Don’t rest on past reading. Read your Bible more and more every year. Read it whether you feel like reading it or not. And pray without ceasing that the joy return and pleasures increase.

Three reasons this is not legalism:

1. You are confessing your lack of desire as sin, and pleading as a helpless child for the desire you long to have. Legalists don’t cry like that. They strut.
2. You are reading out of desperation for the effects of this heavenly medicine. Bible-reading is not a cure for a bad conscience; it’s chemo for your cancer. Legalists feel better because the box is checked. Saints feel better when their blindness lifts, and they see Jesus in the word. Let’s get real. We are desperately sick with worldliness, and only the Holy Spirit, by the word of God, can cure this terminal disease.
3. It is not legalism because only justified people can see the preciousness and power of the Word of God. Legalists trudge with their Bibles on the path toward justification. Saints sit down in the shade of the cross and plead for the blood-bought pleasures.

Mommy-y-y-y! Dad can’t find his keys again and Judson is eating crayons and Norah didn’t make it to the potty and I need help with my homework and someone rang the doorbell and now Dad really needs his keys and Mommy, why are you closing your eyes like that are you tired?

If this scenario sounds familiar, then this article is for you. Yes, you with the peanut butter handprints on your blouse and 14 sticky notes on your refrigerator.

Mommy Needs a Recess

Over the next month or so, I’ll be writing a series of posts about the current state of the christian music industry, more specifically, the current state of that which spearheads it, namely christian radio…

As you might have gleaned from the title, what will follow will be a hard, honest, word of rebuke.  I have no idea if anything I say in these posts will mean anything for the sake of change, but someone has to say it:  Mainstream christian radio is altogether banal and shallow in both a musical sense and a spiritual sense.  The songs are man-centered and the DJ’s and radio programmers are man-pleasers…..they play the songs that will attract the most listeners to their station, period.  Christian radio is like Joel Osteen in musical form….safe, happy, and untruthful.  It is the TBN of music…a large-scale, embarrassing presentation of Christianity to the world.

Read the rest here

It just so happens that The Gospel Coalition conference this past year was titled They Testify About Me: Preaching Jesus and the Gospel from the Old Testament. All 9 plenary speakers spoke on this topic and only begin to scratch the surface of it. The 2 I would highly recommend listening to are:

Tim Keller’s “Getting Out” and

D.A. Carson’s “Getting Excited About Melchizedek”

I’ll also point you to a few book resources. The first is specifically about Christ in the OT and the others while not as specific in focus are more generally about the overall storyline of the entire Bible.

The Unfolding Mystery by Edmund Clowney

God’s Big Picture by Vaughan Roberts

According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy

For those of you interested in sports and especially the phenomenon that occurred this past NFL season, that being Tebow Mania, then you might want to check out this article. It’s a sober perspective from a college religion professor who loves sports. This article will help put it into perspective and may help you talk to those who have had questions about how God is at work in this world. Enjoy

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday?

Derek Thomas:

Books are essential to Christian growth. And, if there is one disappointment I have as I reflect on over three decades of Christian ministry, it is the declining appetite among Christians for good Christian literature. As a consequence, today’s Christianity is less robust.

Read his testimony for an example of how giving a single book can change a life forever.

(JT)

Advent: God With Us

Check out the other links Justin Taylor compiled.

Advent at The Village