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Beautiful by Design

Why we're lovely at any size

Liz Curtis Higgs

I once asked my readers, "What words come to mind when you think of your body?" Some responses were predictably negative: "the blob," "the lump," "wide load." But the positive answers were thrilling. "Plush, functional, bountiful, dynamic," wrote one woman. "A wonderful piece of machinery," offered another. My favorite body image? "It washes up nicely and never shrinks!"

The best word to describe your body, however, is beautiful. God's Word assures you, "God has made everything beautiful for its own time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). "Everything" would include you. Top to toe and hip to hip.

Never mind the narrow and ever-changing definition of beauty handed down by Hollywood. God's view is broader and lasts forever. You may never look like an ultra-thin model or movie star, but those celebrities, bless their hearts, will never get to look like you!

Read more at Kyria

Marley and His Message to Scrooge

by R.C. Sproul

Christmas is a holiday, indeed the world’s most joyous holiday. It is called a “holiday” because the day is holy. It is a day when businesses close, when families gather, when churches are filled, and when soldiers put down their guns for a 24-hour truce. It is a day that differs from every other day. Every generation has its abundance of Scrooges. The church is full of them. We hear endless complaints of commercialism. We are constantly told to put Christ back into Christmas. We hear that the tradition of Santa Claus is a sacrilege. We listen to those acquainted with history murmur that Christmas isn’t biblical. The Church invented Christmas to compete with the ancient Roman festival honoring the bull-god Mithras, the nay-sayers complain. Christmas? A mere capitulation to paganism.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

Celebrating a Calvinist Christmas with a Clear Conscience

‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others [1]) claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend that it needs enforcement. It offers to Christians an opportunity for praise and thanksgiving for Christ’s incarnation, good music, family fellowship, the giving and receiving of gifts, and a great many other blessings. What more could anyone want? Taste and see that the Lord is good! (This doesn’t necessarily apply to the fruitcake, but you can participate in the thanksgiving without that!) If anyone, for reasons of conscience, wishes to abstain from the festivities, that is his or her right. But I am not willing to let go unanswered the all-too-common assertion that celebrating Christmas at home or in Church is somehow sinful and unreformed.

Read more at theologia

Badminton Rules: Doubles – what’s in and what’s out?

• During the main part of a badminton doubles rally, every part of the court is in.
• However, the serve must fall into the ‘short and fat’ area diagonally opposite the server.  The side tramlines are in, but the rear tramlines are out during the serve.
• This means that a singles player and a doubles player have similar amount of court to cover when receiving serve (the service area in singles is 24.4m², while in doubles it is 24.2m²).
• The short and wide doubles service area makes it harder to catch an opponent out with a flick serve, therefore allowing the service receiver to stand further forward and attack the short serves as aggressively as possible. Which makes doubles rallies fast and aggressive right from the first stroke – one reason why badminton doubles is so exciting, whether you’re watching or playing!

Read more at Badminton Doubles

Getting the Gold from the Text 

How to capitalize on the inexhaustible riches of Scripture in your preaching without sounding like a Bible commentary.

John Koessler 

Foundational to all good exposition is the conviction that where the Word of God is faithfully taught, the voice of God is authentically heard. In a generation demanding a "now" word from God, as though that would be in some way separate from, or even superior to, the living and enduring Word of Scripture, the expositor believes that everything God has said he is still saying. The preacher's task is not to try to make the Bible relevant; it is relevant, precisely because it is the living Word of the unchanging, present-tense God. Nor is the task to "do something with the Bible," so as to make it palatable to the contemporary scene. Rather, the task is to let the Bible do something with the preacher, so its truth is incarnated in the expositor's life, as well as words, which become the channel of its powerful message to the hearers.

Read more at Preaching Today

Cut and Sharpen

One of God's underused gifts is time to sharpen.

Gordon MacDonald

 

Somehow the Sabbath idea had not come alive to me before. Sabbath was perceived as a wild Sunday of spell-binding preaching, growing crowds, and successful programming. I never imagined a Sabbath experience of majestic worship, joyful quiet (instead of noise), interior "conversation" and a reordering of the pieces of my life. No wonder I felt so messy. I knew none of these.

 

Read more at Leadership Journal

I Wish Those Days Would Come Back Once More

from R.C. Sproul Jr. Oct 29, 2011

As I sit with my suffering wife as she battles leukemia I have two great comforts. First, Jesus has gone before her. There is no suffering we can experience that He did not experience before us.  Second, because He suffered, those days will indeed come back once more. The specter of death that haunts us wears a leash. Jesus has conquered the Grim Reaper, and so his bloody scythe is the very chariot that carries us home. When we are home we will know sin no more. We will be children again. We stand innocent, in Christ, before His judgment seat now. But then we will be innocent in ourselves. Then we will be back in the Garden, to stay. Those days, for we who are in Christ, are coming again.

Read more at Ligionier Ministries

 

A Preacher’s Decalogue

Sinclair B. Ferguson

What Ten Commandments, what rule of preaching-life, do I wish someone had written for me to provide direction, shape, ground rules, that might have helped me keep going in the right direction and gaining momentum in ministry along the way?


Once one begins thinking about this, whatever Ten Commandments one comes up with, it becomes obvious that this is an inexhaustible theme. My friend, the Editor, could easily run his journal for a year with a whole series of “My Ten Commandments for Preaching.” I offer these ten, not as infallible, but as the fruit of a few minutes of quiet reflection on a plane journey.

Read more at The Gospel Coalition

Reformed and Charismatic?
by Michael Horton


We have had enough “apostles,” “prophets,” and “Moses-model” leaders who build ministries around their own gifts.  We need to recover the beauty of Christ alone upon his throne as the Priest-King of his church, exercising his ministry by his Spirit through preaching, sacrament, and discipline in mutually accountable communion with the wider body of Christ.  Reformed theology is not just the “five points” and “sovereign grace,” but a rich, full, and systematic confession.  It’s a human and therefore fallible attempt to wrestle with the whole counsel of God—in both doctrine and practice, soteriology and ecclesiology.  Until we rediscover this richness, “Reformed” will mean “whatever my leader or circle believes.”

Read more at Out Of The Horse's Mouth

Schism and the Local Church

by Michael G. Brown

Because the church consists of sinful people, the reality is that we will be faced with the challenge of dealing with schismatic behavior from time to time. While it is usually an unpleasant experience, we should not despair. By being vigilant in our confession of faith and “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2), we can protect the unity that the Spirit has given us.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

The Rest of the Story

by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Obedience is a rather narrow road. Disobedience, on the other hand, has a great, sweeping plain of options. Because we are like the Pharisees, we find it easy to convert the law of God into sundry sins of omission. We’re much better at not doing what we’re not supposed to do than we are at doing what we’re supposed to do. Thus, we reduce the Sabbath to all the things we’re not allowed to do. We work at fine-tuning the definition of “work” so we can make sure we don’t do it on the Sabbath. In so doing, as is our wont, we miss the point. Were we to divide the Ten Commandments not according to duties toward God and duties toward man, as many do, but instead on the basis of prohibitions and commands, the Sabbath commandment would end up with the commands. It is less about what we are forbidden to do and more about what we are commanded to do.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

Contemporary Music: The Cultural Medium and the Christian Message
What kind of Christians do contemporary services produce?
D. H. Williams

While church leaders rightly want Sunday services to be accessible, they should also be asking about the limits of this strategy. Ironically, a common complaint 20 years ago was that churches alienated visiting nonbelievers with too much Christian jargon. This was a legitimate criticism. But now it seems the impulse toward accommodating the surrounding culture has pushed churches into making the opposite mistake. Has a passion for inclusiveness deluded churches into supposing that doctrinal or liturgical particularity threatens their mission to a religiously pluralized world?

Read more at Christianity Today

Can someone be damned if they repented and continue to repent of their sins? 

from R.C. Sproul Jr. Jun 09, 2011

 
Of course. Even Judas was sorrowful over his sin, according to the Bible. The world is full of people who are disgusted at at least some of their sins, who seek to put particular sins behind them. This kind of sorrow is not how we have peace with God. While repentance is intimately connected to how and why God forgives us, it is not at all by itself a sufficient cause.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

Is church attendance necessary for me to grow spiritually?
Joseph H. Hellerman | posted 5/31/2011

Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. Persons who remain connected with their brothers and sisters in the local church almost invariably grow in self-understanding. And they mature in their ability to relate in healthy ways to God and to fellow human beings. This is especially the case for those courageous Christians who stick it out through the messy process of interpersonal conflict. Long-term relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay grow.

 People who leave do not grow. We all know persons consumed with spiritual wanderlust. We never get to know them well because they cannot seem to stay put. They move from church to church, avoiding conflict or ever searching for a congregation that will better satisfy their felt needs. Like trees repeatedly transplanted from soil to soil, these spiritual nomads fail to put down roots, and they seldom experience lasting, fruitful growth in their Christian lives.

Read more at Christian Bible Studies

Preaching is Performance Art

The way it's delivered is part of the message.

Clayton Schmit | posted 5/23/2011

 

Preaching is not merely the art of textual exegesis, contextual analysis, and creative writing—though it involves all of these. Performance lies at the heart of proclamation.

In literal terms, the word performance means to bring a message through (per) a form. It is a tool for expression, not a means of drawing attention to the performer. Our suspicions of performance are based on a caricature of the real thing, a performance pathology.

Ultimately, if the preacher's words are to become the Word of life, they must be presented in a way that creates a world for listeners to inhabit. This has to do with delivery, but there is more. To truly understand performance requires a theological understanding of human responsibility in the equation of incarnation.

It also means accepting that the call to preach demands submission and humility. Preaching is always about God; preachers must keep it from being about anything else, especially about them.

Good preaching comes alive and speaks to the heart precisely because it is well presented, with proper gesture, vocal technique, and bodily presence. People in the performing arts call this "stage presence." We might call it liturgical presence, or pulpit presence. All effective communicators realize that they must master numerous techniques in order to impact their audience.

 

Read more at Leadership Journal.net

5 Things Men Must Know about Women

There are 5 things that men must know about women. Women desire to “feel” these things, not just know them logically.  In her book, For Men Only, author Shaunti Feldhahn goes into great depth addressing these five, and a few others men need to know.

Men must know that:

1.    Women want to feel loved.  Many women feel insecure about our love for them.  There are two things we men can do about it.  First, reassure her.  In times of conflict with our wives, we should tell them we love them no matter what and that everything will be okay—“I love you.  We’ll get through this.” When she’s upset, she doesn’t need space,” she needs a hug and to be held.  Second, pursue her.  Women need to be pursued throughout the relationship, just as we pursued them before we got married.

2.    Women want to feel understood.  Women need us to understand how they think and feel, even though that is virtually impossible.  It would help us to understand that most women’s thought lives are like computers, with multiple windows open and processing all at once.  Unlike men who can only process one thing at a time, women are constantly juggling multiple thoughts and emotions all at the same time. On more than one occasion, I’ve watch my wife, daughters and their friends having a conversation where three of them were talking at once about three different things.  And guess what, they all understood each other! So, hopefully, if we can generally understand how women think, we might be better able to understand how they feel.

3.    Women want to feel emotionally secure.  Women want security.   Yes, financial security is important, but it comes second to emotional security.  Women do think about the house, bills and tuition, but feeling emotionally connected and close to us; and knowing we are there for her, no matter what, is what really matters.

4.    Women want to feel listened to.  Men, she doesn’t want us to fix it, she just wants us to listen.  She doesn’t want or need our solution to the problem, even if she asked for our opinion.  She does want us to understand how she’s feeling about the problem and identify with her in that feeling—“Thanks for sharing that with me.” or “I’m so sorry that happened.” might be good words to consider saying to her.

5.    Women want to feel beautiful.  She needs to know, deep within, that we find her beautiful and that we only have eyes for her.  She doesn’t just want to know, “Am I beautiful?” but, “Am I beautiful to him?”  There may be many mirrors in your home, but the mirror that means most to your wife is you.

http://www.markmerrill.com/2010/10/05/5-things-men-must-know-about-women/

Our Liberating God

by Burk Parsons

Why would anyone love the law of God? Why would we love that which constantly tells us what miserable wretches we are, daily points out all our shortcomings, relentlessly reminds us of all our death-deserving sins, and keeps knocking us down to our knees, leaving us crying out for help?

The truth of the matter is that not just anyone loves the law of God but only those who have been set free by our law-giving, law-keeping, and law-liberating Savior. We love the law of God not because we possess some sort of inherent self-inflicting, self-deprecating sadistic disposition towards our sin but because, in His electing grace, God set His glorious and enduring love upon us, laid His eternal claim upon us, took hold of us and clutched us in His strong hands, and made us His dutiful bondslaves that we might be free to delight in His law (Rom. 7:22) and in all the commands of Christ (Matt. 28:20), who by no means abolished the Law but in fact fulfilled it perfectly in our behalf (Matt. 5:17). His death is our life. His fulfillment is our freedom. His duty is our delight.

Read more at Ligonier Ministries

“How Good People Turn Evil” – Corruption in the Philippines

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Maria Ressa

Sometimes doing the wrong thing seems to be the only way to get ahead. I’ve heard so many Filipinos say that – particularly the street-savvy operators who are trying to get you to do the wrong thing!

You have to find the courage to say no. You have to do what’s right – not just for your company, but for yourself. You have to find and set this line – a line you promise yourself you will never cross – because crossing that line means you’re turning from good to evil. It’s that simple. And you must make it that simple.

The most dangerous decision is that first one – when you move from being perfectly clean and idealistic … to being tempted … to wanting it… and then accepting it. Don’t do it. Once you do, it’s a slippery slope. Define that line and DO NOT CROSS it. If you’ve already done it, pay special attention to the four step program at the end, ok?

Evil is “knowing better but doing worse.”

Read more at Maria Ressa's blog

Unreasonable Doubt

The reasons for unbelief are more complex than many atheists let on.

Jim Spiegel | posted 2/10/2011 09:28AM

Most atheists would have us think they arrived at their view through cool, rational inquiry. But are other factors involved? Consider the candid remarks of contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel: "I want atheism to be true …. It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and, naturally, hope that I'm right about my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that." Could Nagel's attitude—albeit in a more subtle form—actually be common among atheists?

Christian apologists have responded to the New Atheists' arguments—which are often nothing more than a rehashing of traditional objections—with rational arguments of their own. However, they have not talked much about non-rational causes of unbelief. We humans are not only reasoning beings. We also have emotions, desires, and free wills, and these influence our beliefs. As important as it is to remind atheists of the rational evidence for God, the real problem in many cases is moral and psychological in nature.

Such a suggestion is potentially offensive to unbelievers. But we still need to ask if it is nonetheless true. According to Scripture, the evidence for God is overwhelming. The apostle Paul says that "God has made it plain" that he exists; his "invisible qualities … have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Rom. 1:19-20). And the psalmist writes, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (19:1). This naturally prompts the question: If the evidence for God is so abundant, then why are there atheists?

Read more at Christianity Today