Day 9 Matthew 2:3
I can be a child of God, be a follower of Jesus for years, and yet some days I can live as if he’s not there.
“Let this Christmas be the time when you consider the Messiah and ponder what it is to worship him.”
Year: 2015
Day 5 Luke 2:6-7
This is my favorite advent devotional so far. Jesus did not take any detours to Calvary. “For your sake he became poor.” (2 Cor 8:9)
“Now if you would think that if God so rules the world…, he surely could have seen to it that a room was available in the inn…The Calvary road begins with a ‘No Vacancy’ sign in Bethlehem and ends with the spitting and scoffing of the cross in Jerusalem.”
Day 4 Luke 2:1-5
God moves world affairs in order to fulfill his plan in the lives of two unknown ordinary people. He can both macro manage the world and micro manage my life.
“For it is implicit in Scripture that all the mammoth political forces and all the giant industrial complexes, without them even…
I started on December 1 to meditate on a daily advent devotional, following John Piper’s plan.
Here are some of my thoughts.
Day 1 Luke 1:16-17
Focusing on Jesus is not as easy as it seems. I am too familiar with the Christmas account that it has lost some of the grandeur and awe for me. Let’s prepare our hearts to receive Jesus afresh.
My son recommended the book, and then took me to see the movie (3D, with reclining sofa seats!)
As always the book is much better than the movie. A movie made it look easy to survive alone on Mars for over a year. The book was pretty exciting, capturing all the hurdles he went over using science, and the amusing personality of Mark Watney.
You would think Jesus only got angry at evil guys, so I was pretty scared when I read this in Mark 3:5 –
“And [Jesus] looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart…”
He was angry at the Pharisees for caring more about the Sabbath laws than about a man’s life. They weren’t murderers or rapists. They were upright citizens who followed the law.
A reminder to myself – another way of saying “It’s not how long you life, but how well you live.”
“You never know when your time is going to expire, so remember: as you add years to your life, it is more important to add life to your years.” Barbara Johnson
I heard this on the radio today that I want to remember:
“Salvation is not just a decision for Christ; it’s continual dependency on Christ.”
Everything about our Christian life is about Jesus.
In the America culture where we value independence, we often live the Christian life by doing things for Jesus. I need to remember to focus on Jesus, not on what I do for him.
Came across this article from Aaron’s blog.
“Slow traffic, a sick child, or a costly home repair may not seem like important tools in our sanctification, but they are. We often overlook these interruptions and inconveniences and instead expect God to work in our lives through huge life-changing circumstances. But the reality is, we won’t…
Picked up this book from the library from the Juvenile section for a quick read about Amy Tan, the author of The Joy Luck Club.
I thought Amy Tan was a great story teller, making up the complicated lives for her characters in The Joy Luck Club. Now I find out those are based of true events in her family, particularly her mother’s life. I have a greater appreciation for her after knowing her difficult crazy family background.