Loving your "earthly dearest"

C S Lewis

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.

When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.

Thanks to Justin Taylor for reminding me of this quote from C S Lewis, sums up what Christopher Ash says in Married For God.

Ash challenges us with the thought that the main purpose of marriage is not to meet our needs, nor to stop us from being lonely. But he also says that when we truly put God first, we may find these things as byproducts (or, we may not).

Ash's book has some interesting questions at the end of each chapter. Some of them make you think about the nuts and bolts of the chapter you've just read, while others are designed to stimulate more open-ended thought.

It is a well-chosen book for getting us thinking, in preparation for our Making Good Marriages Better conference with Jim and Lesley Ramsay.

Underneath and undergirding the many books of the one Bible is the motif of God's grace: his favour and love to the undeserving says Dane Ortlund in his blog with the intriguing title of Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology

His article The Grace of God in the Bible shows how grace is the grand subject of all 63* books of the Bible.

His list has been carefully thought-out, and is a convincing summary of each book's teaching on grace

* The books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were not originally divided into two volumes.

Making Good Marriages Better

Our church is hosting a marriage enrichment conference on Saturday, 25th February, with Jim and Lesley Ramsay leading.

Lesley and Jim have been married for 41 years ... 40 of which have been spent working alongside one another in pastoral ministry! They have 4 adult children, and 9 gorgeous grandchildren. They now live in Terrigal where Lesley enjoys reading novels and making quilts, Jim enjoys sudoku and the quest for the perfect lemon meringue pie, and they both enjoy the beach.

They have asked us to read Christopher Ash's book Married For God to prepare for the day's teaching.

I got my copy today from Pilgrim Books, which is now located in the All Saints Cathedral Church Hall in Bathurst.

I am one of the odd people who like reading the acknowledgments in books [and also stay to the very end at the movies].

Christopher Ash's thankyous didn't disappoint, and i like the way he ended them:

Above all I want to thank my dear wife Carolyn for showing me so much of the joy and purpose of marriage in practice as well as in theory.

Thankyou for your patience with an imperfect husband who pontificates about marriage while he ought to be getting on and living it.

Looking forward to the rest of the book and sharing the marriage enrichment day with my wife, Joan.

I've got my doubts

If you have yours, too please don't feel guilty or beat yourself up.
What can we do when we have questions running around in our minds which are worrying us?

Michael Patton has some helpful suggestions for what to do when someone is struggling with doubts. And he admits that he has been through this, too.
I've put some of what he has written into the first person, but his article is written from the point of view of helping someone else. I hope you'll read what Michael has to say, but here are a few gems:

Doubts are often the birth-pangs of deepened faith.

Embrace the central teachings of the Christian faith: don't get hung up on small, less important issues, which may be intriguing, but are not worth being overwhelmed by.

Doubt is not unbelief. When yo uare struggling with doubt, don't write yourself off, and start living as if you are no longer a Christian. Continue to live as a Christian, even if you don't feel like one anymore.

Sometimes people doubt because they want to sin, and are trying to justify this biblically. A man who has his eyes on someone else's wife, may be experiencing doubt, because he is dwelling on his lustful thoughts and attempting to somehow make it OK.
if there is something that we know we are supposed to be doing, and we are not doing it, doubt will soon spread, and the crisis of faith will be hard to overcome.

I am a perpetual doubter learning to live with it. I don't rejoice in my doubt and don't wish it upon anyone else. However, I have come to realize that it almost always makes my faith stronger in the end, so long as I am not apathetic. This perspective can help us deal with others in their doubts.

I hope these thoughts may be helpful to someone.

Rapping The King James Version

I hope you enjoy Glen Scrivener's clever monologue, in which he uses more than 100 phrases from the King James Bible, which have become part of the English language.

Not all of these expressions originated with that version, but it was instrumental in bringing them into the language, through its wide dissemination.

How ridiculous!

These young men are amazing. And not just with their basketballs.

Keeping it in the family

Three blogs I keep returning to are inter-related, because they are blogs of Trevor Cairney and his daughters Nicole Starling and Louise Blencowe.

Louise is married to Jon, who is the Christian Educator for Bathurst and Kelso High schools. In Life with Beals Louise tells us about their 3 year old daughter Evelyne's rare medical condition, and shares the experiences of others around the world also living with Beals.

In 168 hours Nicole writes about her efforts to work out how to glorify God in everyday life, 168 hours of the week. There are tips about Christian living and lots of great book reviews at her site. That's where I found out about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and subsequently read it three times and gave out 11 copies (and loaned out my copy. Hint, hint)

At church I have noticed that Jon and Louise's children, Evelyne and Sam, have caught the reading bug. If you want to know where they got it from, you can find out by exploring their grandad's Literacy, Families and Learning blog.

It is always a great source of tips about new children's books, which make a wonderful Christmas gift.