This just made be laugh – because it is so true 🙂
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Read less and meditate more?
How about this from Doug Wolter:
My guess is that many of you have already seen a plethora of Bible reading plans posted on various blogs, most of them encouraging you to get through the Bible in a year. Though I certainly commend this practice (I’ve done it myself), I’ve often wondered if we should approach the Bible differently. Instead of reading quickly through many verses at a time, maybe we should meditate on a few verses more deeply each day. If you’re like me, you rarely take time to just slow down your mind and soak in the truths of God’s Word in such a way that it goes down deeper into your heart. That’s why I was excited to get a copy of this Daily Bible Meditation Guide written by my good friend, Dr. Eric Johnson.
Here’s a blurb from the introduction:
Down through the ages, Christians have taught that we need to drink deeply from the fountain of God’s word and we need to savor its truths if they are to satisfy our deepest longings for greater intimacy with God and if we are to experience a greater healing of our souls from his hand. The purpose of this Bible reading schedule (shortened considerably from schedules that get through the Bible in one year) is actually to limit the amount of Bible we read daily. Reading quickly through many verses may not be as profitable as savoring deeply a few verses. So the aim of this schedule is not to read less, but to meditate more.
Download the Guide from the link about and have a look.
I think this is something that you could easily add on top of your daily Bible reading rather than instead of it…….
Any thoughts?
HT: Tim Challies
Yo Yo Ma and Allison Krauss – Wexford Carol
E-cards for those left behind
I don’t want to be cynical – mainly because I recognise the good intention behind it – but this just made me laugh out loud when I read it on the Killing the Buddha website:
So suppose one day you wake up and all your Christian friends have mysteriously gone missing. It’s creepy, and everyone around you is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Luckily, a few days later you check your email to find you have received the following letter:
Dear Friend;
This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world.
The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.
This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven.
Ahhh, so that explains it!
You won’t know it, but this message has been sent via the website RaptureLetters.com, a new service that promises to send select members of your friends and family an email on the Friday following the dawn of the apocalypse outlining both what just happened and instructions for salvation. Assuming the rapture will have internet access, will run on a Gregorian calendar, and that those left behind will not be too busy running from Antichrist monsters to check their inboxes, your left-behind loved ones will be able to use these instructions to meet back up with you in heaven (fingers crossed!). Additionally, if the first email doesn’t sink in, Rapture Letters will send out an email every subsequent Friday until the recipients have either entered the kingdom of heaven or adjusted their spam filters (whichever comes first).
All you have left to do now is awkwardly prioritize which of your friends you don’t think will make it into heaven and send Rapture Letters their email addresses. You might feel guilty about it now, but they’ll thank you one day when you’re sipping cocktails with Jesus at the millennial after-part
Read the article here.
Simon’s Cat – Santa Claws
Just had to share the Simon’s Cat Christmas treat from Simon Tofield:
Love it! So well observed – just like our cat, Trevor!!!
Wishing you a blessed Christmas….
The last couple of months seem to have gone by as a bit of a blur, not much time to do anything outside of work, including, unfortunately, posting here on the Deliberate Disciple! I have been away a few times, and when I have been at home I have found myself working long hours. On top of everything, the recent snow has meant that most of the seasonal festivities at our church have been cancelled or postponed.
As a result, I find myself on Christmas Eve not feeling very Christmasy. So I thought I would wish you all a blessed Christmas and take some time to allow myself to focus on this annual celebration of the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus, the Christ.
I was in Newcastle shopping a few weekends ago and heard the Salvation Army Band playing Christmas carols – Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World, O Come All Ye Faithful – and found myself in tears of wonder at the glory of God shown through the birth of His son!
The thing is, and this is what impacted me during my consumer-fest that Saturday afternoon, I think we get Christmas all wrong. We spend so much time getting ready to celebrate, sorting out the party, that we miss the awe and wonder of the Christmas season. We get things back-to-front. We party at Christmas and we get all solemn and sad at Easter.
But think about it.
At Easter, we should be reflective, but isn’t it also a time when we should celebrate. After all, Jesus died and rose again to give us life for eternity. If that isn’t something to celebrate then I don’t know what is….
And yes, we should celebrate Christmas, but most of all we should worship and be in awe at what God has done for us in Jesus.
Light of Light. King of Kings.
Becoming like you and me.
Word made flesh.
Emmanuel. God with us.
How wonderful is that? No, literally, how full of wonder are you when you celebrate Jesus’ birthday?
Today is the day to get excited again about the true impact of Christmas, not just for now or this year but for eternity, and not just for you and yours but for all who believe.
Do you feel it? Does it make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? Because it should!
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room. And Heaven and nature sing. And Heaven and nature sing. And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing”.
Wake up and take notice of the birth of the King of Eternity who came in human form to die so you might live through Him.
That is incredible. Unbelievable love.
Worthy of glory and thanks.
Worthy of our full attention.
Worthy of our worship.
So please be blessed this Christmas. Enjoy the celebration and join in the party. But don’t forget to focus on Jesus and worship Him with true awe and wonder. He deserves it.
Bless you and yours.
The Christmas story told through Facebook
This is just brilliant
HT: Simon Napper
Advent – a journey….
Have a read of some of the wonderful Advent thoughts contributed by a number of bloggers and compiled at Syncroblog here.
The geek view of relationships
I think this little cartoon is very profound (and hillarious) – or maybe it’s just the geek in me….
Bored in church? It could be good for you….
Great article by David Fitch on his Reclaiming the Mission blog about finding space in our busy lives to meet with God:
Recently, I was meeting in the corner booth (of the local McDonald’s) with the men in my triad (spiritual formation group) and we were talking about our Sunday morning gathering. I said “one of the best things our gathering can do for people is bore the hell out of em.” Sorry if this seems counter intuitive but I nonetheless believe it is true – literally true. Let me explain……
It is stunning to me how many many people I encounter in a month who cannot even acquire even a modicum of mind space cleared of societal clutter to meet God. We live in a society where God is being organized out of our life experience (and this is most certainly true of our young people). If we don’t have the means to discipline our lives from societal noise, real living with God, listening and responding to his voice is lost from our horizon. God becomes an item to believe, an obligation to take care alongside the many others. And then, and I am dead serious here, other demons take over our lives. Our loneliness/our emptiness becomes filled by multivarious forms of fake pornogaphic substitutes. Demons take over. I see it everywhere.
In the midst of this, sometimes the best place (the only place) I can point people to is the gathering on Sunday morning. Go to the gathering. Not to get pumped up and inspired. Not to take some notes on the three things you can do to improve your Christian life. NO! Go to the gathering to shut down from all the noise – to submit yourself to Christ – the practice of confession – the listening to the Word – the submission to the receiving of the gift for life at the Table – to then once you have seen God again, praise Him as the one true source of your life in Jesus Christ……
The challenge at Advent is not to have a show that will entertain everyone into romanticizing Jesus….Instead, the challenge at Advent is to learn how to wait for Him. Learn patience and wait.
I like this – and think there is a wonderful truth in it that we need to hear!
Slow down
Make space
Be still
The problem is not that we don’t have enough time but that we don’t have the right priorities.
We are so busy, and through our busy-ness we want God to bless us….and yet what He deserves is our attention and our obedience!
If God is distant and low on your ‘To Do’ list at the moment, then maybe a good place to find Him anew is by deliberately standing back during your Sunday morning services this Advent – be silent – and just bask in the atmosphere as a way of finding Him near and close at hand.
Emmanuel – God really is with you – all you have to do is create some space to find Him.
How about being bored and having a go? In the long term you will be glad you did…and it might end up being good for you 🙂
Read the full article here.
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