Growing in Christ
blog direction
It’s Alive! The new blog.
76 months ago
About a month ago, I got Challies’d. Tim Challies linked my blog, and it blew up. All said and done, I got about 2,500 hits in a day – which is about what I otherwise get in a year. But, lest you get concerned that yours truly is getting a fat head over it, the post he linked (The only infallible sermon I’ve ever heard) had absolutely nothing to do with me. It was one of those instances of being the right carrier, at the right time. Everybody was coming to my blog for something I hadn’t even written.
However, one of the valuable lessons I learned from that experience was the nature of blogs and ads. Later that day, after about 1,500 people had tuned in, a friend sent me a screen shot of my blog with the video of Joel from my post accompanied with a viagra ad underneath him! In all my life, I never knew that the blog had ads on it! So I decided it was time to get all the blogging factors under my control, and I immediately started working on getting things to where they are now.
The name
In Isaiah 61:3, God calls his people “oaks of righteousness” planted by the Lord himself, for his own glory. The marginal reading of this verse ends by saying that these oaks of righteousness are “that he may display his beauty”. I don’t think I’m a particularly beautiful person, nor much of a mature man, but I do see that by faith I’m rooted in Christ, who is both beautiful and holy.
The idea of believers being oak trees captures many beautiful things. I grew up down south where oaks are massive, wild, and magestic. They’ve been toughened into hard, lasting wood through season after season to withstand the storms of life. And yet, they still reach towards heaven in such a gracious way that they are still the best places for tree forts and hangouts in the sky. Oaks last and thrive, and reflect the alluring, gracious beauty of the Lord. That’s what I want my life to be: lasting, thriving, and reflecting the glory of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, this blog is my small attempt to write out small thoughts of my life planted in Jesus Christ, the True Vine. My posts will generally be devotional-type thoughts that I’ve been meditating on, usually in 500–800 word bites. I also post book reviews, and from time to time will put up poetry that I’ve written. I try to keep things short on this blog because I assume that you are probably like me: little time to read long blog posts and looking for a little edification to love Jesus more. I read the Puritans quite a bit, so a good number of my posts come from them.
If that seems interesting to you, then I’d love for you to join me in reading along, and contributing as you’d like.
Year in Review, Year in View
03 years ago
A practice I’ve had now for a couple years is taking an honest evaluation of the year behind, and looking at what is to come. This consists mainly of looking at growth and weaknesses revealed in the past year, and setting a course for the year ahead to see growth in those areas of weakness as well as areas I desire to see further growth in. This also consists in taking a “temperature” of where I am in my relationship with God and determining where he’s leading me to grow.
In case you don’t want to read through the rest of my post at this point and would rather just skip to answering (which is totally understandable!) here are the questions to think about:
What are the major things God has done in your life this past year?
What are the areas of growth you’ve seen? (In your walk with God, your desire for God, godliness, humility, service, etc.)
What are the areas of weakness or sin you’ve seen in the past year?
What does God’s word say about those areas of struggle?
What are the steps you can take to grow this next year?
What are the areas you feel God is leading you to grow in this next year?
So last year I sensed that the Lord was wanting to impress a deeper experiential relationship of his glory in my life. I tend to lean on the intellectual realities of God more by nature (that’s God’s gifting to me + personality = personal struggles). This growth was mainly seen through reading The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal on January 1 (it’s a short and compelling book, easily read in an afternoon), and through reading Jonathan Edwards, especially his The Religious Affections. It also was seen through a growing captivation with God’s glory in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6) by consistent, daily Bible reading and prayer. So, while I’m not what I’d like to be in this area, by God’s grace, I have grown.
This past year it became evident that I was weak in leading my wife. I tend to only do things that are convenient for me, and make me happy. I’m a selfish dude. But by prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit my wife notes a significant change of growth in this area. She feels better cared for, and thinks I have a clearer vision of leading our home both in our relationship (in all marital areas) and in our church. This has honestly been by God’s grace. I’m not as lazy – though I am certainly still lazy! Much of it was the internal battle of “I don’t want to do X right now. But God calls me to, and so we’re going to do X right now because God is more valuable than what I want right now.” This is typically the battle I feel about praying.
In review of this past year, my wife and I see that we need to grow in two main areas: 1) Prayer and 2) Communication. Ironically, these are connected, but are also areas that we’ve already seen growth in. It is usually the case that those areas you feel conviction about to grow in are areas the Holy Spirit has already been working on. Sanctification is God’s work – keep that in mind – guided by the Holy Spirit, set clearly by the Word. We want to pray more together, and a part of looking expectantly for growth in this area is seeing God’s faithfulness to make us grow in enjoying prayer recently. It is my responsibility to lead us to pray together regularly. This isn’t legalism because we don’t think we have to pray to make God happy, rather, we get to pray, and it’s God’s joy for us to do so. On communication, this is also an area of leadership for me. We do date nights every week for a number of reasons, and I have a history of just winging the date. However, by God’s grace, I have been growing in preparing for our date nights, setting them in stone ahead of time (that means monthly planning), and coming in looking to get to know Michelle (my wife) better, see where she’s at with God, see where we’re at, and see how we can care for each other, grow in Grace, and enjoy God. A couple months ago we crafted a “mission statement” for our marriage that helps identify areas we see God focusing us on at this season of life (I’m happy to post this if any body’s interested in reading it). So in the year to come I need to press into growing in leading our conversations around the home and on dates. I need to grow in killing my flesh of that says, “Dude, just relax and wing it!” (which is a veiled way of saying I want me to be the object of attention) and grow in walking by the Spirit to lead intentionally in our home with how we spend time, what we talk about and when.
Anyhow, in the year to come, I’m seeing that God is pressing on me to grow in my intimate knowledge of Scripture. I read a lot, but I don’t (much to my shame) spend a lot of time reading Scripture. So this year to come, I’m going to spend a significant amount of time reading and learning more about the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). The Law of Moses is the foundation of the Bible – a proper understanding of it (or an errant one) can have massive effects on how one understands the rest of the Bible. So I’ll be reading the Pentateuch and the Epistle of James accompanied by helpful commentaries (to be determined soon for the Pentateuch, and I’ll be reading Thomas Manton’s commentary on James).
I’m also switching to using the Bible Reading plan in the ESV Study Bible. (I’ll post this soon should anybody want a printer-friendly version.) I found the Discipleship Journal plan a little difficult with large selections from the history and prophets for every day while having small sections from the NT. This was a little unbalanced for me, and the ESV SB plan was a little more balanced with (essentially) single chapters from 4 sections.
I’m also looking to read some more Jonathan Edwards, particularly The Freedom of the Will and The Religious Affections. The Religious Affections was such a helpful book this past year I’ve got it on my “yearly” list for the next few years. I’ve also tentatively added The Christian in Complete Armor by Gurnall for this next year – a daunting task, but why should we set easy goals?!
I’m also looking to get some modern books regularly flowing through my queue. I’ve found that I can read modern books much faster than older ones (not surprising eh!) and would like to get through some books by folks I wouldn’t normally read (i.e. Rob Bell, Ken Wilber, etc.).
Anyhow, I’ll post a final list when I’ve solidified it, but those are my thoughts at the present moment about the year to come!
Youngs to England 2008
03 years ago
For those who check in here regularly, or from time to time, I just wanted to let you know that my wife and I will be in England for the next week and a half. We do a family trip there every year to visit her Granny and Auntie, and it just so happens that they live in the coolest place on earth, London! This will be our first vacation since our trip there last year – a much welcomed trip. I plan to be able to post a little more often while there on the reading I’ll be doing, but I can’t promise that for sure. That said, the books I’m taking on the trip are:
- Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 1, Prolegomena by Herman Bavinck
- Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges
- A Godly Man’s Picture by Thomas Watson
- Worldliness edited by C.J. Mahaney
One thing that excites me is that Auntie has a bunch of books at her place that aren’t the typical reads that I’d do, so I’m looking forward to reading through them as I get the time. We’ll be hopping around, and hopefully find some good use book stores – I’ll report my findings as they come.
We always lookforward to these trips because Granny and Auntie are very dear to us. If you remember to pray for us, pray that the Lord would fill the time with them with his Spirit that we would glorify him in our conversations, attitudes, and time.
With that said, one last note: We have a 1 in 5,000 chance of dieing in the car ride to the airport (general statistics), and a 1 in 11,000,000 chance of dying on the plane. Either way, if death comes, let it usher us to Christ!
Setting a course with the Holy Spirit
04 years ago
I have this first confession to make: I love the body of Christ. Without my local congregation, my life would be in shambles. I love the local church, and I love my local church. I say this because I had the high privilege of having my regular bi-weekly meeting with my friend Steve Praz this Monday morning. He is such an example to me of how a single man lives in such a way as to be continually stirred to consider godliness, seek godliness, and love the Lord of godliness – Jesus Christ. So, in our conversation, I was asking him if he had any thoughts on my blog here, and any concerns for me about it. He had a very insightful line of thinking that was very helpful to me. He said that an area to consider was how I might discuss issues I’m thinking about in relation to my local church on the blog, while not actually talking to people in my local church about those issues. This was, in some senses, a guard rail that I had not fully considered before.
This was an incredibly helpful thought to consider, and I received it well at the time. Now, as a confession of how sinful a man I am, later on in the morning, something about his observation really began to bug me. I don’t know if you get these or not, but on occasion, I can get so wrapped up into thinking on something, and so twisted up in anxiety (note, idol of man alert!), that my head began to really hurt and get tired, etc. etc. So anyhow, this was in no way a reflection on Steve’s thoughts or help – he was very humble in his observation, and helpful in his approach – but it obviously showed that some idol has been messed with in my heart; something about the subject that he posed offended some idol in my heart that really shook me up.
So, after thinking about it, reciting the Gospel to myself to give illumination to what my heart was being ruptured about, I think that what was offended was the long ingrained, truly American, highly prized idol of self governing. I honestly just want to post what I want, when I want, on whatever I want. Of all things, I don’t want anybody coming in and telling me what I will can or cannot post on. Now, to be clear, Steve actually said nothing on what I should, or shouldn’t post on – but his poke exposed the root in that idol.
In light of this, I’m beginning to think of what might serve the 2 people who read this blog, but more importantly, what I should use this blog for. I previously have posted a blog on my reading list for this year, as well as a blog meditation through the phrase “filled with the spirit”. Both of these came out of the sense that the Lord was leading me to consider this year the nature of the believer’s union with Christ. The reason I bring up the post on the Holy Spirit is because more and more I’m seeing that one of the major ways in which the believer – i.e. me – is united with the risen, glorified Jesus Christ is through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit plays a HUGE role in our relationship with God. Due to this illumination, I am seeing a lot of my studies zero in on who the Holy Spirit is, what he is doing, etc.
(Thanks for sticking around this far if you’re still here).
I think, therefore, that I am going to post regularly on this blog from my reading in Owen’s work on the Holy Spirit. It spans volumes 3 and 4 of his Works, and it is going to take some time for me to read. I’ll most likely be posting reflections, and not so much summaries. Owen is a profound thinker, and his discussion on the Holy Spirit spans, seriously, everything that the Bible has to say on the Holy Spirit (hence, 2 volumes). On the issue of the Holy Spirit however, I will be drawing my friends from my local church into this.
I’m also going to be posting on some issues within Reformed theology, and occasionally, on it’s disputes with non-Reformed theology. As my last post as an example, I’ll occasionally put up scriptures with an interpretation to help illuminate why Calvinists interpret some scriptures the way they do. I’m hoping to illuminate some “problem” verses that people bring up from time to time to help explain why Calvinism is the consistent reading of Scripture. (As a note here, when I say “Calvinism” I mean that historic system of doctrine that has always been held by the church of Christ as the Gospel that God saves sinners by grace alone, and which has come, in recent history, to be called by the name of John Calvin.) In this, I’m also hoping to drive home the practicality of Calvinism to a healthy Christian faith.
There will be occasional side issues that I’ll post on from time to time that I feel a burden to walk through (i.e. Posting for Godliness).
Oh, and I’ll occasionally post on beer. I’m a home brewer, so occasionally that will come out.
So, there you go. I’m sorry for this to be such an excruciatingly long post – for those who are interested, I hope it sets a course for the future and this blog.
Thankfully Christ’s,
~Jacob
