2009 Goals

I recently read a blog on New Years Resolutions recently. You can read that here.

Having now read that blog, you will better understand and appreciate my approach to 2009.

I am not calling these resolutions and I am not determining in my own power to accomplish them. I am, for lack of better word, calling them Goals. It is my hearts desire to see God's heart reflected in mine. It is my hearts desire to have all my desires and passions directed toward and found satisfied in Him. It is my hearts desire to put all else aside. I am fighting everyday to keep this goal and this priority. However, it is my passion and burden.

In that train of thought, here are my goals for 2009; Here is what I want to see God accomplish in my life.

1. Be totally satisfied in God alone.  Philippians 3:8 has been instrumental here.  Paul just got done listing his pedigree, his good works, things that other men would credit as their righteousness, as their merit for obtaining God's favor.  After all that, Paul says, "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.  WOW.  I have had to ask myself, how often do I find the value of simply KNOWING Christ to be supreme above all else?  How many believers can say that the value of knowing Christ surpasses all else; to the point of being willing to give up ALL things as Paul did in order to obtain that.  We, I, claim this in speech.  I claim to value my relationship with Him above all things, but when it comes down to it, am I really willing to give it all up.  For instance, food.  I have been prompted to fast.  I can tell you, this is a struggle.  I have tried so many times in the past and always caved in half way through.  Yet, the last time I was led to do this, I used those pangs of physical hunger to drive my passion for that which I was praying.  I accomplished this task this time because I was relying on God's power, heart, and desire.  In short, my desire is to be totally and completely satisfied in Christ alone.  I want the value of simply KNOWING Christ to be supreme above all else.
2. I want to have  a heart like Christ's.  I want to be motivated and moved by what He is. I want to be angered by what He is. I want to weep at what He weeps. I want my motivations to be His. I want His heart to be mine.
3. I want to live a life of humble, submissive, and willing obedience to Him.

These are my three overarching goals.  These are not just merely goals for 2009, but for my entire life.  They really should not change much.  What might change is some specific applications to these.  Listed below are some specific ways in which these goals may be lived out.

1. Work on patience.  I need to slow down and not get so flustered and frustrated when I am bombarded with things to do, with demands.
   
2. Gentleness.  When I get stressed, I get short and chippy.  I need to be gentle, especially under stress.
   
3. Compassion.  I need to see the world through God's eyes and to be sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. I need to be compassionate when dealing with situations that frustrate me.
   
4. Give quality and quantity of time to family and not my interests.
   
5. Care for Gods temple better by dieting and working out
   
6. Complete the scriptures with my wife.  We are reading through the bible.  Our third or fourth attempt.  It always seems that we fail to finish.  I desire to complete this task this year.
   

My goal is simply to follow God and make Him my primary satisfaction and delight.  My goal is to be His; SIMPLY HIS.  There is no greater joy.

Family Devotions - Pursue What Matters

It is the my heart cry that my children pursue that which really matters. I desire to see them seek hard after God and to desire Him so much that nothing else seems to matter. So often, however, I see in them what I fight in myself everyday...a love of stuff. Materialism has so invaded our culture and our church. If we allow it to overtake us, the cross of Christ and the gift of His son's birth will become so insignificant to us and we will drift away from God further into sin.  I am concerned about what I see in my children and concerned with their focus.  As such, I prayed fervently for God to help me reach their hearts and to draw their hearts to God.  

The lesson below is what I spent time going through with my children before we opened Christmas gifts.  My prayer is and will continue to be that God reaches their heart and so grips them with His glory and majesty that everything else pales in comparison.

Family Devotions

January 5-7, 2009

Pursuing What Matters 

HOOK

Trip Lee Video – What is a wasted Life?

 

Pause after video is finished playing.  Give it time to sink in.  Then ask the following and allow or responses.

1. Why do we exist?
2. What is God most passionate about?

 BOOK

1.  We were created to worship God. 
   
1. What is worship?  (Ask and allow for their responses, then share the dictionary definition)
2. Dictionary Definition – reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
3. God’s Definition - Greatest Commandment;  Mark 12:28-31 (Have someone read.)  This is worship.  Loving God in this fashion is nothing less than pure worship.

God desires our hearts and souls first and foremost.  He desires us, in our entirety.  He wants our sole devotion, our sole desire, our sole attention.  If we desire other things more than God, they are idols.

2.  God is a jealous God; we are to worship Him alone.
   
1. Exodus 20:4-5
2. Exodus 34:14
3. Numbers 25:1-9 – The Israelites worship the false Gods of Shittim.  God was brining down His wrath on the people.  In that context, read verses 10-13

 God does not share His Glory or His Worship.  He is jealous to secure it for Himself alone.  He alone DESERVES our worship.  He ALONE deserves our attention.  There is NONE other than Him who can command such honor and glory.  

God alone deserves our desires, our attention, our worship, our heart. He alone deserves our passions, our wants, our hopes, ours all.  He alone deserves it, commands it, and protects it.  

So often, this is what we think we deserve, what we crave, what we desire, what pulls at our hearts and takes our attention and time. 

This is often the kind of life that we pursue, that we live for.  We seek possession, wealth, comfort, ease, status, position, fame, and whatever else will please and satisfy our fleshly desires.  Yet, God calls for our hearts.  He came, not in wealth, but like this:

Christ did not come in wealth or position.  He valued something entirely different.  He came, not looking for wealth, status, position, fame, comfort, ease, or to satisfy fleshly pleasures.  He came looking for sinful hearts.  He came to turn hearts of corruption toward the living God.  He came to make reconciliation so that those very sinful hearts who were opposed to God could turn to Him.  

Christ gave of Himself in order to save me.  He gave of Himself to you. He gave of Himself to rescue our hearts and souls from sin and death. He came to give us the gift of LIFE and LIFE ETERNAL.

That is a gift worth celebrating.  He is a giver worth worshipping.

Romans 1:21-23

Romans 1:21-23

Romans 1:21-23 (New American Standard Bible)

21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Men are without excuse. Verse 20 makes this clear. God is visible enough in creation that men are held accountable before God.

Paul carries this thought a little further in verses 21-23.

Through God's manifestation of Himself in creation, man knew God. They knew He existed. It was evident and apparent, an undeniable truth and reality (which man is still bent on denying today). However, man did not honor Him as God.

Honor
Greek word - Doxazo (1392); From the Greek word Doxa, glory. To glorify from dokeo - To esteem, think, be of opinion, to know intuitively, to know exponentially or by learning. The consequential meaning from the opinion which one forms is to recognize, honor,praise, invest with dignity, give anyone esteem or honor by putting him into an honorable position.

Man did not view God this way. While they knew He existed. They did not honor, esteem, or recognize Him as God; as an authority in their lives, as power to honor or praise.

Not only did they not honor Him as God, but they did not give thanks.

Give Thanks
Greek Word - Eucharisteo (2168) - To be thankful, to speak well of, to eulogize.

In context, I believe this refers to giving thanks TO God. They did not honor God, nor did they thank Him for what He had done for them; for who HE simply IS. In my thinking, this is a natural consequence of not recognizing Him as God. To recognize Him as God would invoke praise and thanksgiving for who He is and what He has done. To reject Him as God would necessitate having to NOT give thanks. To thank Him would be to acknowledge that He IS someone to you; that He has done something for you; that He is worthy of such thanksgiving and praise. In order to reject Him as God, they would have to without any thanksgiving. They could not give thanks to Him and still reject Him as someone who deserves praise and honor.

And this is only the first half of the verse.

The natural consequences of rejecting God as God; of rejecting God as deserving honor and granting it to Him is what Paul says next:

"...but they became futile (literally to be vain or worthless-such is to act as a fool) in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they become fools and exchanged the glory of an incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures."

The natural consequence of not honoring God is sin. To not honor God and recognize Him as the supreme authority and place Him in the place of authority is to open the door for sin to enter you life. The rest of chapter one details this. I look forward to looking more in depth at this later when I get to those verses.

However, for now the dominate thought in my mind is this: Do I honor God? Do I esteem Him? Do I exalt and lift Him up to a place of honor and significance in my life? Do I thank Him for BEING God? Do I thank Him for who He IS and what He has DONE? When I am honest, I know that it is not nearly as often as it should be.

This scares me and gives me reason for pause. When I am not honoring God in my life, I am sinning and I am allowing sin to master me. When I am not honoring God in my life, I following the naturally progression of that choice. The result, if allowed to continue, would be living in utter and total sin, in absolute rebellion and opposition to God. To be there, in that place against God, frightens me. And rightly so.

God, protect me. Help me to honor You in my life. Be my sole passion, my sole delight. Take such a place of preeminence in my life that all else pales and fades away in comparison to you. Protect my heart. BE my heart.

Sin is crouching at your door

I have begun reading through the chronological bible with my wife. It is a commitment that we have made and desire to complete the entire scriptures within the year.

As we were reading the other day, we were reading the account of Cain and Able. After Cain and Able brought their sacrifices to God (Genesis 4:1-7) and God made it clear that He was not pleased with Cain's sacrifice, Cain became angry. God spoke to Cain and said to Him that sin crouched at his door, eager to control him and he needed to subdue it before it overcame him. Shortly after, Cain lured his brother into the field and killed him.

Cain had a verbal and clear warning that sin was about to overtake and subdue him. He had a clear warning that he was about to fall into sin. He ignored it. He chose to sin and allowed sin to subdue him.

This passage has stuck with me for the past two days. I cannot shake it away. When was the last time I thought about the fact that sin is crouching at my door desiring to subdue and master me? When was the last time I stopped to consider that I am one choice away from committing any sin under the sun? When was the last time that I took serious attention to this? I tend to think that I am doing okay and that sin could never catch me by surprise, that sin is not that near to me. The reality is, I am ALWAYS one choice away from sinning. This hits me hard because during this holiday season, I have not spent my daily time with God and only a week later, I feel it immensely. I feel the desire pulling at me to idolater myself to media, to my computer, to my appetite for food, to my lustful desires, to whatever will please my flesh. It has stuck me more than ever that I am not honoring God in my life. I am honoring the desires of my flesh; food, lust, pleasure, rest, entertainment, ease, comfort. It is the reason that my last several diet attempts have failed. It is reason that I find myself pulled so hard to sit at a computer and read, play, shop, catch up on blogs, watch youtube videos, and whatever else I can think of. It is the reason that I get frustrated when I am interrupted. It is the reason that I get angry when my rest and relaxing is interrupted by everyday tasks that require my attention. I am living to please the desires of my flesh instead of honoring God as ruler of my life and living to please His desires.

Romans chapter one is clear about what happens when we do not honor God in our lives. Sin and corruption abound. When I honor myself above God, I will naturally fall into sin and corruption. It is daily, moment by moment task of devoting myself to God.

Sin is always crouching at my door. It will NEVER NOT BE crouching there. It is waiting for me to lose my focus on it and then it will leap and attack. The moment I think I am fine, the moment I think I am not in danger, I am not most vulnerable. My heart goes out to men like Ray Boltz who have allowed sin to master them.

I fear; I fear being that man.

God strengthen my heart; strengthen my desire for you. Cause me to honor you as Lord of my life. Help me to find greater satisfaction in you than in my flesh. Help me to eat as unto you. Help me to think as unto you. Help me to work as unto you. Help me to rest as unto you. Help me to live, love, give, and BE unto you.

Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year

I came across this article and found it to be a helpful guide to evaluating where I wanted to go in the new year.



Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.
Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.
The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you “Consider your ways.” Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

11. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?
12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?
13. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?
16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
17. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
18. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
19. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?
22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
24. What’s the most important trip you want to take this year?
25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
27. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
30. What’s the most important new item you want to buy this year?
31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn’t considered the question.
If you’ve found these questions helpful, you might want to put them someplace—in a day planner, PDA, calendar, bulletin board, etc.—where you can review them more frequently than once a year.
So let’s evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let’s also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).


Copyright © 2003 Donald S. Whitney. All rights reserved.
For more short, reproducible pieces like this, see www.BiblicalSpirituality.org

Commitments in the New Year

I have been reading a lot in the last day about new years resolutions, fasting, prayer, bible study, and reading schedules for 2009. I typically have never make resolutions because I know the futility of keeping them. I have generally stayed away from this practice because I have never been able to keep it.

However, I am sensing the need and the urgency to do an evaluation of my spiritual condition, with God's help, and to set some goals or focuses for this year that I will tackle day by day. I intend to use the next several days to accomplish this. Lord willing, on Monday, I will share what I have decided. In the mean time, I will be posting and sharing things that are helping me to accomplish this.

I will begin with this article by John Piper on Fasting. I have fasted in the past and I plan to make it part of my spiritual growth for the future. He has some very good comments to share and I pray that you will find it an encouraging, challenging, and motivating as I have.

The Crazy Idea of Fasting in '09
from Desiring God Blog
(Author: John Piper)

Jesus did not say, "If you fast..." but "When you fast..." (Matthew 6:16). This will be new (even over the top) for some of you. So do a crazy thing in 2009. It might change your relationship with God. And your life.

Here's a tiny bit of help. A bit on how. And a bit on why.

How to Fast

Pick a day of the week or a day of the month and plan to fast in 2009. Plan which meal or meals to skip. Skip them entirely, or do it with only juice or only water. There are no rules. There is only spiritual hunger being spoken and stoked with physical hunger.

Take some of the time you would have spent eating and read some scripture and take time to tell God why you are doing this and what you long for.

Why Fast?

Here are six biblical aims for fasting.

1. For Jesus to come back

Matthew 9:14-15

Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to them, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast

2. For help in a new venture in ministry
Matthew 4:1-2

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

Acts 13:3

Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

3. To avert some danger or threat
Ezra 8:21

Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions.

2 Samuel 12:16

David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.

4. To express sorrow and loss
2 Samuel 1:12

They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan and for the people of the LORD and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword

1 Chronicles 10:12

All the valiant men arose and took away the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons and brought them to Jabesh, and they buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

5. To express repentance and grief for sin
Joel 2:12-13

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; 13 And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.

6. Not for the praise of men
Matthew 6:16-18

Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

(For more instruction and inspiration in fasting see A Hunger for God, Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer.)

John Piper - God Puts Us In the Fire to Awaken Earnest Prayer

My personal bible study time has been limited and light during the holiday season. I apologize for my posts being somewhat light. I have tried to post some things that have been a challenge to me and a motivation to keep pursing God. Look to see more of my personal study coming once we get through this coming weekend.

I posted some thoughts on the 27th of December about God being glorified in the hard times. In light of that post, I share this video of John Piper.