Three Ways to Grow While You Wait

Colin Smith

Waiting is not wasted time.

Often, though, it seems to be! I am waiting for the train. I am waiting for my appointment. I am waiting in a long queue. Sound familiar? Waiting can seem futile, so we look for something to do while we are waiting. This is why there are magazines in the doctor’s waiting room. We try to fill up the time with something useful while we are waiting.

Some of you are searching for a job, but what you are looking for has not opened up; you are waiting. Some of you are looking for that special person to be your life partner, but you haven’t found them; you are waiting. Couples long for a child, but nothing has happened; you are waiting. Others are longing to see a deep change in a person you love. You have prayed for it. But you are still waiting.

All of these instances can make waiting seem futile at best and frustratingly difficult at worst. But what if we were thinking about waiting in all the wrong ways? What if waiting was not wasted time, but valuable time in the life of the Christian?

We think of waiting as something we endure in order to get what we want. But God speaks about waiting as the way that we grow when we don’t have what we want. So waiting is not wasted time. In fact, waiting can be the greatest growth opportunity of your life.

I want to suggest three ways in which you can grow while you wait.

Grow in Patience

Patience is what you need when things have not worked out as you hoped.

Somewhere deep within every heart there is a dream of life as we would want it to be. Our culture is sold out in the pursuit of paradise now. I’ve been thinking about designing a sign that could be very useful for some of us. It would have just four words on it: “This is not paradise.”

There are a lot of places where you could put that sign. You might want to hang it over your front door at home.  It would help because some of us are so intent on a perfect family life that we are reaching for what cannot be attained in this world, and it becomes crushing for everybody.

Some couples ought to put that sign on the door to your bedroom. It would take a great deal of pressure off you. Perhaps you need to put that over your desk at work. Or what about in your car? It will help you when you are in a traffic jam.

I’d be very happy to have the sign over the entrance to the church. This is not paradise. If you came here looking for a perfect Christian community, you won’t find it.

Friends, if you give yourself to the pursuit of paradise now, you will be disappointed. When that happens you will be angry with God because he has seemingly let you down. But this life is not paradise. And the sooner you discover that, the sooner you will be able to break free from the pursuit of an advertiser’s dream that will always elude you.

When God does not give what you eagerly desire, a door opens for spiritual growth. Embrace the pain. Love God in the disappointment. Detach yourself from the pursuit of paradise in this world, and set yourself apart for the Lord. Paul says, “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?” (Rom 8:24).

Embrace the disappointments of life as opportunities for spiritual growth.

Grow in Hope

As you embrace disappointment, ask yourself this: Do you honestly anticipate heaven? All that you can experience in the Christian life is only a taste of what Christ has in store for you. There is much, much more to come! This is why we are to grow in hope while we wait.

The Bible speaks about the Holy Spirit being like a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Think about when you bought your first house. How much was the deposit? How much was the mortgage? Though it may have seemed large at the time, the deposit was only a tiny fraction of what you had to pay. Similarly, all that you experience of God in this life – every good gift, every blessing, every pleasure – is only a tiny advance on what God has in store for you in heaven.

As you wait for eternity with God, use both the disappointments and the joys of your life to cultivate a healthy anticipation of what God has promised. Are you in pain or alone? Have you shed tears? Does this life seem empty to you? Wait upon the Lord: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:4).

Grow in Worship

Waiting on God is equally a wonderful expression of worship.

My calling is to wait on God. Your calling is to wait on God. The purpose of our lives is to make ourselves wholly available to Jesus Christ, who has come into this world to die for our sins. But often, we forget this wonderful truth and make ourselves the center of attention. We want God to wait on us!

Jesus gives us the perfect model of what waiting on God looks like. He delights in the will of the Father, and He is ready to do it even when it involves a cross. He tells us plainly that if we follow Him, we should not expect a trouble-free life. Jesus is not offering us paradise now.

Saying ‘yes’ to Jesus in the disappointments of life will be the highest worship you can offer. We learn this from the story of Job who lost everything, and in the middle of his pain he worshipped. We learn it from Jesus who, in the agony of the cross and with His “why” unanswered, committed Himself into the hands of His Father.

Worshipping God through disappointment will be the greatest evidence that you love God for Himself and not just for His gifts. If all your dreams were fulfilled, and if all your prayers were answered, there would be no way of knowing if you loved God for Himself.

So I want you to think of the great disappointments and the great joys of your life. I want you to think about all the waiting you are doing right now, and how you are perceiving that waiting. I want you to hear God saying to you, “I want to make this waiting useful. I want to use it to grow you in my likeness – in patience, hope, and worship.”

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2020/01/three-ways-to-grow-while-you-wait/

What Does It Mean to Worship God in Spirit and Truth?

BY SAM STORMS

Many Christian are familiar with the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4. But not everyone can explain what Jesus meant when he said the Father is seeking men and women who will worship him “in spirit and truth” (v. 23).

To say that we must worship God “in spirit” means, among other things, that it must originate from within, from the heart; it must be sincere, motivated by our love for God and gratitude for all he is and has done. Worship cannot be mechanical or formalistic. That does not necessarily rule out certain rituals or liturgy. But it does demand that all physical postures or symbolic actions must be infused with heartfelt commitment and faith and love and zeal.

But the word “spirit” here may also be a reference to the Holy Spirit—there’s disagreement among good Bible scholars. The apostle Paul said that Christians “worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).

It’s the Holy Spirit who awakens in us an understanding of God’s beauty and splendor and power. It’s the Holy Spirit who stirs us to celebrate and rejoice and give thanks. It’s the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to see and savor all that God is for us in Jesus. It’s the Holy Spirit who, I hope and pray, orchestrates our services and leads us in corporate praise of God.

Don’t Omit Truth

This worship, however, must also be “in truth.” This is easier for us to understand, for it obviously means that our worship must conform to the revelation of God in Scripture. It must be informed by who God is and what he is like.

Our worship must be rooted in and tethered to the realities of biblical revelation. God forbid that we should ever sing heresy. Worship is not meant to be formed by what feels good, but by the light of what’s true.

Genuine, Christ-exalting worship must never be mindless or based in ignorance. It must be doctrinally grounded and focused on the truth of all we know of our great Triune God. To worship inconsistently with what is revealed to us in Scripture ultimately degenerates into idolatry.

Both/And

Some prefer to worship only “in S/spirit” but couldn’t care less about truth. In fact, they think focusing on truth has the potential to quench the Spirit. The standard by which they judge the success of worship is the thrills and chills they experience.

Now, make no mistake, worship that doesn’t engage and inflame your emotions and affections is worthless. Jesus himself criticized the worship of the religious leaders in his day by saying that whereas they honor God “with their lips,” their “heart is far from” him (Matt. 15:7–9). True worship must engage the heart, the affections, the totality of our being. But any affection or feeling or emotion stirred up by error or false doctrine is worthless.

Any affection or feeling or emotion stirred up by error or false doctrine is worthless.

Others prefer to worship only “in truth” and are actually offended when they or others feel anything or experience heightened emotions. Not long ago I heard one evangelical pastor say, “I often wish that we wouldn’t sing or have music, but that I could simply see and say the words or the lyrics that express biblical truth. I don’t like being distracted by the emotions that rise up in me when we sing to musical accompaniment.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. By all means, let us sing only what is true. But to do so without affection and feeling and heartfelt emotion is unthinkable. Perhaps you’ve seen this statement by John Piper, one worth seeing again:

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full . . . of artificial admirers. . . . On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the disciple of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.

Heat and Light

Many would insist this is simply impossible. The human soul, they say, can’t simultaneously hold such seemingly conflicting realities. You’ll eventually default to one side or the other.

Some insist you can’t focus on the truths of God’s Word without turning into an hyper-intellectual, arrogant elitist, while others argue you can’t cultivate heartwarming, emotionally uplifting celebrations without deviating from Scripture and succumbing to unbridled fanaticism.

I beg to differ.

Better still, Jesus begs to differ. The Bible itself begs to differ. God forbid that we should ever find ourselves individually or as a church failing to worship God in both S/spirit and truth. Genuine, Christ-exalting worship, after all, is the fruit of both heat and light. The light of truth shines into our minds and instructs us about who God is. Such light in turn ignites the fire of passion and affection and the heat of joy, love, gratitude, and deep soul-satisfaction.

Some will inevitably conclude that there’s too much emotion at Bridgeway, where I serve as pastor, while others insist there’s too much doctrine. Some will say we’re too experiential in our worship, while others contend we’re too theological. Personally, I don’t think you can be too much of either, so long as both are embraced and God is honored.

None of this means you have to worship the way other people at your church do. If the truth of God’s Word moves you to lift your hands, dance, or shout aloud, God bless you. If the truth of God’s Word leads you into solemn reverence, as you remain seated and immovable, God bless you.

But let’s make certain that in either case we are worshiping in both S/spirit and truth. For it is just such people the Father is seeking.

Sam Storms (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary; PhD, The University of Texas) is lead pastor for preaching and vision at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, founder of Enjoying God Ministries, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He has authored numerous books, including Practicing the Power. He and his wife, Ann, have two children.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-does-it-mean-to-worship-god-in-spirit-and-truth/

You Are Not Your Own

Article by Jon Bloom

Your body does not belong to you. Do you believe this? I don’t mean doctrinallybelieve it — if you’re a Christian, you of course believe that “you are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). I mean do you functionally believe this?

It’s not difficult to tell. How you use your body reveals what you believe. It canbe difficult to admit, if we feel exposed by our functional belief. Believe me, I know. I have plenty of functional beliefs that fall short of my official beliefs, in varying degrees at varying times.

“In what part of your life have you functionally forgot that you belong to Jesus?”

The question isn’t an exercise in shaming — for you or for me. It’s an exercise in honest assessment, in reality therapy, and, if needed, in repentance. Which, for Christians, should be just a normal, everyday experience. As Martin Luther famously said, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”

Falling Forward Together

All of us fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). None of us has arrived (Philippians 3:12–13). God knows this far better than we do, and he’s made abundant provision for our shortfalls. Each time we repent — each day, even each hour — Jesus’s substitutionary, atoning death for us cleanses us from allunrighteousness (1 John 1:9). God wants us to live condemnation-free (Romans 8:1) by taking full advantage of his endless supply of forgiving, restoring, encouraging, and empowering grace.

Since all of us redeemed short-fallers are in this fight of faith together, we can keep encouraging and exhorting one another every day to press on towards the Great Goal (Philippians 3:14), so that none of us becomes hardened in deceitful, habitual sin (Hebrews 3:13).

With God’s wonderful grace in mind, we can take a good, honest look at ourselves and ask: do we really believe that we are not our own?

Do You Not Know?

Let’s look at these Spirit-inspired, Paul-authored words in context:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)

When Paul asked “do you not know,” he was addressing Christians. And he asked the Corinthian Christians this question a lot in this letter (1 Corinthians 3:16; 5:6; 6:2–3, 9, 15–16, 19; 9:13, 24). Now, some Corinthians were probably new believers and perhaps didn’t know. But Paul’s phrasing of the question makes it clear that he was giving a firm reminder to most readers who doctrinally knew, but whose behaviors revealed that they functionally forgot.

More poignantly, they were living in functional unbelief, which was real sin and required real repentance. They knew, and they didn’t.

Who Owns Your Body?

In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul was specifically addressing sexual immorality among believers. Just like our society, the Corinthian society had a lot of available, accessible, culturally acceptable, and even encouraged ways to immorally indulge sexually. Very likely, many Corinthian Christians had backgrounds rife with immorality. They had habits of thinking and behaving sexually that still affected and tempted them as Christians. Some, apparently, had been repeatedly “falling short.”

“Our Master bought us with the price of his own infinitely precious life in order to make us free.”

More than this, they were actually rationalizing it with a common adage, “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” (1 Corinthians 6:13). In other words, Look, if the body has an appetite for food, we feed it. So, if the body has an appetite for sex, we should “feed” it. Besides, we’re free! Jesus’s sacrifice made all things lawful!(1 Corinthians 6:12).

Paul responded with a frank correction: “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13). When we become Christians, our bodies become members or appendages of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 6:15–17). And the very Spirit of Christ dwells in our bodies as the Spirit used to dwell in Jerusalem’s temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). Implication: every sexually immoral behavior a Christian engages in drags the Lord Jesus Christ into that engagement.

That’s why sexual sin, in particular, is a sin against our own bodies (1 Corinthians 6:18). In Christianity, there is no bifurcation of body and spirit. Both make up the human being. To defile one is to defile the other. Both our bodies and spirits, though still vulnerable to sin and the futile suffering of this age while we wait for our full redemption (Romans 8:23), are nevertheless being redeemed by Jesus and will be raised (1 Corinthians 6:14). So, our bodies must not be given over to sin’s governance (Romans 6:12), because our bodies do not belong to us.

You Were Bought

But is this how we live? Do we knowingly behave with our bodies as if Christ is engaged in our physical actions — all of them? Or do we not (functionally) know?

“Gracious as he is, Jesus must still be our Master, which means we must obey him.”

In describing the ways we are not our own, Paul used the metaphors of a bodily member, which does the will of the head; then a bodily temple, which is animated by the divine Spirit who lives there; then a bond-slave, who does the will of his Master. That’s what Paul meant when he wrote, “for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

A bond-slave is not his own person. He has sold himself to someone else. He belongs to someone else. He does not merely do as he pleases. His time is not his own. He is not free to follow the whims of his personal dreams. He is not free to indulge the craving of his appetites as he wishes. He is not his own. He belongs to his Master. This is what a Christian is.

Freed at Great Cost

This bond-slavery of a Christian, however, is like no other — far better than any alternative of autonomy. Our Master bought us with the price of his own infinitely precious life in order to make us “free indeed” (John 8:32–36). What does that mean? It means when he bought us, he freed us from our hell-bound slavery to sin (Romans 6:6). He also bought for us the priceless gift of being adopted by the Father as his very children, which makes us heirs with Jesus of his Father’s kingdom and of infinite wealth (Romans 8:16–17). If that wasn’t enough, Jesus, our Master, both now and in the age to come, serves us beyond our wildest imaginations (Mark 10:45; Luke 12:37).

But, gracious as he is, Jesus must still be our Master, which means we must obey him (John 14:15). For our master is whomever or whatever we obey (Romans 6:16).

As Christians, we know this. The question is, do we really know? Is Jesus the Master over our time, expenditures, investments, home size and location, education, career, marital status, parenting, friendships, church involvement, and ministry commitments? If not, we do not (functionally) know what we think we know.

Glorify God in Your Body

We need good, honest self-assessment. What is the Spirit bringing to mind right now? In what part of your life have you functionally forgotten, or better functionally not believed, that you belong to Jesus? What are you stewarding as if it is yours and not God’s? Follow the Spirit’s lead and repent. Your gracious Lord and Master stands with scarred arms wide open to receive, forgive, and cleanse you.

“You and I are not our own. We are Christ’s.”

You and I are not our own. We are Christ’s (1 Corinthians 3:23). In every sense, we are Christ’s — body, mind, and spirit. We are members of Christ’s body, our bodies are Christ’s temple, and we are bond-slaves of Christ, who has made us children of his Father and fellow heirs of his estate — what a Master!

He is only, however, the Master of those who obey him. That’s why it’s crucial that our functional knowing aligns with our doctrinal knowing. Or as Paul said, “You are not your own. . . . So glorify God in your body.”

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/you-are-not-your-own

What Does It Mean To Fear God

Article by Mark Altrogge

What does it mean to fear God? And is the fear of the Lord a good or bad thing?

It depends what you mean. Depending on your background, the fear of the Lord can sound incredibly distasteful. If you grew up in a church that portrayed God as always waiting to strike you down for the slightest fault, then fearing God probably sounds pretty terrible.

In my pre-Christian, Roman Catholic days, my fear of the Lord (at least this is what I grew up believing) was essentially a fear of going to hell. I was taught that if I missed Mass on Sunday that was a mortal sin that needed to be confessed if I were to escape hell. As you can imagine, I feared God, but it wasn’t a good or healthy fear. I had no assurance of salvation.

I had no sense that God loved me. I felt like I could never please him, that he was always unhappy with me and waiting to punish me. I carried that unhealthy fear of the Lord into my early days as a Christian. If you asked me, “What does it mean to fear God?”, I couldn’t have given you a good answer.

A Healthy View of The Fear of the Lord

Gradually I came to understand the gospel that God so loved me he sent Jesus to die for me, and that when he saved me, he adopted me as his son and that nothing could ever separate me from his love.

But scripture talks about the fear of the Lord in a very positive manner.

Consider the words of Psalm 147:10-11:

His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.

Or consider Proverbs 1:7, which says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

I have a friend who describes his grandfather as a cantankerous old man who would sit in his chair all day and thwack him and his cousins with his cane anytime they walked in front of him. Is this what God is like?

Sitting in his chair, trying to keep people from having fun? A cosmic grouch?

Does fearing God mean that we are scared to death of him, assuming that he’s just waiting to lash out at us?

God commands us to fear him and says that he takes pleasure in us when have the fear of the Lord. Why? Does he enjoy it when we have a fear of God? I know I don’t want my children to be afraid of me. I want them to love me and enjoy being with me, not to be afraid of me.

In order to answer this question, we need to understand what it means to have a proper fear of God.

What Does It Mean To Fear God? Humility

So what does it mean to fear God?

Here’s a simple definition of the fear of the Lord:

The “fear of God” that brings God pleasure is not our being afraid of him, but our having a high and exalted, reverential view of him.

To “fear him” means to stand in awe of him:

Let all the earth FEAR the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world STAND IN AWE OF HIM! (Psalm 33:8).

You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! (Psalm 22:23)

To fear the Lord is to stand in awe of his majesty, power, wisdom, justice, and mercy, especially in Christ – in his life, death and resurrection – that is, to have an exalted view of God.

To fear God means to dwell upon his beautiful, glorious holiness which is the very opposite of sin and evil, and to revere God and know that he loves us so much that he desires us to hate and turn away from sin.

To see God in all his glory and then respond to him appropriately. To humble ourselves before him.

To adore him.

What does it mean to fear God? It means to revere and glorify and love him above all else.

We tend to be in awe of worldly power, talent, intelligence, and beauty. But these things don’t impress God because “His delight is not in the strength of the horse (mighty armies, worldly power) nor his pleasure in the legs of a man (human strength).” After all, we are simply frail, earthen vesselswhom God uses for his pleasure.

But God delights in those who fear him – those who stand in awe of him – and instead of trusting in their own human abilities or resources, “hope in his steadfast love.”

This is why we must be quick to listen and slow to speak. We know that we are creatures who desperately need God, and so we don’t always voice our opinions immediately.

What Does It Mean To Fear God? Childlike Reverence

There is also a sense of “childlike” fear of the Lord. R.C. Sproul, speaking of Martin Luther, said this:

Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves, not because he’s afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he’s afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child’s world, the source of security and love.

To fear God is to relate to him as a child relates to his strong, respectful father. We respect and honor the Lord, and we are afraid of displeasing him. Therefore we obey him.

We know that he loves us and delights in us, and we are simultaneously aware that he is holy, righteous, and above all else. We fear him in the sense that we have a deep respect for him and reverence of him.

Charles Spurgeon helpfully put is this way:

There is the natural fear that the creature has of its Creator, because of its own insignificance and its Maker’s greatness. From that we shall never be altogether delivered. We holy awe we shall bow before the divine majesty, even when we come to be in perfect glory.

The Wicked Do Not Fear God

By way of contrast, the wicked person doesn’t fear God. He doesn’t stand in awe of God. The wicked don’t honor or revere or love God.

The wicked have a low view of God:

Transgression speaks to the wicked
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil.” (Psalm 36:1-4)

The wicked person has such a low view of God and such a lack of awe for God that he doesn’t think God can find out his sin or hate it.

He doesn’t act wisely or do good because he doesn’t view God as holy and just and serious about punishing sin. He trusts in his own wits and strength. Obviously, the Lord doesn’t find any pleasure in the wicked.

The wicked refuses to fear God.

The Fear Of The Lord Brings Great Reward

In his book The Joy of Fearing God, Jerry Bridges says:

We cannot separate trust of God from the fear of God. We trust Him only to the extent that we genuinely stand in awe of Him.

It’s odd how little we talk about the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is a wonderful gift from God that has brought joy and gladness into my life and has spared me from unimaginable pain and suffering.

Yet I’ve never heard a message preached on it. I don’t hear Christians talking about it. It doesn’t seem to be in the forefront of many people’s minds. It may be, but I don’t hear much about it. What is this wonderful gift from God, this incredible blessing? It is the fear of the Lord.

God tells us that to fear him will lead to all kinds of wonderful blessings in our lives. For example, the fear of the Lord leads us to an abundant life.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
(Proverbs 14:27)

Sin leads to death. God wants us to experience an abundant life – a fountain of life. God doesn’t tell us to fear him to squelch our fun, but to give us overflowing joy.

The fear of the Lord gives us great confidence in life and blessing for our children:

In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
(Proverbs 14:26)

The fear of the Lord causes us to experience God’s friendship and to know his covenant promises to us:

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.
(Proverbs 25:14)

Let Us Have A Healthy Fear of The Lord

So let us fear God – stand in awe of him, take refuge in him, and hope in his steadfast love. For it brings the Lord pleasure when we trust in him for strength and help, not our own wits and resources.

It also serves as a protection for us. When we fear God appropriately, we stay far from sin. We don’t want to displease our good and loving father. We want to delight him.

The fear of the Lord is not a bad thing. Rather, when understood rightly, it motivates us to worship God and follow hard after him.

We know he’s our father. We know he’s good. But we also agree with Mr. Beaver in the book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Speaking of the lion Aslan (who represents the Lord), he says:

Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.

Posted at: https://theblazingcenter.com/2017/03/what-does-it-mean-to-fear-god.html

10 Ideas and 10 Tips for Family Devotions

Article by Tim Challies

A new year is just about upon us, and as it dawns, we have a new opportunity to lead our families in devotions. Whether you’ve been utterly consistent or mightily struggling, here are 10 ideas and 10 tips that may help as you consider the year to come.

Ten Ideas for Family Devotions

Just Read the Bible. This is the simplest suggestion of all: Just read the Bible a book at a time. Younger children tend to do best reading narratives, but as children grow older they need the whole Bible. Consider reading the epistles slowly, a few verses per day, taking time to discuss and apply them. Or read all or some of the Psalms, or whatever else seems interesting and applicable. Don’t overthink it–just commit and read.

Read Big Beliefs!. David Helm’s Big Beliefs! is one of the favorite devotional books we’ve used as a family. It includes a daily reading plus a short devotional and a couple of optional discussion questions. It’s targeted at ages 8-12, but younger kids will be able to stretch up for it while older kids will be able to stoop down. It is framed around the Westminster Confession of Faith and teaches a broad systematic theology. We loved it!

Read Morning and Evening. It’s for good reason that Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Eveningremains a devotional classic. His reflections are deep, timely, and suitable for quick reading. You may have the best success with the edition edited and modernized by Alistair Begg. You may need to put some effort into finding a suitable and significant reading to go with each since Spurgeon’s devotions are typically based on a single verse.

Read the Narratives. We’ve found great value in reading (and re-reading and re-re-reading) the narrative (story) portions of the Bible. Yes, we read other parts, too. But the stories work so well. So why not read through the big picture of the Bible in 2019 by focusing on those parts. In the Old Testament, read Genesis, parts of Exodus (you might skip the building of the tabernacle, for example, and the giving of the ceremonial law), parts of Joshua (perhaps skipping the division of the land), Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, Esther, and so on. For the New Testament, focus on a couple of gospels and Acts. Read the passages aloud, one section or one chapter at a time. Ensure that each day you read enough for it to be significant but not so much that you lose the attention of the children. Over the course of a year you should be able to make your way through much of the Bible’s big story.

Read Around the Table. Sometimes it’s best for mom and dad to do the reading from their own Bible, and especially so when children are young. But as children get older and more adept at reading, it may be best to get each child a Bible so they can follow along. When you do this, you can have each person take a turn reading aloud. It may be too clunky to read one verse per person, but perhaps each person can read a few verses at a time. Or perhaps you can have one person read each day’s entire passage. This gets children comfortable with reading (and perhaps praying) in front of others while also pushing for deeper engagement with the text.

Read Long Story Short. Marty Machowski has released a number of excellent books that are ideal for family devotions, but I most-often recommend two of them: Long Story Short and Old Story New. Long Story Short is a family devotional program designed to explain God’s plan of salvation through the Old Testament and is suitable for children from preschool through high school. Old Story New is the sequel and walks children through the great truths of the Christian faith in the New Testament. Both include daily readings, discussion points, and prayer suggestions, and are designed to be completed in about 10 minutes per day. (You might also consider his book Wise Upwhich focuses on Proverbs.)

Focus on Proverbs. The proverbs contain timeless wisdom and are written specifically for young people. Young Christians need the proverbs! Proverbs are meant to be treated like a lozenge or hard candy, to be savored over time rather than quickly chewed up. Consider reading the proverbs slowly over the course of weeks or months. Read 5 or 6 each day, but pause on 1 or 2 of them, considering what they mean and how they can be practically applied. It’s unlikely you will ever read 5 or 6 without encountering at least 1 that is especially fitting for your family. We recently visited a family and joined their devotions to find they are reading the proverbs, then taking turns attempting to summarize each one in exactly 6 words—an exercise meant to make the children think well.

Read a Catechism. The majority of today’s Christians have forgotten about catechisms, but as believers we have quite a legacy with The Shorter Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, and others like them. The Gospel Coalition has combined the best of those two (while making them a bit more Baptist-friendly) with the New City Catechism. Catechisms approach the Christian faith in a question and answer format and invariably include Scripture to go along with them. If you structure your time around a catechism, do ensure you give attention to an associated Scripture passage.

Mix It Up. Consider deliberately mixing up your devotions for 2019. Perhaps spend a month reading a book of the Bible, then follow with a devotional book for a while. Maybe through the summer you can switch to the Proverbs, then head back to reading an epistle as you head into fall and the gospels as you approach the Christmas season. Variety is the spice of life, right? Variety will keep your children engaged and, equally important, keep their parents engaged.

Ten Tips for Family Devotions

Here are ten tips related to family devotions.

1. More important than how you do family devotions is that you do family devotions.

2. Keep family devotions simple, especially when starting out. Five engaging minutes are far better than 20 rambling ones.

3. Family devotions is not only about gaining knowledge but also about establishing patterns and displaying priorities.

4. The foundation of family devotions is simple: read and pray. Better said: read, teach, and pray.

5. Family devotions don’t need to be fun, but they must not be drab either. Focus on engagement, not entertainment or the mere transfer of information.

6. The benefit of family devotions is not only gaining knowledge but also relating to God together as a family.

7. Do not grow discouraged if your children look bored. Measure long, not short, and expect your kids to behave like kids.

8. Ask for tips on family devotions from others in your local church. Glean from their successes and false starts.

9. Expect that God will work through family devotions but do not demand that his work take a certain form.

10. Dad, take responsibility for family devotions. Lead your family by leading them to the Word and leading them in prayer.

Other Resources

Finally, here are a couple of resources you may find helpful:

• How We Do Family Devotions

• The Art of Godliness, Episode 3: Family Devotions

• Why We Fail at Family Devotions

• Worship Like a Puritan (an interview with Dr. Joel Beeke)

Posted at: https://www.challies.com/resources/10-ideas-and-10-tips-for-family-devotions-in-2019/?fbclid=IwAR3Y7t38UadsBOu2jEFERVjWpa3wf_f9RgQEPPj7HCsbFRWm27r-1qNicCc

The Way of Worship

Article by Kevin DeYoung

There’s a story in the New Testament where Paul visits the great city of Athens. Like Oxford or Cambridge or Boston, Athens was a famous intellectual city, renowned for its history, its learning, and its contribution to culture. Athens was said to be the glory of Greece.

And yet have you ever noticed Paul’s reaction when residing in this world-class city? Was Paul impressed with its intellect? Did he fall in love with its architecture? Was he amazed by their food?

Acts records that “his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols” (17:16). Later he says to Athenians, in effect, “Look, I can see you are very religious. You have temples and rituals and statues all over the place. You are really into worship. But I’m telling you: you’re going about it in the wrong way” (see Acts 17:22–23). That’s why Paul was provoked in his spirit. He could see that no matter how spiritual or how smart or how sincere they may have been, they were worshiping God in a way that did not please him.

If the first of the ten commandments is against worshiping the wrong God, the second commandment is against worshiping God in the wrong way. The people in Athens were guilty of both. They were ignorant of the God who raised Jesus from the dead, and their approach to religion was not what the true God had prescribed.

SELF-WILLED WORSHIP

Most generally, the second commandment forbids self-willed worship—worshiping God as we choose rather than as he demands. In particular, the second commandment makes two prohibitions: 1) We are not to make images to represent God in any form, and 2) We are not to worship images of any kind.

The second commandment does not intend to outlaw art or painting or aesthetic considerations. The tabernacle displayed angels and palm trees, the ark will have cherubim, and God himself gave the Spirit to Bezalel and Oholiab that they might be skilled artists and craftsmen. God is not against beauty. What he prohibits is infusing any object with spiritual efficacy, as if man-made artifacts can bring us closer to God, represent God, or establish communion with God.

The Old Testament is full of examples of God’s people using man-made artifacts for self-willed worship. The golden calf is the most famous example. Remember, Aaron proclaimed a feast to Yahweh, and the people declared that these were the gods who brought them up out of Egypt (Ex. 32:4–5). The Israelites weren’t worshiping Baal. They were trying to worship the Lord their God, but they were doing it in the wrong way. They were violating the second commandment.

At other times, the Israelites treated their religious symbols as though they had real religious powers. This too was a violation of the second commandment, turning the ark into some kind of talisman (1 Sam. 4:1–11) or treating the temple like a good luck charm (Jer. 7:1–15). We can do the same with church buildings or pulpits or the cross around our neck.

Like most of the Decalogue, the second commandment is not hard to understand. The what is fairly straightforward. The why and how take some more explanation. To that end, I want to give five reasons for the prohibitions in the second commandment.

NO ONE LIKE HIM

First, God is free. Once you have something to represent God or worship as if it were God, you undermine God’s freedom. We start to think we can bring God with us by carrying around a statue. Or we think we can manage God with the right rituals. Or we think he’ll be our benefactor if we simply pray in a certain direction or make an offering before a graven image. Anytime we make something in order to see God, or see something that stands in for God, we are undermining his freedom. God is Spirit, and he doesn’t have a body (John 4:24). It is not for us to make the invisible God visible.

Second, God is jealous. No image will capture God’s glory. Every man-made representation of the Divine will be so far less than God as to incite his jealousy. Think about it: the more chaste and pure a husband, the more his jealousy is aroused by an adulterous wife. God is supremely pure, and he cannot bear to share his glory with another, even if the other is a sincere attempt to represent (and not replace) the one true God. God is a being unto himself. In fact, he is being. His glory cannot be captured in a picture or an image or a form. That’s why even in Revelation when we have a vision of the One on the throne, he is “shown” to us in visual metaphors: lightning, rainbow, colors, sea, re, lamps, thrones, etc.

The world of the ancient Near East divinized everything. The Israelites divinized nothing—not Father Time or Mother Earth or the sun or the moon or the stars. The separation between God and his creation is one of the defining characteristics of biblical Christianity. Any human attempt to bridge that chasm is not only an attempt at the impossible but an affront to the unparalleled majesty of God.

Third, believing sight comes by sound. In the Bible, especially on this side of heaven, we see by hearing. As Deuteronomy later made clear, the Sinai experience was a paradigm for God’s self-revelation. When the Lord appeared to the people on the mountain out of the midst of re, Moses reminded them, “You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice” (Deut. 4:12). And because they saw no form, the Israelites were commanded not to corrupt themselves by making visible images (4:15ff.).

We make no apology for being Word-centered and words-centered. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). That’s how God designed it because that’s how he has chosen to reveal himself. Christian worship is meant to be wordy and not a breathtaking visual display. If God wanted us to see him in worship, he would have presented himself differently in the Sinai theophany. The way God “showed up” to give the Ten Commandments says something about how we are to keep the Ten Commandments.

Fourth, God provides his own mediators. At their best, God’s people have employed images and icons not because they thought God could be housed in a marble bust, but in order to provide more intimate access to God. If God is in heaven, it makes sense that we would want a little portal for him here on earth.

But God’s people should know better. The saints in the Old Testament did not need to fashion an intermediary for themselves; God had already promised mediators through the prophets, priests, and kings. God had his own way to draw near to his people, culminating in a final Mediator who would embrace all three offices at once and pitch his tent among us (John 1:14).

Fifth, we don’t need to create images of God because he has already created them. The implications of Genesis 1:26–27 are staggering. We are the divinely chosen statues meant to show what God is like, created in his image and after his likeness. Idolatry diminishes God and diminishes us.

In Ezekiel 18:11–13, right in the middle of a host of horizontal, neighborly sins, is the mention of idolatry. Why? Because mistreating other people and worshiping idols have the same root: a violation of the divine image. In one case, we are looking for God’s image where it doesn’t exist (idolatry), and in the other case we are ignoring God’s image where it does exist (sins against our neighbors).

We are God’s statues in the world, marking out the planet as his and his alone. He does not need our help in making more images; he asks for our witness.

Content taken from The 10 Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them by Kevin DeYoung, ©2018. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org.

About the Author: Kevin DeYoung (MDiv, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina. He serves as board chairman of the Gospel Coalition and blogs at DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed. He is assistant professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte) and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Leicester. He is the author of several books, including Just Do Something; Crazy Busy; and The Biggest Story. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have seven children.

Posted at: http://gcdiscipleship.com/2018/11/29/the-way-of-worship/

Are You Sure You Want To Pray This?

Article by Paul Tripp

I don’t think you could pray more dangerous words than these three: “Thy Kingdom Come.”

If we truly understood what we were saying, we would probably pause before inviting such upheaval through our door. This often overused and underestimated petition can only be answered by turning our lives upside down and inside out.

Let’s be honest. We don’t always greet God’s kingdom with delight. We want certain things in life, and we not only want them, but we know how, when, and where we want them.

I want my wife to be a joyful and committed supporter of my dreams. My children are now grown, but I still want them (and their spouses and their children) to appreciate the fact that they have been blessed with me!

I want my schedule to be unobstructed and predictable. I want my peers and neighbors to hold me in high esteem. I want the ministry initiatives I direct to be well received and successful.

I want the pleasures and entertainment I prefer to be available on-demand.

I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to live without.

Have you ever stopped and listened to yourself? Does the soundtrack to your life sometimes sound like this? “I want, I want, I want...”

It’s humbling and embarrassing to admit, but a lot of the time, we just want our kingdom to come and our will to be done.

When there’s no larger kingdom to capture my allegiance, my life sadly becomes about what I want and how I can use other people as a vehicle to get what I want.

The simple prayer that Christ teaches us with “Thy Kingdom Come” is the antidote to a selfish and self-destructive life. Since sin starts with the heart, I’ll only live within the moral boundaries God has set when my heart desires God’s will more than it desires my own.

“Thy Kingdom Come” - these three simple words are words of surrender, words of protection, and words of freedom.

1. Pray Willingly. “Lord, I surrender to doing everything I do, saying everything I say, and choosing everything I choose for the sake of your kingdom and not mine.”

2. Pray Humbly. “Father, I am still tempted to think that I know better than you, so once again please protect me from my own foolishness.”

3. Pray Eagerly. “God, help me to love you above all else and my neighbor as myself, so I can experience the freedom that results when you break my bondage from me.”

And pray thankfully.

Only God’s transforming grace can produce this kind of prayer in your heart, and because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that grace is freely and generously available!

That’s what it means to pray “Thy Kingdom Come.”

God bless

Paul David Tripp

Reflection Questions

1. In what ways have you pursued your own kingdom this week? What have the results been?

2. In what ways have you pursued God's kingdom this week? What have the results been?

3. What is God calling you to surrender to his kingdom this week?

4. Why should you pray for humility this week? What do you need to be protected from?

5. Why should you seek God's kingdom eagerly this week? What blessings have you experienced when you choose God's will over your own?

Living with Reverent Fear

Article by Kevin Carson

How do respond when you pass a police officer on the highway?
Does your personal awareness of your driving change when a police car pulls in behind you while driving?

If you are like me, I quickly check everything – after I take my foot off the gas pedal. If the police car is following me, I tend to turn blinkers on sooner, make sure I have a safe distance to the car in front of me, carefully stay between the lines, not get distracted by stuff going on inside the car, and watch my speed. The funny part is – all of this even when I know I am absolutely doing nothing wrong.

Why do I respond like this? Because I am aware of the presence of the police officer.

If this has ever happened to you, then you understand living with reverent fear. That is good because we are instructed to do so with God.

God deserves our greatest respect.

Think through my paraphrase of Peter’s words:

17 Since you call on Him as your heavenly Father, the impartial Judge who judges according to each one’s works (or conduct), live each day with reverent fear, that is, holy awe and reverence, throughout your time on earth. (1 Peter 1:17)

Here Peter instructs us to live every day with deep respect for God. As you go about your day, you should have a reverential awe for God. In the Bible this is known as the fear of God.

How can you maintain the fear of God?

This is where the illustration of the police officer comes in handy. Just as when you become aware of the police officer it changes your self-awareness, in a similar way, as you stay aware of God’s presence, it will change your spiritual self-awareness. Seek to keep God’s presence on your mind throughout the day. As you do, you will maintain better respect for God and enjoy His presence more.

 Posted at: https://kevincarson.com/2018/11/05/living-with-reverent-fear-1-minute-mondays/

The Greatest Thing You Can Do with Your Life

Article by Jon Bloom Staff writer, desiringGod.org

One of the most wonderful and hopeful things you can know about yourself and your life is captured in a rather unassuming, simple sentence:

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. (1 Corinthians 7:17)

The verse might hit us as a bit constrictive, perhaps even oppressive, especially if our circumstances are difficult or painful. But that would miss the heart of God’s intention for us.

Your life is a gift and an assignment from God. This should infuse our life — its good and evil, its sweet and bitter, its health and affliction, its prosperity and poverty, its comfort and suffering — with an unfathomable dignity, purpose, and glory. You are not an accident. Neither are you a ruined potential, run off the rails because you were dealt a poor genetic hand of cards, suffered others’ abuse, or made foolish and sinful choices, putting you beyond the hope of a useful calling in Jesus’s kingdom.

No, you exist because God wanted you to exist. And you are who you are, whatyou are, how you are, where you are, and when you are because God made you (John 1:3), wove you in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), called you to be his own (John 10:27; Romans 8:30), and assigned you a place to live (Acts 17:26).

The greatest thing you can do with your life is to live to the hilt the adventurous assignment God has given you.

God Has Called You

“Jesus doesn’t want us to spend the life he’s given us today absorbed in the unreality of an imagined tomorrow.”

Think about this for a moment: “Let each person lead the life . . . to which God has called him.” God has made your entire life your calling!

We tend to think of our callings as our vocations, some significant job God gives us to do with an identifiable and preferably esteemed title. Perhaps it’s a career vocation or perhaps it’s a noncareer vocation in a church or ministry. But that’s too narrow. Of course, vocations should be vehicles for our calling — ways we fulfill our assignment from the Lord. But our calling encompasses more than our vocations.

Our primary core calling is to love God with all we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And this calling incorporates everyone we interact with, or perhaps comes to mind, in everything we do from morning till night. Which is why John Calvin said, “God commands each one of us to consider his calling in every act of life” (Institutes, 821).

This means that our calling isn’t behind that door we’re waiting for God to open someday (though that may be part of tomorrow’s calling). Our calling is to love God today, to love the neighbors God places in our “road” today, and to do well what God gives our hands to do today.

That’s one reason Jesus tells us, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matthew 6:34). Being overly preoccupied with tomorrow’s calling, as tempting as that can be, is often a way we are deceived into being disengaged from today’s calling. Jesus doesn’t want us to spend the priceless gift of life he’s given us today absorbed in the unreality of an imagined tomorrow.

Now, it is true that our callings change over time. We move through different phases of life, we might be deployed to different places at different times, and we experience various circumstantial and health changes. All these alter our calling. And as the Spirit gives us light, we should seek to anticipate and plan for changes as befit good stewards.

But God wants us focused primarily on the life he’s called us to, which is the life we have today.

Be Faithful to Your Assignment

“The greatest thing you can do with your life is to live to the hilt the adventurous assignment God has given you.”

The Spirit tells us through Paul, “Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him.”

Perhaps you’re thinking, You don’t know my circumstances. Without wanting to be insensitive, it doesn’t matter what your circumstances are.

The circumstances of the Corinthian Christians to whom Paul was writing were all over the board: married, betrothed, and single, widows and bondservants, circumcised and uncircumcised. That’s just a sampling.

Think of the bondservants. They were the physical property of a human master. And yet Paul says to them in 1 Corinthians 7:21, “Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)” What Paul meant was circumstances, even very difficult ones, don’t disqualify anyone from God’s assignment. If we can extricate ourselves honorably from such circumstances, we ought to do it. But if not, let us consider it God’s assignment, at least for today, and be faithful,

not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:6–8)

Assigned to Affliction

Think of Paul’s own various circumstances: imprisoned, violently persecuted, ill, exposed to the cold, hungry, shipwrecked, betrayed, homeless, poorly dressed, mocked, maligned, distrusted, spiritually opposed, afflicted, sometimes despairing of life, and finally killed (2 Corinthians 11:23–28). And it was glorious! All of it! Because Paul’s life was hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3) and since the Life (John 14:6) had given him eternal life, death could only gain him a whole new level of life (Philippians 1:21).

As John Calvin said, “we should all regard our particular situation as a post assigned to us by God, lest in the course of our lives we flit to and fro and drift aimlessly about” (Institutes, 821). See your life today as an assignment from God. And stay faithful at your post until the Lord moves you.

Your Greatest Adventure

“See your life today as an assignment from God. And stay faithful at your post until the Lord moves you.”

Here’s the bedrock truth beneath 1 Corinthians 7:17: God — the Creator and sustainer of all that exists — is the one who has chosen us and bestowed on us the exceedingly rare honor to live here and now. He has assigned us a life to lead. And there is no more wonderful, exciting, hopeful, fulfilling, joy-producing sense of life purpose than to realize that we are who we are, what we are, how we are, where we are, and when we are by the assignment of the Lord.

You have been given the unfathomable gift of life. You have been given the infinitely more valuable gift of eternal life. And you have been given the astounding and extremely rare privilege of receiving an assignment from God. There is no higher calling than to lead the life that the Lord has assigned to you. Embrace your assignment, this great adventure chosen for you, and press it to the limit.

Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon) serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight, Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife live in the Twin Cities with their five children.

Posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-greatest-thing-you-can-do-with-your-life

My Wedding Was Supposed to Be Today

Article by Calley Sivils

I made a life plan when I was ten years old (yeah, I know, crazy). It included all the normal things: graduate high school, go to college, travel the world. With regard to romance, though, I always assumed I would get married at 23, because “Why not?” and “Surely I’ll have met somebody by then.”

So, in my late teens, I arbitrarily picked a date (today, April 22, 2017) as my likely wedding day because (a) it’s a few months before my 24th birthday and (b) I’ve always wanted a spring wedding. I added details about kids and jobs and travel along the way, but my plan has remained mostly unchanged.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Except the God I serve isn’t always a straightforward God.

He is straightforward in what he wants from me: to act justly, love kindness, and to walk humbly with him (Micah 6:8), and to set nothing above him in my heart, mind, or soul (Deuteronomy 6:5). But what about beyond that? What about my wedding day?

“I have had to learn to battle the temptations that creep into unwanted waiting and unwanted singleness.”

Much to the woe of my control-desiring heart, he leaves much of it a surprise and mystery. To those who do not know him or trust him, the way he makes us wait may seem like stinginess or even evil. But in truth, he wants something better for us: for our trust and joy in him to flourish.

As a planner, I must learn to live day-by-day by faith, not by sight, knowing that whatever he gives me is truly, deeply good for me (Romans 8:28). No matter how much his plans diverge from mine, no matter how much heartbreak those plans bring, no matter how far out of my comfort zone he pushes or pulls me, he is not only ultimately good, but his plans for me are also always better.

Three Ways to Wait

So, here on my “wedding day,” I’ve been single for several years now, including all of my five years as a Christian. I wasn’t asked out on a single date during college (and haven’t been since), so I have had to learn to battle the temptations that creep into unwanted waiting and unwanted singleness. Here are three lessons I have picked up in the fight.

1. Trust God to give you every good gift at the perfect time.

While we wait, we will be tempted to doubt God’s love and ability. We are talking about the Lord who has built and leveled the nations throughout generations. He is the Lord who flooded the whole earth and held back the Red Sea long enough for his people to walk through on dry ground. Surely this great Lord of history can handle a small thing like the date of my wedding. And that’s what a wedding is: one day of millions of days. Not to say it isn’t important, but it also isn’t anywhere near ultimate.

“My purity is not for me. My wedding is not for me. Marriage will not be for me. It is all for God.”

Marriage is a gift. A gift isn’t earned or bargained for, and neither is a spouse. Pursuing maturity in Christ should be a consistent theme in any believer’s life, but never as currency to spend on something else. We pursue Christ not to “earn” a spouse, but in order to know Christ (Philippians 3:10). The gift isn’t given because the gift-receiver is fit enough, or tall enough, or smart enough. It is freely given because the gift-Giver is good. You cannot “earn” your way or “behave” your way to a spouse. God must give him or her to you in his own way, and at his time.

2. Make God the treasure and anchor of your life.

While we wait, we will be tempted to envy others. There are many people getting married today that are not following the Lord and have (sometimes flagrantly) disobeyed him in the process. Regardless, if Jesus is our greatest treasure, we do not obey in order to gain a husband or a wife, and we do not groan under the perceived unfairness of unrepentant people getting married.

My purity is not for me. My wedding is not for me. Marriage (if it happens for me) will not be for me. All these things are for the Lord and for his glory, not for me so that my life turns out “fairly.” Instead of praying for fairness in this life, we pray with Jesus, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

I pray that all couples getting married today would know my Lord and Savior, but many won’t. They will not have my anchor and firm foundation when life and marriage are hard (and they will be). What is there to envy? If single people lived so assured of God’s love that we were secure and satisfied in the absence of a spouse, perhaps the Lord would use us to witness to married men and women whose marriages have disappointed them or fallen apart.

3. Refuse to settle for someone who does not love Jesus.

While we wait, we will be tempted to settle. We should not draw comfort from the assurance that God has someone for each of us to marry. He may not. Even if he doesn’t, or even if that person comes into our lives ten years late (by our schedule), that does not give us the right to rebel, disobey, or run away. None of us is entitled to marriage. I am not entitled to marriage.

“Our romantic lives should look strange to the world, and so should our joy in singleness.”

Our only constraint in seeking a spouse is to marry someone within the body of believers (2 Corinthians 6:14). It’s a simple guideline, and yet so easy to compromise. But if we’re to have marriages that glorify the eternal God at all, we cannot fall into the trap of setting aside faith, and basing our crushes and choices on temporal qualities like physical appearance or material wealth.

I say “trap” because that’s what a spouse not centered on Christ will undoubtedly become. Recall what happened to Solomon, touted the wisest man in history:

For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 11:4–6)

Heartbreakingly, this lust-following idol-worshiper is the same man who, in his youth, “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father” (1 Kings 3:3).

The difference a few decades and poor choices in romance can make, right? A man to whom God gave wisdom, and whose future in loving and serving the Lord started out as promising as his father David’s, ends up unabashedly worshiping abominations — gods that cannot see or hear, let alone give wisdom or deserve worship. Many of those wives were probably pretty physically attractive (he was a king, after all), but they helped turn his heart into something ugly and steer his path away from the Lord.

Rather than chafe at our only restriction in romance, followers of Christ should rejoice in the blessing of not being enslaved in the search for financial security or good looks or athletic ability. Our romantic lives should look strange to the world, and so should our joy in singleness. The Spirit empowers us to be countercultural lights pointing forward to our one true Bridegroom and our one true wedding day (Revelation 19:7).

Calley Sivils is currently pursuing her MDiv in Advanced Biblical Studies at SEBTS in Wake Forest, North Carolina. She writes on her blog, Washedwanderer, and you can reach her on Facebook.

Article posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/my-wedding-was-supposed-to-be-today