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Helper & Keeper

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psalm-121

I spent some time today meditating on one of the Psalms of the Day (a method I learned from Don Whitney where you take today’s date, the 1st, and add 30 4 times, to get 5 Psalms of the Day for each day of the month to use.  So, today’s Psalms of the Day were: 1, 31, 61, 91, and 121.) in this case Psalm 121.  This is a passage our body has memorized together in the past.  And, it’s an encouraging revealing of God:

He’s our Helper

AND, He never sleeps

He’s our Keeper

AND, He will be forever.

This intersected nicely with the Valley of Vision prayer “Victory” which ended by saying:

When thou art absent all sorrows are here,

When thou art present all blessings are mine.

Today, you may not be aware of your need for help, so you might bow your knee before your Maker and consider what this self-reliance might reveal.  For the rest of us, though, we come clinging to Him.  And, as this Psalm (and prayer) suggests, we can rely on Him to help.

Would you pray that God’s help would come to me in these days?

Book Review: Paul Tripp Greatest Hits, Now Available

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“Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh,” so ends one of the most practical books in the Bible, Ecclesiastes.  And, it makes sense, doesn’t it?  Book lovers love all things books.  And, we’ll exhaust ourselves for the sake of a good book.  There are long books, short books, wish we had more books.  Have you ever read an author and thought, “I wish more people could connect with this author?”  That’s my experience with Paul Tripp.  Every single thing he writes is productive and helpful for me.  
His latest book, New Morning Mercies, is another book among many.  Tripp’s written devotional type books before.  He’s written the textbooks, the practical books, the pastoral books.  So, what is New Morning Mercies?  It’s a collection of writings from Tripp.  These are written up in short blips to read each day.  You might view this collection of writings as a Tripp Greatest Hits piece.  It’s really him at his finest: probing the heart with thought-provoking meditations so that we’ll be driven to our need of the good news found in Jesus.
So, if you find that you can’t quite navigate the preponderance of books, grab Paul Tripp’s greatest hits, New Morning Mercies, so that you might be engaged at the heart level and be left to go to your Savior.  

Weekend Recap – 12/29/13

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My 12/29/13AM sermon, Blessed Devotion from Isaiah 58:1-14, is now online.  The sermon sought to unpack what true devotion to God looks like by pointing to hearts and lives that are humbled before Him.  I hope this sermon is helpful as we reconsider priorities for the New Year.  Have a great week.

Maybe You Should Order TableTalk…

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I really enjoy reading Tabletalk, the devotional magazine of Ligonier Ministries. As you can see from the picture to the left, this month’s magazine is on Christ in the Old Testament and features articles from Sproul, Piper, Mohler, and Elyse Fitzpatrick, among others (many of which can be read online). Tabletalk has a Bible reading plan, which I have used in the past. But, I really appreciate the day by day Bible lessons through books of the Bible each month. I think you would appreciate them as well.

Their website gives: Six Reasons to Subscribe to Tabletalk

1. A Bible Study For Each Day
Tabletalk’s daily Bible studies offer structure for your devotional life. Bringing the best in biblical scholarship together with down-to-earth writing, Tabletalk helps you understand the Bible and apply it to daily living.

2. Great Authors, Thought-Provoking Topics
Each issue contains challenging, stimulating articles on a wide variety of issues related to theology and Christian living, written by eminently trustworthy authors—names like Sinclair Ferguson, John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul.

3. True to Historic Christian Faith
Tabletalk avoids trends, shallow doctrine and popular movements to present biblical truth simply and clearly, in keeping with historical Christian faith and orthodoxy.

4. Friendly, Approachable and Convenient
Readers find Tabletalk approachable and inviting, with many saying it’s like having coffee each morning with their favorite teachers. Its compact size means it fits right in your Bible.

5. A Valuable Guide
Beyond the daily Bible studies, Tabletalk includes carefully selected daily readings to take you through the Bible in a year.

6. It’s Affordable
An annual subscription is just $23 ($37 international), more than 36% off the cover price and only $1.92 per month. And you can try it out for three months absolutely free.

Why not subscribe today?

31 – ways or flavors for praying for your children…

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…found in this helpful post from Bob Hostetler. If you’re like me, you want to pray for your kids. You know that God has to work in them or there really isn’t much hope. You want Him to do His work. You just start rehearsing the same old things. These 31 ways would be a different thing you could emphasize each day of the month. I use Google Calendar to remind me of Psalms of the Day, Scripture memory for the week and could easily incorporate this.

Also, Andrew Case’s book Setting Their Hope in God is helpful for me these days in praying for my children. Whatever you use, though, Pray!

The Bible & Jesus

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From Octavius Winslow’s Morning Thoughts for March 1. Meditating on John 5:39, he writes:

The word of God is full of Christ. He is the Sun of this divine system, the Fountain of its light and beauty. Every doctrine derives its substance from His person, every precept its force from His work, every promise its sweetness from His love. Is it not to be feared, that in the study of the Scriptures it is a much-forgotten truth that they testify of Jesus? Are they not read, searched, and examined, with a mind too little intent upon adding to its wealth by an increased knowledge of His person, and character, and work? And thus it is we lower the character of the Bible. We may read it as a mere uninspired record; we may study it as a book of human literature. Its antiquity may interest us, its history may inform us, its philosophy may instruct us, its poetry may charm us; and thus, while skimming the surface of this Book of books, the glorious Christ, who is its substance, its subject, its sweetness, its worth- and but for whom there had been no Bible- has been deeply and darkly veiled from the eye.

But it is the office of the blessed and eternal Spirit to unfold, and so to glorify, Jesus in the Word. All that we spiritually and savingly learn of Him, through this revealed medium, is by the sole teaching of the Holy Spirit, opening up this word to the mind. He shows how all the luminous lines of Scripture truth emanate from, return to, and center in, Christ- how all the doctrines set forth the glory of His person, how all the promises are written in His heart’s blood, and how all the precepts are embodied in His life.

I hope your heart is warmed by these thoughts and drawn to love Jesus more and more.

Piper Calls Us Deeper

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In a recent commentary, John Piper calls us to a diligent intake of God’s Word which engage the heart and which spring from a head that is delving into deep truth. The main driving force of both is that unless we are deepening our roots in understanding God’s Word our hearts will grow stale and our minds will grow stagnant. Good words indeed.