From One Degree to Another

You may or may not know that my FAVORITE preacher is C.J. Mahaney. I love the way C.J. brings every message back to the cross and is so humble and transparent in his communication. His pointed application always is used by God in my life. I really want to feel the text like he does. I was excited, then, when last week, on the Covenant Life podcast, I got a sermon from him on Adoption. The sermon was titled, “God as Father: Understanding the Doctrine of Adoption” from Galatians 4:1-7. Check it out. It is my free audio recommendation of the week.

Last Monday, I posted Mark Altrogge’s tips for more meaningful Bible intake. Over at the Blazing Center, Mark’s son, Stephen, gives the following tips to encourage Bible intake:

1. Pray as you’re reading
2. Apply one bit of truth
3. Read your Bible in the morning
4. Write while you’re reading

After yesterday’s sermon on denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Jesus, I was thinking about how this concept related to my marriage/family life. As a father and husband, I need to be seeking to encourage radical Christ following in the lives of my wife and child. John Piper calls this building God-esteem not self-esteem into them. In Paul Tripp’s latest book, A Quest For More, he gets to the issue of kingdom allegiance. He summarizes the call of denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Jesus as a simple call: YOU MUST DIE.

Deny Yourself: death to the priority of self
Take Up Your Cross: death to my pursuit of my life
Follow Me: death to my pursuit of my plan

Tripp goes on to ask these questions…

Are you living as his disciple in this way? Are you following his example? Only as we die to the glory of our claim on our own lives will we begin to experience the transcendent glories of living for the Lord. Only when we are willing to the do the unthinkable (preside over our own deaths) does the wonderful (the transcendence for which we were created) become our possession.

Later on in this Tripp says, “To jealously hold on to my dream of what I want to accomplish, experience and enjoy is to guarantee that I will never ever experience true life.” We want that life that is found only in God.

Therefore, as leaders in our homes (or as wives or children seeking to follow Christ), let’s get ride of the selfish things that surround us and inspire God esteem in our own hearts and in the hearts of those we love.

I found a post over at the Said At Southern Blog very interesting. If you don’t know, usually the month of January is a break from seminary classes and time for what they call Winterm (or some sort of clever designation). Tony Kummer suggests using this time to read through the entire Bible. That’s right, he demonstrates how one could read through the Bible in January. Check it out.

Last week’s sermon of the week featured the Pursuit, a conference in conjunction with Sovereign Grace Ministries on Manhood. I want to draw attention to a specific session with C.J. Mahaney in which he fielded questions related to the topic of manhood, including how he leads his son, wife and family, how he maintains accountability with other men and other practical matters. This is a must download. There is also a PDF available which transcripts the time.

Over at the 9 Marks blog, Church Matters, Mark Dever gives the following 5 tips for giving good criticism:

1. Directly, not indirectly.
2. Seriously, not humorously.
3. As if it’s important, not casually.
4. Privately, not publicly.
5. Out of love for them, not to express your feeling or frustration.

For today’s Marriage Monday column, I thought I would give a word of encouragement that I heard in audio (again) from C.J. Mahaney. He also writes about this practice in Sex, Romance and the Glory of God. He writes:

What we love, we want to learn about. And what we love to study, we come to love even more. That’s just the way God has wired us. I love the Terps and the Skins; so learning about them and growing in my zeal for them was a totally natural process.

I still enjoy following these teams, but my strongest passions now lie elsewhere.

My highest and greatest love will always be reserved for God, for when I was his enemy and worthy of his righteous wrath, in his great mercy he sent his only Son to live a perfect life and die a perfect death in my place. But after my love for God, nothing compares to the passion I hold for Carolyn, my wife.

Because I have this passion for her, I have studied her. I’ve noticed and noted the details about her. All kinds of details. Everything from the kinds of snacks she likes, to what certain facial expressions reveal, to this one particular freckle pattern that only I see.

It has been my privilege to be a student of Carolyn since before our engagement. As I have studied her–seeking to learn what pleases, excites, honors, encourages, refreshes, and helps her–my love for her has only increased.

We need to heed C.J.’s good words here and never fail to increase in wisdom and knowledge as it pertains to those we love dearest. This will often happen, as C.J. later admits, in asking questions to draw them out. But pursue it. Study your family to know how you can best serve them. This will help your love and exercising of your role to be done in a way that honors God Himself.

You can now add the ESV to your list of search providers in Internet Explorer 7. This is one of my most valuable tools on my computer. Since I now preach from the ESV, this move has made importing texts into my manusript very easy. You simply can change searching from LiveSearch or Google to ESV and then add a reference and that is pulled up in seconds. It is quicker than a well-trained 4th grader doing the Bible drill. So utilize it.

Over at the Blazing Center, Mark Altrogge writes on 8 ways to get more out of our Bibles:

1. Prepare the night before
2. Pray
3. Same time, same place every day.
4. Keep track of what you read
5. Write in your Bible
6. Read consecutively
7. Use a journal
8. Respond to what you’ve read

These are some great practical helps you simply must check out.

Ray Van Neste offers some tips on what it means to be a man to some college students.

(HT: JT & Tim Ellsworth)