3 days left

“How you live the last three days of 2010 has a direct correlation to how you will live in 2011.”

“The action of delaying the start of something good is generally more indicative of future failure, not success, because inaction seems to be what we are good at. We delay. It’s reasonable to expect more delaying in the new year.

There are three days left in 2010. God may give you one, or all five. They are his gift to you. Do not waste them.”

(Adapted from Darin Patrick via Joe Thorn)

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4 ways to bless your wife

Brian Croft:

Surprise day away. Take a day off work, but don’t tell her.  Then, the night before or early that morning, spring it on her that you are taking the kids for the day and that she can go and do whatever she wants.  Don’t forget to give her some funds for the day.  This is especially a blessing to those wives who are stay at home moms.

Unexpected date night. Find babysitters.  Make the restaurant reservations.  Plan the night around what she would love to do.  Don’t reveal your plans until you absolutely must.  Spend a large portion of the evening encouraging your wife in all she does to serve your family and why you love her.

Bring her flowers on YOUR birthday.  Our birthdays are all about us.  If your wife is like mine, she wants it to be special for you also.  I tried this last year and it was great.  Talk about the time when your wife is least expecting flowers.  Anniversary…sure.  Her birthday…yes.  But  to do it on your birthday when you are to be the focus…it was great.  I am aware that there is a risk that your wife could feel bad as she is trying to honor you.  My wife is hard to surprise and sometimes it requires drastic measures to do so.  As you let her know you “couldn’t help yourself” to do this, I trust it will be received warmly.

Unexpected money or gift. If you are a pastor, most of our budgets are tight.  If anyone knows that as well as you, it is your wife.  Commonly it is our wives that scrape to make our finances go as far as they do.  That is why an unexpected gift to her, or just an envelope with some cash will be very meaningful.  Attach a note that says, “Thank you for all you do!  Please do whatever you wish with this.  The only requirement is it must be spent on you.”  I assume all wives will be moved by this effort.

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Be strengthened by grace

Thanks to Ray Ortlund for sharing this quote that fits my blog title so well:

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  2 Timothy 2:1

“First, then, there is a call to be strong.  Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid.  Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected.   It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong.  Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’  That is the first thing.

Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed.  You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave.  But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation.  Timothy was not to be strong in himself.  He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw.  No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”

John Stott, Urbana 1967.  Italics original.

Grace is not an excuse for weakness; it is an endless resource for strength.

 

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Your primary source of joy

“God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification.”

— Jerry Bridges”The Discomfort of the Justified Life” in Justified: Essays on the Doctrine of Justification, ed. Ryan Glomsrud & Michael Horton(Modern Reformation, 2010), 94

(HT: FI)

 

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