Here’s a recent quote from the Vitamin Z blog that’s worth meditating on.

The Scriptures systematically strip away the veneer that covers the real truth of the Christmas story.  Jesus did not come to add to our comforts. He did not come to help those who were already helping themselves or to fill life with more pleasant experiences. He came on a deliverance mission, to save sinners, and to do so He had to destroy the works of the Devil (Matt. 1:21; 1 John 3:8b).

Those whose lives were bound up with the events of the first Christmas did not find His coming an easy and pleasurable experience.

Mary and Joseph’s lives were turned upside down.

The shepherds’ night was frighteningly interrupted, and their futures potentially radically changed.

The magi faced all kinds of inconvenience and family separation.

Our Lord Himself, conceived before wedlock, born probably in a cave, would spend His early days as a refugee from the bloodthirsty and vindictive Herod (Matt. 2:13-21).

There is, therefore, an element in the Gospel narratives that stresses that the coming of Jesus is a disturbing event of the deepest proportions. It had to be thus, for He did not come merely to add something extra to life, but to deal with our spiritual insolvency and the debt of our sin. He was not conceived in the womb of Mary for those who have done their best, but for those who know that their best is “like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6)–far from good enough–and that in their flesh there dwells no good thing (Rom. 7:18). He was not sent to be the source of good experiences, but to suffer the pangs of hell in order to be our Savior.

- Sinclair Ferguson, In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life

Here are some challenging and encouraging words from Justin Buzzard from the Buzzard Blog.

We imagine many scenarios. We worry about many things that will never happen. I like the definition of worry I recently came across:

Worry is interest paid on a debt we may never owe.

That’s a definition worth remembering because it exposes the stupidity of worry.

Today is Wednesday, not Thursday.

How much of Wednesday have you spend imagining? I don’t mean the good use of imagination: wondering, dreaming, thinking up new possibilities. I mean the negative use of your imagination: mentally rehearsing difficult or stressful circumstances from your make-believe future. Have you been wasting Wednesday by mentally “trying on” what it might be like to get through your forecast for Thursday?

We become fearful, burdened, not a lot of fun to be around, and terribly ineffective in the present when we try to live life through our imaginations. What is this dynamic about?

A few weeks ago I went for a walk with my friend Toby. I told Toby about some future fears I had for my family and my work. I laid out my scenarios and forecasts. The more I talked through my imagined forecasts, the more troubled I became. Toby noticed this and spoke a powerful sentence to me:

God doesn’t give us grace for our imaginations

Toby reminded me of one of those fundamentals we seem to always forget.

God gives us grace for today, grace for what’s right in front of us. Today is Wednesday. And today God has given us the supply of grace we need for navigating Wednesday, December 16th, 2009. But today, Wednesday, God hasn’t given us the grace to handle Thursday or our imaginations of Thursday.

Stop for a second. Where has your imagination been all day? What have you been imagining about tomorrow, next week, next year? Those imaginations have made you heavy because God doesn’t give you grace for your imagination. He doesn’t work that way. He works this way:

Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day (Exodus 16:4)

God’s grace is like manna. God gives us “a day’s portion every day.” This is why Jesus taught us to pray for our “daily” bread, not “next week’s” bread.

We need to quit being chipmunks. We don’t need to try and stuff our cheeks with today’s manna, anxiously storing up fuel for the nasty winter we imagine around the corner. God doesn’t give us grace for our imaginations, he doesn’t give us grace for our chipmunk approach to life.

But, hear the good news: today God has given you today’s portion of grace. You can quit wasting Wednesday with all your imagining and cheek stuffing. If you’ve trusted Christ, you have a Sovereign Father who sits on a big throne in heaven, exercising detailed oversight over both your Wednesday and your Thursday so that you can devote your full attention to what he has called you to do today: Wednesday, December 16th, 2009.

Ditch you imagining. Quit paying interest on a debt you may never owe. Quit stuffing your cheeks, it looks ridiculous.

My friend Todd tells me the same truth as my friend Toby. Recently my friend Todd sent me this paragraph from Iain Duguid’s commentary on Daniel, commenting on Daniel 3 and Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego’s predicament in the fiery furnace:

As a child and a young person, I sometimes used to wonder and worry about what it would be like to be in their position. What would I do, if I were faced with a similar choice between denying Christ and a painful death? I doubted whether I would be so bold in service of the Lord as these young men were; I feared rather that I would cave under the pressure. As I have grown older, however, I have come to realize two things. First, God has not promised to give us the grace to face all of the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He has promised to sustain us only in the ones that he actually brings us into. He therefore doesn’t promise that we will imagine how we could go through the fire for his sake, but he does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like Manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use; each day receives its own supply.

Amen?

The following post if from Erik over at The Irish Calvinist.  Some helpful thoughts on preaching the gospel to ourselves.

There is a lot of (necessary) talk these days about preaching the gospel to yourself. This is truly a great need for every Christian. We all found ourselves slouching back to the self-promoting, self-worshiping default position of our hearts. That is, we forget the gospel.

But let’s be very clear about what it means to forget. We are not simply talking about forgetting facts or Bible verses. It is not like we somehow can’t remember the definition of substitutionary atonement or that Jesus came to save sinners. No, no, it is much bigger than this.

The Issue is Our Satisfied Delight
When we talk about forgetting the gospel we are talking about forgetting to see the glory of Christ in the gospel. That is, we forget to see the infinite value of Jesus as the redeemer. In this we see our infinite sinfulness, hopelessness, idolatry, and separation from God. The only thing we have to do with God apart from Jesus is to be on the wrong side of his barrel of divine wrath. So in seeing the beautiful sufficiency in Jesus, both his person and his work, we begin to delight in him as our Savior.

In other words, what we don’t just forget facts, but rather to delight in the glorious God behind the facts! Christ and his work is both historical and personal. That is, it happened in time and it happened for sinners like me and you! And the fact that it is successful and available for a rebel like me causes me to be amazed, humbled, refreshed and happy as I bask in the illuminating beams of the glory of Christ through the gospel.

More than an Upload of Data
Preaching the gospel to yourself is not just a mind exercise. You are not to be just reciting facts without the engagement of your heart. The gospel is to stir our minds with theological truth but that stirring also is like a divine oar in the water of our hearts, as it stirs us with rich gospel happiness.

In the gospel we are seeing the glory of Christ in his condescension for us; we see his infinite stooping to rescue infinite sinners and provide eternal righteousness. And then, one day, we’ll see his perfect righteousness and preserving power and unfailing love on full display as we, his bride, the church is wonderfully presented to him as holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. This is all done through his work as the husband par excellence washing us, his bride with his word (Eph. 5.25-27)

So yes, preach the gospel to yourself everyday, even multiple times a day. But do not treat it like you just need an upload of data. Because, in reality, you need much more than that. You need divine help through the Spirit to happily see the glory of Christ in the gospel that you might be transformed into his own image (2 Cor. 3.18)

Here’s a couple of quotes I recently enjoyed from the blog, Of First Importance.

“In fear-based repentance, we don’t learn to hate the sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake. But when we rejoice over God’s sacrificial, suffering love for us – seeing what it cost him to save us from sin – we learn to hate the sin for what it is. We see what the sin cost God. What most assures us of God’s unconditional love (Jesus’s costly death) is what most convicts us of the evil of sin. Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.”

- Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2009), 172.

“The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities. The Redeemer turns rebels into disciples, fools into humble listeners. He makes cripples walk again. In him we can face life and respond with faith, love, and hope. And as he changes us, he allows us to be a part of what he is doing in the lives of others. As you respond to the Redeemer’s work in your life, you can learn to be an instrument in his hands.”

- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands (Phillipsburg, NJ; P & R Publishing, 2002), 16.

“The gospel creates the kind of community that is even now an imperfect preview of the kingdom’s marriage feast that awaits us. The church originates, flourishes, and fulfills its mission as that part of God’s world that has been redeemed and redefined by this strange announcement that seems foolish and powerless to the rest of the world.”

—Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Books, 2009), 11

The following was posted recently over at The Blazing Center blog.  I know I need to hear this.

I want instant answers to my prayers.

Why can’t my prayers be like pop-tarts?  Unwrap ‘em, pop ‘em in the toaster, and zingo, answers.  I don’t want to have to have patience.  In fact, I never pray for patience, because I know that the only way for God to build patience into me is to place me in a situation where I actually need patience.  I’d like a large order of patience, and a side of fries.  Now.  And super-size it while you’re at it.

But it’s through faith and patience we inherit God’s promises (HEB 6.12).

It’s by fighting to  cling to God’s promises  when we can’t see anything that resembles an answer for weeks, months, or years that we gain those promises.

Like a gardener who plants a seed, and every day in faith goes to his garden and waters the ground, though he sees nothing happening on the surface.  Yet he is convinced that something’s going on under ground.  If he’s persistent and doesn’t give up, eventually he’ll see the plant sprout and bear fruit.

We must learn from Elijah not to give up.

In 1 Kings 18, he and his servant climb Mount Carmel where Elijah prays fervently for rain.  Then he calls his servant. “Go up and look toward the sea.  Tell me what you see.”

The servant walks to the edge of the cliff, scans the horizon.

Elijah: “Anything?”

Servant: “Blue skies, smiling at me.  Nothing but blue skies do I see.”

Elijah prays some more.  “Go look again.  Anything?”

Servant: “Nope.  Nada.  Not even a cloud.”

Six times Elijah prays, and six times, no change.  He tells his servant a seventh time to go look again.  Can you imagine the servant by now?  “Right boss, whatever you say.”

Just as he’s about to return with another report of zippo, wait, what’s that tiny puff of white on the horizon?  Can it be…a cloud?  Before long the skies grow black with rain and Elijah’s servant is scrambling for his umbrella.

Keep praying.  Keep believing.  Keep asking, seeking, knocking.  Keep watching for the answer.  One of these days you’ll see that tiny cloud forming, then get ready to run for cover.

The Vitamin Z blog recently posted the following parenting article by Doug Wolter:

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m an overprotective parent. I have a tendency to overdo it and obsess over the little things that don’t really matter. I guess that’s why I was intrigued by this week’s cover of TIME magazine entitled: The Case Against Over-Parenting: Why Mom and Dad Need to Cut the Strings.

Nancy Gibbs begins her article with these provocative words:

The insanity crept up on us slowly: we just wanted the best for our kids.

Ironically, a good desire has led many parents to become obsessed with their kids’ safety and success. Gibbs calls them “helicopter parents” as they hover over their children’s lives from the classroom to the ball field protecting them and pushing them to succeed.

The result? By worrying about the wrong things, Gibbs says, “we do actual damage to our children, raising them to be anxious and unadventurous.” (Pediatricians have also found that this hurried lifestyle of constant pressure and stress can contribute to health problems like childhood obesity and depression).

So what’s the solution? Well, if the problem was simply hovering over our children’s lives, the solution would be to simply back off and lighten up. And there’s some truth to that! But the problem goes much deeper.

The problem is that we are afraid. If our greatest aim as parents is to protect our children and prepare them to receive some kind of academic or athletic recognition, than most likely we are parenting out of fear. Why? Because deep down we’re scared if they don’t succeed. We feel like we’ve failed as parents. So we work hard to prepare our children to make the grade or make the team so we would look good. It’s like our children are little trophies that we, as Paul Tripp says, “secretly want to display on the mantels of our lives as visible testimonies to a job well done” (Age of Opportunity, p. 35).

If we were honest we would admit that much of our parenting is motivated by fear. That’s what keeps us from lightening up and letting go of the reins. And what’s more, as Christians we spend so much time protecting our children from the world that we fail to prepare them to make a difference in this world. Biblical parenting, however, pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle. Psalm 127:4 says,

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth.

Arrows were made to fly. They can’t sit safely in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released! That’s what our preparation is ultimately for–to release our children into this world equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ to serve people for the glory of Christ.

So lighten up all you helicopter parents! (me included). Let go of the reins. Parent your children as God parents you. Protect them, yes. But all the while prepare them … so you can release them … to fly into the battle with the glory of the gospel.