I don’t know if you can see this very well in the picture, but the wind has blown the snow up on to our front porch and sculpted a beautiful snow dune!
Monthly Archive for December, 2008
Page 3 of 5
Over the years we have emphasized teaching on practical Christian living in our church community, but always with an aim to connect the practical with the biblical principles in view. This is why our church magazine is named Credenda (things to be believed) Agenda (things to be done). The believing must come first, but it must be followed by the doing.
Simply believing is not enough; we must be doing, working out what we believe by how we live. My husband grew up in a family that was strong on practical teaching, and he will readily credit his parents with much of what he knows about living Christianly. Ephesians is one of his favorite books, and I have heard him say many times that the first three books in Ephesians have no imperative statements: they are all declarative statements. The last three books are full of imperatives or commands: do this, don’t do that. Continue reading ‘The Need for the Practical’
The other night while I was making dinner I spotted our four year old fiddling with the computer. I told her to get down, which she did, and that was that. After dinner we ran out to do some errands and while my husband ran in Starbucks, I goofed around with his i-phone. I checked my e-mail to find a “Thank you for your $106.oo purchase” note from my cookbook club! Apparently Lina had gone ahead and purchased the entire contents of the shopping cart (which incidentally was not full of anything that I still wanted). Still, it’s nice to have a little help shopping sometimes!
The ways of wisdom have in them a holy security, as well as a holy serenity; and they that walk in them, have God himself for their shield and sun, and are not only joyful in the hope of good, but are, or may be, quiet from the fear of evil.
The paths of wisdom are not like walks in a garden, which we make use of for diversion only, and an amusement; but like tracks in a great road, which we press forward in with care and pains, as a traveller in his journey….till we come to our journey’s end. We must remember, that in the ways of religion we are upon our journey, and it is a journey of business — business of life and death; and therefore we must not trifle, or lose time….and not take up short of the end of our faith and hope, not take up short of home: and though the journey is long, and requires all this care and application, yet it is pleasant, it is peace notwithstanding.
Matthew Henry, The Pleasantness of a Religious Life
Despite all the shopping for the gifts, the household must continue to hum along on all cylinders. So I hope you have been restocking all those Christmas necessities….like toilet paper and matches, or diapers and formula. You get the idea. Who wants to run out of dishwasher soap Christmas morning? Or worse, find that you have no garbage bags when it comes time to clean up. Other necessities? I would say coffee and filters are definitely high on my list. And I filled up my car today. Am I forgetting anything?
ND Wilson is giving away his last two ARC’s (Advance Reader Copies) of Dandelion Fire, and he’s doing it quick. So hustle over to his website and enter! There’s still time to grab one for Christmas morning. And, by the by, the paperback edition of 100 Cupboards will be out on December 23. Nothing like the last minute. Those you must find for yourself in a proper bookstore.
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