Truth For Life - July 2, 2010

July 2

Cry to the Lord

Psalms 28:1

Family Bible reading plan

Isaiah 64 

Matthew 12 

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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

Truth For Life - June 16, 2010

June 16

Light in Our Darkness

Psalms 27:1

Family Bible reading plan

Isaiah 48 

Revelation 18 

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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

A Wisdom Retreat - June 15, 2010

June 15, 2010 Sitting in the Sonlight John 15:5

"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." James Montgomery Boice wrote about a dinner he had with a fellow pastor. During the meal, the pastor relayed to Boice the story of a man who had challenged him deeply in his walk with Christ. Bishop James Ussher, an old man who was once a notable Bible chronologist, suffered from many diseases, and was crippled by an inflammation in his joints. His condition forced him to stay home, unable to participate in normal activities.

A visitor hoped to encourage Dr. Ussher, and didn't know that he was the one who would be most encouraged. The experience that day gave him a life-changing perspective.

It seems that every day Dr. Ussher asked his nurse to seat him by the east window in the morning, where he could enjoy the warmth of the rising sun. At noon, his nurse moved him to a window with southern exposure, where the warm rays of the midday sun cheered and soothed him. As the afternoon wore on, he was moved again to a window facing westward, and he sat watching the sun slip below the horizon. As the pastor recalled to Boice during their meal, "Dr. Ussher spent his day literally abiding in the sun."

What an incredible reminder to us! How closely do we follow the Son? Are you abiding in Him as He commanded? If you focus your energy on abiding in Christ, He will reproduce His character in you, over time. That is His promise to us. All those who choose to abide in Him, to literally walk with a constant acknowledgment of His presence, will eventually bear the same qualities that distinguish Him.

Think of it this way: You never sat down with your child and said, "Okay, I'm going to teach you to talk just like me, and speak your words with my accent and inflection." Mom, you didn't give your little girl lessons on how to hold her hands like you do; Dad, you didn't give your son a lesson on how to walk like you do. They learned it over the years of abiding with you—you literally rubbed off on them.

And they are not the only ones who bear resemblances to their parents. Even now, things that you learned from your father and mother are manifested in a variety of situations. You can't fight it . . . this is an inevitable result of spending time with someone, observing and imitating both the desired and undesired characteristics.

Resemblance is the result of relationship. That's why we must focus our eyes on Christ and give daily attention to our relationship with Him. He will teach us to talk like Him, walk like Him, view life like Him, and love like Him.

When you begin to abide in Christ, people will not see you only, but Christ in you. It will be His life, through you, responding to the daily environment and conditions that affect you.

Like Dr. Ussher, we are all crippled and in need of Sonlight. We need His warmth and soothing touch. So pull up your chair beside the window of God's Word, gaze upon the glory of the Son, and reflect the warmth of His light . . .  the true Sonlight.

Prayer Point: Ask the Lord to give your heart contentment in His presence; ask Him to cause you to long for His presence in your daily activities; take time to talk to Him throughout the most mundane activities you perform today.

Extra Refreshment: Read Ephesians 5, where Paul calls believers to imitate God just as a child imitates his parents.

Many today expound on life and illustrate with Scripture;
we're passionate about expounding the Scriptures and illustrating with life.

Desiring God - Week of 6/14

Week of June 14

Submission and Headship in the Home where I Grew Up
John Piper

Last Sunday's message was on the meaning of submission in marriage. I did not have time for this closing illustration. So consider this an application at the end of that message. The point is that my mother's submissive role in relation to my father was not owing to lesser competencies. It was owing to the God-given nature of manhood and womanhood and how they are designed in marriage to display the covenant relationship between Christ and the church.

I grew up in a home where my father was away for about two-thirds of each year. He was an evangelist. He held about twenty-five crusades each year ranging in length from one to three weeks. He would leave on Saturday, be gone for one to three weeks, and come home on Monday afternoon. I went to the Greenville airport hundreds of times. And some of the sweetest memories of my childhood are the smile of my father's face as he came out of the plane and down the steps and almost ran across the runway to hug me and kiss me (no skyways in those days).

This meant that my sister and I were reared and trained mostly by my mother. She taught me almost everything practical that I know. She taught me how to cut the grass without skippers and keep a checkbook and ride a bike and drive a car and make notes for a speech and set the table with the fork in the right place and make pancakes (notice when the bubbles form on the edges). She paid the bills, handled repairs, cleaned house, cooked meals, helped me with my homework, took us to church, led us in devotions. She was superintendent of the Intermediate Department at church, head of the community garden club, and tireless doer of good for others.

She was incredibly strong in her loneliness. The early sixties were the days in Greenville, SC, when civil rights were in the air. The church took a vote one Wednesday night on a resolution not to allow black people to worship in the church. When the vote was taken, she stood, as I recall, entirely alone in opposition. And when my sister was married in the church in 1963 and one of the ushers tried to seat some black friends of our family all alone in the balcony, my mother indignantly marched out of the sanctuary and sat them herself on the main floor with everyone else.

I have never known anyone quite like Ruth Piper. She seemed to me omni-competent and overflowing with love and energy.

But here is my point. When my father came home, my mother had the extraordinary ability and biblical wisdom and humility to honor him as the head of the home. She was, in the best sense of the word, submissive to him. It was an amazing thing to watch week after week as my father came and went. He went, and my mother ruled the whole house with a firm and competent and loving hand. And he came, and my mother deferred to his leadership.

Now that he was home, he is the one who prayed at the meals. Now it was he that led in devotions. Now it was he that drove us to worship, and watched over us in the pew, and answered our questions. My fear of disobedience shifted from my mother's wrath to my father's, for there, too, he took the lead.

But I never heard my father attack my mother or put her down in any way. They sang together and laughed together and put their heads together to bring each other up-to-date on the state of the family. It was a gift of God that I could never begin to pay for or earn.

And here is what I learned — a biblical truth before I knew it was in the Bible. There is no correlation between submission and incompetence. There is such a thing as masculine leadership that does not demean a wife. There is such thing as submission that is not weak or mindless or manipulative.

It never entered my mind until I began to hear feminist rhetoric in the late sixties that this beautiful design in my home was somehow owing to anyone's inferiority. It wasn't. It was owing to this: My mother and my father put their hope in God and believed that obedience to his word would create the best of all possible families — and it did. So I exhort you with all my heart, consider these things with great seriousness, and do not let the world squeeze you into its mold.  

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.