- Rowan Williams, Eucharistic Sacrifice, p. 27. Quoted in John Stott, The Cross of Christ (InterVarsity Press, 1983), 272.

Sometimes we should feel like we’re becoming Christians all over again. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Colossians 2:6).

Since I was recently sent from Grace Church to join Zionsville Fellowship in Indiana, I’ve discussed with others what to do with the blog. Moving forward, I’ve decided to continue keeping it up.

Because of this, it will no longer be directly connected to the ministry of Grace Church. Thus, the first goal of reminding us of the joy of the gospel will become primary. My hope is that we will continue to rest and rejoice in the gospel, seeing it in all of Scripture and receiving it for all of life.

“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). Let’s grab our buckets.

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There’s no question where the biggest and most expensive gifts come from December 25. Kids always make out with the most loot. But the exchange goes both ways. Parents to children and children to parents. Everyone shows up with something to give, even if everyone knows that the biggest ‘givers’ are the parents.

Is that how it works with God? We give him our little gifts but he, of course, gives us the biggest gifts? Not really.

Imagine a Christmas morning when everyone shows up empty handed except the father.  Then, after the presents are opened and enjoyed, the kiddos wrap a few of them back up and give them to dad. Strange, but cute.

And it happens this way year after year. Even when the ‘kids’ are on into their 40s. Strange, and now getting awkward. Still sheer receivers. Everyone knows there’s really only one giver here. So, with David, as we receive everything with thankfulness and offer our lives in response, we gladly confess:

Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own we have given you (1 Chron. 29:14).

Our Father gave his Son for us that he might give himself and all good things to us. So we continue to receive Christ and all of God’s good gifts with empty hands, filled with thankfulness and joy. We say “thank you” not only when we receive, but also when we give. Year after year, day after day. Merry Christmas.

Let me tell you about an amazing experience I had just this morning. Actually “amazing” doesn’t really do it justice. It was out of this world.

This morning God spoke to me.

I know that sounds weird, but I’m sure that’s what happened. The God who made the universe actually spoke to me. I could hear what He was saying just as clearly as you can understand what you’re reading now.

The words He spoke felt like words of life to me.

It was like they resounded deep in my heart.

• There were words of instruction that helped me know Him more and understand his ways.
• There were words of challenge that called me to follow Him better and love Him more.
• There were words of comfort that spoke to my needs and gave me hope. It was like medicine to my soul. It was like a rousing speech before battle. It was like a love song sung to my heart.

But there’s more. Just as God spoke to me, so I spoke to Him. I spoke to Him as someone might speak to their friend. It was like a conversation. He talked to me and I talked to Him. I was able to express my deep appreciation for the words He’d spoken to me. I told Him how I planned to respond. I told Him about my needs and my hopes. I asked for his help, not just for me, but for people I know. I lamented the sorry mess we’ve made of his beautiful world and asked Him to have mercy on specific situations that are weighing heavily on my heart.

I spoke to the God of the universe and He heard me. He listened to what I was saying. And He promised to respond. I don’t know whether He’ll do what I ask. He might have other plans, better plans. But I’m confident He heard me and that He’ll respond in whatever way He thinks best.

What’s more, what happened to me this morning was not a freaky, one-off experience. This happens to me most mornings.

What I did this morning was read my Bible and pray. I just read my Bible and prayed. But there is nothing “just” about just reading your Bible. It really is all that I’ve described. It really is the most amazing, out-of-this-world experience. Every time you read your Bible God really is speaking to you—medicine to the soul, a rousing speech before battle, a love song sung to your heart.

The Holy Spirit spoke through the human authors of the Bible. He ensured that what they wrote truly was the word of God. Their words were God-breathed. So the Bible is the reliable, accurate, sufficient word from God. God has spoken.

But the Holy Spirit is also at work whenever the Bible is read or heard.

He takes the words that were recorded long ago and makes them live afresh. The letter of Hebrews, quoting from the Old Testament, says, “as the Holy Spirit says” (3v7). God has not only spoken in the Bible (past tense). He also speaks through the Bible (present tense).

God speaks to you every time you read the Bible. Personally. Intimately.

I read my Bible regularly because I have to. Not “have to” in the sense that someone might criticise me if I don’t or that God will get miffed with me. But “have to” in the same way I have to eat food every day. This is how I live.

Without God’s word in my life, I too readily get preoccupied with myself, my fears, my insecurities, my reputation. Without God’s word I’m so much more vulnerable to temptation. I need God’s word to realign my heart day by day towards Jesus. I need that medicine for the soul, that battle speech, that love song. And I need it every day.

What are you doing for the next 20 minutes? Here’s an idea.

This rings with truth.  The words are Jonathan Sprowl’s, from his helpful reflection on the first chapter of Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith. My friend and yours, Sprowl is part of the college & 20s group at Grace Church of DuPage and works as an editor at Christianity Today. Read his whole post here.

Not many churches have graveyards anymore, and that is a shame. If one really wants to see a theology for the church in action, one might walk into an old church graveyard at night. Walk about and see the headstones weathered and ground down by the elements. Contemplate the fact that beneath your feet are men and women who once had youthful skin and quick steps and hectic calendars but who are now piles of forgotten bones. Think about the fact that the scattered teeth in the earth below you once sang hymns of hope – maybe “When the Roll is Called up Yonder I’ll Be There” or “When We All Get to Heaven.” They are silent now.

But while you are there, think about what every generation of Christians has held against the threat of sword and guillotine and chemical weaponry. This stillness will one day be interrupted by a shout from the eastern sky, a joyful call with a distinctly northern Galilean accent. And that’s when life really gets interesting.

- Russell Moore, “Personal and Cosmic Eschatology” in A Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel Akin (B & H, 2007), 926.

What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all…

Adoption… is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification… To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.

J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 200-201, 206.

Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’ I know I am very fortunate in that respect…

 [Friendship] causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world

 Tim Keller

Adam was not lonely because he was imperfect, but because he was perfect. The ache for friendship is the one longing that is not because of sin…. This is one ache that is part of his perfection… God made us in such a way that we cannot enjoy paradise without friends.

 Gregory of Nazianzus

If anyone were to ask me, “What is the best thing in life?”, I would answer, “Friends”

 Aelred of Rievaulx

In human affairs nothing more sacred is striven for, nothing more useful is sought after, nothing more difficult is discovered, nothing more sweet experience, and nothing more profitable possessed. For friendship bears fruit in this life and the next

Esther Burr (Jonathan Edwards’ daughter)

Nothing is more refreshing to the soul (except communication with God himself), than the company and society of a friend.

J C Ryle

This world is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It is a dark place. It is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys

John Stott (especially until 1:15)

Jesus Christ

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants… I have called you friends (John 15:13-15)

Lazy? Not me. I’m busy. Up early, up late. My schedule is filled from beginning to end. I love what I do and I love getting stuff done. I attack a daily to-do list with the same intensity I play basketball. Me lazy? I don’t think so!  Or at least I didn’t think so. That is, until I read about the difference between busyness and fruitfulness, and realized just how often my busyness was an expression of laziness, not diligence… The realization that I could be simultaneously busy and lazy, that I could be a hectic sluggard, that my busyness was no immunity from laziness, became a life-altering and work-altering insight. What I learned is that: Busyness does not mean I am diligent. Busyness does not mean I am faithful. Busyness does not mean I am fruitful.

The sluggard can be busy – busy neglecting the most important work, and busy knowing out a to-do list filled with tasks of secondary importance.” So, laziness isn’t just inactivity. It is activity in the wrong direction. It is being active about the easiest things rather than the best things.

This quote came from a series of bog posts that were turned into a 36 page booklet.You can download it here: “Biblical Productivity.”

List of posts:

1. Are You Busy?
2. Confessions of a Busy Procrastinator
3. The Procrastinator Within
4. Just Do It
5. In All Thy Ways
6. The Sluggard
7. Time. Redeemed.
8. Roles, Goals, Scheduling
9. Roles (Part 1)
10. Roles (Part 2)
11. Goals (Part 1)
12. Goals (Part 2)
13. Goals (Part 3)
14. Goals (Part 4)
15. Scheduling the Unexpected
16. The To-Do Lists Are Never Done
17. Self-Sufficient

But now I want to make an attempt to state the most serious problem that I have with your thinking. I am thinking of the up-front emphasis on covenant faithfulness or obedience. Like you I do not think anyone is saved without obedience to Christ issuing from his faith. But the drumbeat of the new covenant is not covenant obedience. The accent is rather on the forgiveness of sins. In His inauguration of the new covenant in the giving of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus does not say anything about obedience but rather: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.” In the new covenant, the heart of things consists in “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph 1:7).

The obedience which flows from this state and experience of forgiveness through Christ’s atonement is not a kind of generalized or vague “lawkeeping” but a being “kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God is Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:34). Thus the covenant drumbeat of “forgiveness” carries right on through into a life of forgiveness and kindness.

Our obedience is charged with the power to forgive and bless and serve others because we have been captured by God’s own pardon and acceptance of us by free grace… You cannot have the kind of family tenderness you seek if covenant obedience is the primary focus. Here I think you are putting the accent in the wrong place and in doing so have really undermined your fine emphasis on the covenant concept as a family relationship.

- Jack Miller, The Heart of a Servant Leader, p.168-169.

Enjoyment of grace and a life of obedience. In the long run, the sure way to have both depends on figuring out where to put the accent.