Studying....as usual!

Longing

"Every time you acknowledge your sin, you long for Jesus too. But you're not longing for the final sacrifice, because it's already been made. No, you and I long for final deliverance. We long for that moment when we'll be taken to the place where sin will be no more. We long to see Jesus, to be with him, and to be like him. Isn't it comforting to know that that final deliverance has been written into the story as well? It is our guaranteed future. And so we long with hope."

- Paul David Tripp, Whiter Than Snow (Wheaton, IL.: Crossway Books, 2008), 90.

Some of our favorite games

The teens enjoy playing "Zip Balm" and the "Quantitative Question Game."

For "Zip Balm" you must try to keep your teeth from showing as you say either "Zip" or "Balm." This results in extreme jaw cramping.

For the second game it is necessary that you ask the person standing next to you in the group circle a unique question immediately after the person on the other side has asked you a question. If you stumble or repeat, you are out!

Wi Bowl (Part 2)

The activity escalated quickly into "human bowling." Most seem to do well with the roller coaster effects.


Others did not.

Nephew and Niece

Brandon and Katrina are really growing up! It has been difficult not seeing them the recent months nearly as much as we did this summer.


Actually, Katrina is finishing up a little of my reading for my open theism paper. She does a good job at proofreading my final drafts.

The Wi Bowl!!

We had a special activity at Liberty for those in the youth group who had memorized and recited Philippians 3. Instead of doing the normal bowling and pizza we had the first ever (drum role please...) Wi Bowl!

The night started out with an exciting round of Monster Bowling! (A special thanks to the tire shop who donated a semi truck tire.)

Fall Colors

Since we missed out on fall last year, we were pretty happy to see all the colors!

Sin

“Our sins are great; every sin is great; but there are some that in our apprehension seem to be greater than others. There are crimes that the lip of modesty could not mention. I might go far in this pulpit this morning in describing the degradation of human nature in the sins which it has invented. It is amazing how the ingenuity of man seems to have exhausted itself in inventing fresh crimes. Surely there is not the possibility of the invention of a new sin. But if there be, ere long man will invent it, for man seemeth exceedingly cunning, and full of wisdom in the discovery of means of destroying himself and the endeavor to injure his Maker. But there are some sins that show a diabolical extent of degraded ingenuity — some sins of which it were a shame to speak, of which it were disgraceful to think.

But note here: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.’ There may be some sins of which a man cannot speak, but there is no sin which the blood of Christ cannot wash away. Blasphemy, however profane, lust, however bestial; covetousness, however far it may have gone into theft and rapine; breach of the commandments of God, however much of riot it may have run, all this may be pardoned and washed away through the blood of Jesus Christ. In all the long list of human sins, though that be long as time, there standeth but one sin that is unpardonable, and that one no sinner has committed if he feels within himself a longing for mercy, for that sin once committed, the soul becomes hardened, dead, and seared, and never desireth afterwards to find peace with God.”

- Charles Spurgeon, The Evil and Its Remedy

Meant to Be

"To live for yourself is to rob yourself of your own humanity. It is only in living for Christ that we actually begin to become what we were meant to be."

- Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC; New Growth Press, 2007), 100.

The Cross

"The Cross was at once the most horrible and the most beautiful example of God’s wrath. It was the most just and the most gracious act in history. God would have been more than unjust, He would have been diabolical to punish Jesus if Jesus had not first willingly taken on Himself the sins of the world. Once Christ had done that, once He volunteered to be the Lamb of God, laden with our sin, then He became the most grotesque and vile thing on this planet. With the concentrated load of sin He carried, He became utterly repugnant to the Father. God poured out His wrath on this obscene thing. God made Christ accursed for the sin He bore. Herein was God’s holy justice perfectly manifest. Yet it was done for us. He took what justice demanded from us."

- RC Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), 121.

“Christ’s death to sin and His satisfaction of God’s justice opened the way for the reign of grace in our lives.”

- Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1994), 73.

In the Office

I am slowly working to fill the plethora of shelving space, but coloring books don't take up a lot of room.

Word for the Day

honesty |ˈänistē |
noun
1 the quality of being honest : they spoke with convincing honesty about their fears | it was not, in all honesty, an auspicious debut.
2 a European plant with purple or white flowers and round, flat, translucent seedpods that are used for indoor flower arrangements. Also called money plant . • Genus Lunaria, family Brassicaceae.
ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French honeste, from Latin honestas, from honestus (see honest ). The original sense was [honor, respectability,] later [decorum, virtue, chastity.] The plant is so named from its seedpods, translucency symbolizing lack of

Thesaurus
noun
1 I can attest to his honesty integrity, uprightness, honorableness, honor, morality, morals, ethics, principles, high principles, righteousness, right-mindedness; virtue, goodness, probity, high-mindedness, fairness, incorruptibility, truthfulness, trustworthiness, reliability, dependability, rectitude.
2 they spoke with honesty about their fears sincerity, candor, frankness, directness, bluntness, truthfulness, truth, openness, straightforwardness.

Thought this may be applicable in the light of the campaigning.

Our circumstances and God's promises

"Our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He promises us immortality: yet we are surrounded by mortality and corruption. He declares that He accounts us just: yet we are covered with sins. He testifies that He is propitious and benevolent toward us: yet outward signs threaten His wrath.

What then are we to do? We must close our eyes, disregard ourselves and all things connected to us, so that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true."

—John Calvin, commenting on Rom 4:20, in Thomas Schreiner and Ardel Canaday, The Race Set Before Us (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 282

Youth Group

Wednesday night we had an outside activity. We played a few games like soccer, crabwalk soccer (got pretty interesting when we realized the geese had been out in the field earlier!), and Birdy-Go-Bye-bye.

Around the Fire

We looked at I John 3:4-10. Here John tells us that "9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother."

I John has been a great encouragement as we study through it, and I pray God will use it to change each of our lives to be more like Him!

Marshmallows and the Question Game

Our Foundation

"We must not be grieved, that we have nothing to trust upon besides Christ for our salvation; but rather we are to rejoice, that we need nothing else, and that we have a sure foundation to rely on, incomparably better than any other that can be imagined."

—Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1999), 150

"Gethsemane provides the medicine for the ills which followed upon the
forbidden fruit of Eden."

- Charles Spurgeon

ESL Class

This weekend I participated in an ESL Workshop at Liberty. "ESL" stands for "English as a Second Language" and is a very effective way for churches to reach out to immigrants and give them contact to the life changing Gospel. Many of those who have come to Minneapolis, such as the Mong, have fled due to intense fighting in their homeland.

Ed and Dorothy Woods, missionaries with Continental Baptist Missions, taught the class. They are currently assisting Family Baptist Church and All Nation Baptist Church here in the Twin Cities. They did an excellent job at giving us the basic philosophy and teaching skills necessary to begin an ESL outreach through Liberty Baptist Church.
We met Friday for several hours and then all day on Saturday. It was humorous as we attempted to "teach" each other new words and short conversations.

I pray that as opportunities arise, we will be able to spread God's light to the nations right here in our backyard. Let us not see that man or woman who is obviously "not like us" as a hindrance nor an intruder, but as a soul needing Christ.

Youth Group Activity

"Jesus Christ, God's own Son, became like us to be a total Savior, sufficient for the whole range of our need. How hollow, then, ring the world's complaints against our God. People are saying all the time today, lamenting in this world of woe, 'Where is God? Why doesn't he do something?' Meanwhile, he has done everything, indeed, more than ever we could ask or imagine. God has entered into our world. He has walked through the dust of this earth. He who is life has wept before the grave, and he who is the Bread of Life has felt the aching of hunger in his belly.

Is there anything more lovely in all of Scripture than the scenes of Jesus supping with the weak and the weary, the sinners and the publicans? He has taken the thorns that afflict this sin-scarred world and woven them into a crown to be pressed upon his head. And he has stretched open his arms in love, that the hands that wove creation might be nailed to a wooden cross. Then he rose from the dead, conquering all that would conquer us, setting us free to live in peace and joy before the face of God."

- Richard D. Phillips, Hebrews: Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2006), 82.