The Good Portion

It's living up to it's name. So far here in the "Excited States of Hysteria" (a term I first heard today, in an unrelated blog comment from a native Canadian) the shopping death toll stands at three. What can I say? What can anyone say to a nation of people who trade their lives for baubles? "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life ? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.'" Matthew 16:24-27 The only thing worth trading our life for is Christ. Everything else, is baubles.

It's Thanksgiving weekend. My in-laws are in town. We're having a great time; but it's not blogging time. That'll have to wait. For now, John Piper takes a pretty good stab at a difficult question: Why doesn't God just eliminate the devil now?

Well, I finally made it, just about two weeks behind the pack, though I’ve no idea where the rest of the pack is. This was our final reading from Jonathan Edwards’ work, Religious Affections, the most recent classic in Reading the Classics Together over at www.challies.com. (Next week we being Lewis'classic, Mere Christianity.) I’ll admit, this last assignment seemed like the longest of all the readings. It took me over two weeks to read, and toward the beginning I really had a hard time slogging through. However, that didn’t last too long; and ultimately I was rewarded for sticking with it. I had another run-in with his system of numbering points, only this time I abandoned trying to make sense of his outline.(Again, I don’t recommend reading Edwards at bedtime. I only do, because that’s often the only time I can spare.) I will summarize his ideas below, mainly with quotes. I apologize for the length, but It's tough to narrow down 80 pages of meat. First, Edwards considers “ C...

then I saw this: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/14/nebraska.safe.haven/index.html I'm really at a loss for words here.

Apparently, and without realizing it, I fell a week behind in our on-line reading group over at http://www.challies.com/ . We are reading through Jonathan Edwards’ work Religious Affections. This last section, because of its length, has been divided into two readings. This is Part One of the final section: The Twelfth Sign. Edwards’ personal genius and orderly mind is becoming overwhelmingly evident, as he begins to gather all the ends from all the previous signs and uses this last sign as a drawstring of sorts to pull up and tie the whole great bundle together. This last sign is connected with and comprises every one previous. All the signs seem to be melding together into a very cohesive whole, the summation of the Christian life. I can think of little to add by way of commentary, so what follows will be mainly a compilation of quotes. For the sake of clarity, I will italicize my own words. "Gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice. ...

Before the election I wrote about the importance that we Christians take our role in our government seriously. I trust that on Tuesday we all did just that. Today, now all that is said and done, I'd like to exhort us not to forget Scripture's own exhortation: "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1Tim.2:1-4) Let us (and I do mean me ) make this a priority for our daily prayers "first of all". As encouragement to that end I've provided a link to an excellent post regarding how to pray for our next president. If you have the time, I recommend following his links, which provide excellent insight into the heart of what it is ...