2 things

Both via Justin Taylor.


1. John Piper's beautiful and heart-wrenching poem, 'The Innkeeper'. You can listen online here.

2. This short discussion film below. 


Bad Art and the Tortured Beauty of the Cross from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas.

If the chief theme of our lives is not worshiping Jesus, enjoying God in him, and being freshly astounded by his grace toward us sinners, we have no good business endeavoring to bring others into an experience that we ourselves aren’t enjoying. And so it is not only the most missional among us, but all of us, who need reminding again and again, that mission “is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is.”
Year after year, Christmas summons us to think of ourselves as worshipers of Jesus much more than we think of ourselves as on-mission pastors, ministers, leaders, or laymen. May it be true of us this Christmas.

From David Mathis, here. 

The Real Christmas

The Real Christmas

That's Christmas (Short Film) HD from St Helen’s Church on Vimeo.

12th december 2011

Good words from Jared Wilson tonight:

The truth is that faith comes by hearing, not by deducing through comfortable apprehension of good deeds. An implied gospel is a gospel fail.

From here.
And this, from Sinclair Ferguson:

[R]emember that there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a “quasi-substance” called “grace.” All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — “Christ clothed in the gospel,” as Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus. If I can highlight the thought here: there is no “thing” that Jesus takes from Himself and then, as it were, hands over to me. There is only Jesus Himself.

From here.


Both timely words, the first one because i definitely thought that St. Francis' supposed words were true ('Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words')-- and i think i liked that phrase because it validated a cowardly life under the guise of 'preaching the gospel without words'. However, my personal experience is the opposite--Jared Wilson has it right, and Tebow has it right too. And so the way i'm living needs to change. Radically.


The second is timely because i'm realising that i know very little about grace. I thought i wrapped my head round the concept of grace for justification three years ago. But what about sanctification? What about the fullness of grace? What about walking in grace, and standing in grace, and really knowing what grace looks like and is??? And the answer is JESUS. "There is only Jesus Himself." i love that. i want that. i LONG for that. i want to know what that looks like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; at home, work, school, community. For the rest of my life. Praise the Lord that for the Christian, the best is always yet to come. 

this is beautiful

From Justin Taylor.

submission

Sisters, you owe no submission to Hollywood or to Madison Avenue, or to those who listen to them. Your worth and dignity cannot be defined by them. Stop comparing yourselves to supermodels and porn stars. Stop loathing your body, or your age. Stop feeling inferior to vaporous glamor. You are beautiful.

Sisters, there is no biblical category for “boyfriend” or “lover,” and you owe such designation no submission. In fact, to be submissive to your future husband you must stand back and evaluate, with rigid scrutiny, “Is this the one who is to come, or is there another?” That requires an emotional and physical distance until there is a lifelong covenant made, until you stand before one who is your “own husband.”

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord. Yes and Amen. But, women, stop submitting to men.

From Russell Moore's post.

home

Homes are tremendously powerful places, because they are where people come from. There is no more important thing that you could be doing. You do not go home to hide from the world, you go home to change it.

From Homemade People by Rachel Jankovic.

the christmas story

It's time to break this goody out again:

technologie

J'aime cet article, Discerning the Good and Bad in Technology, par Read Schuchardt, a publié par Justin Taylor. 

My favorite example of this is the Bruderhof community who noticed that after using television for a year, their children had stopped singing the community songs and spiritual hymns they used to sing on the playground. So the decision was not over the question, “Is television good or bad?” The question became, “Which do we value more: good television or singing children?”