trials. Then spend time praying for each other’s coming week.
5. Martin Luther said he had the responsibility to be the worship leading pastor in his own home. His home was to be both a school and a church. Fathers, do you have this mindset?
6. The unstated implication of Luther’s charge (above) is that fathers need to be present to lead in worship. Being in the house with a Blackberry in hands doesn’t count!
7. Don Whitney encourages “brevity, regularity and flexibility” in family worship.
8. Build in your children a global vision of God’s work in the world and thereby build a Great commission Mindset. We have found that having a map near to where we eat most of our meals is helpful. Reading from Operation World can inform the entire family of God’s work in the world.
9. When children ask for permission to do something, their request can fall into one of several categories:
   

   Not Wise / Permissible E.g. out with friends on Sat night	Not Wise / Not Permissible E.g. underage drinking and driving
   Wise / Permissible E.g. excused from family chores to prepare for next day’s test	Wise / Not Permissible This problem rarely presents itself. Wants to save money for college but is not working age.

   The Not Wise / Permissible category is the hardest to deal with. Try to break down the request and sort out in your own mind why you think the request is unwise. Is it your own preference or is it truly unwise? Then encourage them to think through the wisdom of the matter, so that, even if you permit them to do it, they will remember the lesson when things go poorly.

10. Build Godward children.

C.J. Mahaney recently posted the following at the Sovereign Grace Blog.

The days before Christmas can be a tiring season of preparation, planning, shopping, and wrapping. But I think as we prepare for the Christmas celebrations, dinners, travel, and gift giving, it’s equally important that we pause and prepare our souls for Christmas.

During this time of year, it may be easy to forget that the bigger purpose behind Bethlehem was Calvary. But the purpose of the manger was realized in the horrors of the cross. The purpose of his birth was his death.

Or to put it more personally: Christmas is necessary because I am a sinner. The incarnation reminds us of our desperate condition before a holy God.

Several years ago WORLD Magazine published a column by William H. Smith with the provocative title, “Christmas is disturbing: Any real understanding of the Christmas messages will disturb anyone” (Dec. 26, 1992).

In part, Smith wrote:

Many people who otherwise ignore God and the church have some religious feeling, or feel they ought to, at this time of the year. So they make their way to a church service or Christmas program. And when they go, they come away feeling vaguely warmed or at least better for having gone, but not disturbed.

Why aren’t people disturbed by Christmas? One reason is our tendency to sanitize the birth narratives. We romanticize the story of Mary and Joseph rather than deal with the painful dilemma they faced when the Lord chose Mary to be the virgin who would conceive her child by the power of the Holy Spirit. We beautify the birth scene, not coming to terms with the stench of the stable, the poverty of the parents, the hostility of Herod. Don’t miss my point. There is something truly comforting and warming about the Christmas story, but it comes from understanding the reality, not from denying it.

Most of us also have not come to terms with the baby in the manger. We sing, “Glory to the newborn King.” But do we truly recognize that the baby lying in the manger is appointed by God to be the King, to be either the Savior or Judge of all people? He is a most threatening person.

Malachi foresaw his coming and said, “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.” As long as we can keep him in the manger, and feel the sentimental feelings we have for babies, Jesus doesn’t disturb us. But once we understand that his coming means for every one of us either salvation or condemnation, he disturbs us deeply.

What should be just as disturbing is the awful work Christ had to do to accomplish the salvation of his people. Yet his very name, Jesus, testifies to us of that work.

That baby was born so that “he who had no sin” would become “sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The baby’s destiny from the moment of his conception was hell—hell in the place of sinners. When I look into the manger, I come away shaken as I realize again that he was born to pay the unbearable penalty for my sins.

That’s the message of Christmas: God reconciled the world to himself through Christ, man’s sin has alienated him from God, and man’s reconciliation with God is possible only through faith in Christ…Christmas is disturbing.

Don’t get me wrong—Christmas should be a wonderful celebration. Properly understood, the message of Christmas confronts before it comforts, it disturbs before it delights.

The purpose of Christ’s birth was to live a sinless life, suffer as our substitute on the cross, satisfy the wrath of God, defeat death, and secure our forgiveness and salvation.

Christmas is about God the Father (the offended party) taking the initiative to send his only begotten son to offer his life as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, so that we might be forgiven for our many sins.

As Smith so fitly concludes his column:

Only those who have been profoundly disturbed to the point of deep repentance are able to receive the tidings of comfort, peace, and joy that Christmas proclaims.

Amen and Merry Christmas!

Matt Schmucker and his wife Elisabeth recently wrote an article for 9marks ministries entitled, “39 Lessons, 20 Tips and 10 ‘Don’ts’ for Parenting.”   This is the third in a series of excerpts from the article breaking it down into more bitesize pieces.  Good stuff for for stimulating a thoughtful evaluation of your parenting.

Lessons About Satan

1. It seems Satan comes into our homes on Sunday mornings in order to make the Lord’s Day one of struggle.
2. Do not feel outside pressure to baptize your children. Look for and test for a credible profession of faith in your child (Prov 22:15 “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child…”).
3. Satan is a divider and always attacks authority: husband/wife and parent/child. In your home fight for unity around the gospel.
4. For mothers, the “I-can-do-it-all-superwoman” mindset is at best a myth and at worst a lie from hell (Matt. 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money”; Luke 10:40 “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made; verse 41: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her”).
5. Beware of sports…on Sundays! Decide while your children are young that you will not allow the growing all-weekend sports phenomenon to usurp your worship (Ex. 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God”).
6. Arm your children for the world, not (necessarily) shield them from it. Consider getting your high-school-aged children out of the Christian bubble.

Lessons About God

1. Prayer is a mighty weapon to use in the life of your children:
   1. It changes the parent’s approach to the child
   2. It softens the hard-hearted child
2. God uses children as a mirror to your own heart to expose your sin and hypocrisy.
3. God elects. God saves. Parents cannot do this heart-changing work. At best we can pray and point to the One who can cause our children to be born again.

The following two videos featuring John Piper deal with Christmas traditions in their household (you can read the manuscripts here and here if you have trouble with the video).  They are only one family’s traditions but I found it helpful for my thinking.  Mainly, it challenged me to be thoughtful about how I lead my family in celebrating Christmas.

One question that came to mind was this- Am I more concerned about following traditions or about making Christ the center of our Christmas celebration?  While these might not be mutually exclusive, I do want to be ready to take radical steps to help direct my own heart and my family’s towards admiring and treasuring Christ above all.

Matt Schmucker and his wife Elisabeth recently wrote an article for 9marks ministries entitled, “39 Lessons, 20 Tips and 10 ‘Don’ts’ for Parenting.”   This is the second in a series of excerpts from the article.  You may not agree with every point but I found it helpful for stirring my thinking on parenting.

Lessons About Children

1. Little kids need the strength of your youth; older kids need your wisdom (i.e. have children while you’re young!).
2. Pack in truth while your children are little and trust the Lord to unpack it in his time.
3. Study your children. Know their “love language.”
4. Consistent, loving, faithful discipline brings peace to the home. Inconsistency brings chaos.
5. Do not let your child see their value in light of the world’s standards. The world rewards the 3 R’s. God delights in the heart that is tuned toward his (Deuteronomy 30:8-10: “You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul“).
6. God hands out “talents” to our children. The child with two talents who exercises both may in fact be more pleasing in the eyes of God than the one with five talents who exercises three (Matt. 25). Faithful stewardship is the goal!
7. On some days, it’s just fine to accomplish nothing more than keeping your kids fed and safe.
8. Older children need to learn how to care for the weaker among them; doing so smells like Jesus. Matthew 18 reads, “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.” By contrast, Psalm 10:2 reads, “In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.”
9. Do not presume you will be able to speak into the lives of your older children if you do not live in their world when they are younger. Play with your children. There is a reap/sow principle at work here (2 Cor. 9:6: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously”).
10. There’s nothing wrong with boredom for your children. It causes them to be creative.
11. Send your kids to bed well (and school!) (Eph. 4:26: “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry”).
12. Make sure your kids keep short accounts with each other. Create a culture of care and forgiveness in your home (1 Cor. 13:5: “Love…keeps no record of wrongs”).
13. Teach your kids to be shock absorbers, not wave makers (Matt. 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God”).
14. Kids can memorize scripture very quickly.
15. Teach your children to notice needs. Teach them to ask, “What can I do to help?” (Phil. 2:3: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves”).
16. Teach your children to look adults in the eyes. It shows respect and recognizes authority.
17. Fight materialism by teaching your children to have a thankful heart (1 Thes. 5:18: “…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”).
18. Teach your children to receive reproof, correction, and instruction (Prov. 12:15 “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice”).
19. Let kids be kids. Let them dabble in various areas of extra-curricular activities (sports, art, drama, etc) rather than build a resume.