What can you do this week to intentionally express to your spouse how thankful you are to them? Think! Be Creative! Labor hard to demonstrate this with action. Thankfulness is an overflow of praise from God. Let’s express the overflow of our gratitude to God by demonstrating thankfulness in intentional acts of blessing to our spouses.
HW Recap – What’s Your Motivation?
…for your practice of your role. This was the focus of HomeWord this past Friday evening. Audio of the message Role Motivation from Colossians 3:17-19 should be available soon.
Wives are to submit as to the Lord.
Husbands are to love their wives and not be harsh with them.
What drives our hearts, though, should be motives of thankfulness, pleasing God and love. So, how goes it with you?
How Will Your Practice of Thanksgiving Be Distinct?
This is the question my friend Brad Russell asked me on the phone a few minutes ago. He was on a good roll. It went something like this: “Picture the typical Christian family’s celebration of Thanksgiving. As this is described, ask yourself, ‘How is this any different than the world?’ We will get together with family, some of whom might be annoying. We will sit down and pray over the meal, maybe discuss some things we’re thankful for, eat until we’re stuffed. The ladies will head off to the kitchen to clean up. The men will head off to watch the game. Children will go to play. Then we will go home and be done. So, how is it any different?”
Some may object, well, the prayer will be more God-centered. Ok, but that should be happening year round. Some will say, when we give thanks for the good things God’s done, the glory goes to Him, and lost people aren’t oriented that way. Sure. Some aren’t. Lost people get stuff though and have reasons for giving thanks. What makes our celebration of this holiday distinct?
As a church, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend:
Friday Night at HomeWord, we will be discussing what should motivate our roles in marriage and one of the foundation motivations (according to Colossians 3) is thankfulness.
Sunday Morning Worship, we will be exploring Isaiah 12 and hear a call to thankfulness from God Himself. We will also celebrate thankfulness in remembering the Lord’s work on the cross for us through the Lord’s Supper.
Sunday Evening Dinner, we will join together for a meal and share what God has done in the life of our church, expressing thankfulness to God.
So, join us this weekend for this and let’s seek to make our practice of Thanksgiving distinct and utterly Christ-exalting.
Black Friday 08 – Nov 28
Read the ads for the biggest shopping day of the year.
SOW – Piper and Village
I’m commending 2 sermons this week that have been great food for my soul:
John Piper, “Behold The Lamb of God” – John 1
2 things I recall vividly: 1) John was like an old rooty stump that descended downward. He was the last of the great OT prophets. 2) He existed to point to Jesus. Piper did such a great job of encouraging delight in the Lamb.
Beau Hodges, “An Angst For Unity” – Philippians 1
2 things from this message are: 1) Do nothing from rivalry or conceit – recently seen in the election and the effect our disagreements have on unbelievers, 2) Do you regard others as more important than yourself? What about those people you don’t like as well? These thoughts really drove this message to my heart.
Enjoy!
“All Change Is Not Sanctification…”
…says Stuart Scott, in a Pastoral Counseling class the elders are viewing. We can easily confuse a change in life for a progression in holiness. But what sets sanctification (our pursuit of holiness) in a class by itself is the truth that it exists to make us more like Jesus Christ. Looking more like Jesus is Biblical change and, thus, true sanctification.
TCT – Spirituality
Continuing my series of reflective posts on the book Total Church, today we turn to chapter 9 on “Spirituality”. This subject matter provides the authors a good chance to summarize the emphasis of this book. They write (on p.141):
Biblical spirituality is not about contemplation; it is about reading and meditating on the word of God. It is not about detached silence; it is about passionate petition. It is not about solitude; it is about participation in community. In other words, biblical spirituality reflects the dual fidelity we have argued for throughout this book. It is centered on the gospel and rooted in the context of Christian community.
I couldn’t agree more. Too often in the church, we embrace a worldly understanding of spirituality (through Oprah or some other idea that’s popped into our minds) rather than being shaped by what God has ordained to shape us by. Our passion should be singularly rooted in Christ. As that happens, our lives will be changed and community will honor Him.
Can I listen to my IPod underwater?
MM – Surveying the Damage
In the Danvers Statement, it is interesting to note, when thinking about roles, how the Fall radically affected mankind. They say:
The Fall introduced distortions inot the relationships between men and women.
– In the home, the husband’s loving, humble headship tends to be replaced by domination or passivity; the wife’s intelligent, willing submission tends to be replaced by usurpation or servility.
– In the church, sin inclines men toward a worldly love of power or an abdication of spiritual responsibility, and inclines women to resist limitations on their roles or to neglect the use of their gifts in appropriate ministries.
What this reminds me of, then, is my need for a change of heart through the Gospel.
Empty Religion…
This weekend at our Crestview, we will be exploring the nature of true religion that honors God. In the morning service, we will be seeing Jesus indictment of the scribes in Mark 12:38-40. In the evening service, we will be looking at the true fast of Isaiah 58 as a model for movement into social action. After this PM message, we will hear a presentation from YouthFriends, encouraging us to be involved in the lives of children and students in mentoring/tutoring relationships.
The thing about empty religion is that it is so easy to deceive others. But we can’t shake the reality of what is in our hearts. I hope that God accomplishes heart change in us this weekend and the result is a deeper love for God and our neighbor.
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