Knowing the God of the Gospel

Every night when my wife and I put our kids to bed, we read them a Bible story and I say a prayer with them.  Friends have talked to me about how meaningless some bed time prayers were for them growing up. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."  Recently, I have been spending some time each night, going through different parts of the Lord's Prayer with my kids.  The exercise has challenged me to pray more biblically, and forced me to get clear on praying biblically so I can teach my kids how to pray.  This whole initiative began for me through reading Tim Keller's new book on Prayer. I highly recommend this book for many reasons.  Firstly, Keller anchors prayer so deeply into Scripture and explains why this is so important.  Many of the "prayer fads" around today talk about expressing ourselves, but Keller does a masterful job of teaching why prayer is "answering speech".  First we need to hear from God through His Wor...

Complaining or Praying? My wife and I are in the throes of child raising seemingly every waking moment of our lives, and one of the things we spend time talking about and thinking about are the forces that shape our children.  My words shape my children, and what I emphasize and what I correct reveal what I value.  My actions shape my children, as they constantly watch my every move and call me out when I have a little ice cream and they are excluded.  The videos, entertainment and culture shapes my children too, as they watch images, see clothing and track with how people behave, often imitating what they see others do.  Recently, friends of mine visited our house and their 14 year old son was constantly wearing a pull over stocking cap as some teenagers are prone to do, even in the hot summer.  Well, my son Daniel was watching this teenager (Spencer) like a hawk, and this teenager quickly become a hero to my son Daniel.   A litt...

   As a father of three young children, finding the balance of how to discipline in love is a great adventure.  As a friend mention to me at lunch today, kids go through stages of development and navigating their stage of development requires new GPS settings every day.  Both of my twin children are a hand full, but my son Daniel right now is really challenged when it comes to following instructions.  Yet it seems that his disregard of instructions is not really rebellion, often it is just curiosity.  Daniel is curious about everything and sometimes directions get lost when he is really focused on something he is curious about.  Yet during these times when he is lost in his own world, I can get impatient and my voice can have "an edge".  When I'm tired, the edge becomes particularly evident.  Sadly, sometimes I can have an edge with people too.  When travelling through life, I often project onto God my own moods and attitudes and ...

The Problem of Forgiveness     My two four year old kids are learning about forgiveness.  They often act selfishly against each other, offending each other and we are teaching them to apologize and forgive.  It is often a rote catch phrase they quickly spout off, knowing that it is an appropriate practice in life and relationships.  They often throw the phrase into situations of conflict, knowing that it is important, but not always grasping the concepts of offense, forgiveness and the resulting reconciliation that forgiveness is intended to accomplish.   Why doesn't God simply forgive us with words of forgiveness like I require of my kids?   Why should our forgiveness depend on Christ's death on the cross?  As one French cynic once said, "Why can't God practice what he preaches and be equally generous [to us]? Nobody's death is necessary before we forgive each other.  Why then does God make so much fuss about forgiving us an...

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert T. Putnam, talks about the shifting American landscape and how our definition of community has changed so drastically over the past decades.  In Bowling Alone, Putnam makes the comment that Americans traditionally have been communal people, bowling together, going to church together, serving in community clubs together.  Yet in recent years, this has all shifted.  The individuality of the American experience, enhanced by technology, travel and mobility, has increasingly made us disconnected from each other. Yet as I meet people in Madison, Wisconsin and other places, I see people longing for friendship, for a sense of connection to other like minded people and given to something bigger than themselves.   When Jesus came to earth and lived, his ultimate purpose was not to help people improve their moral behavior so they could have improved relationships and get along better.   Ultimately Jesus came and died to con...

The Fuel of Death Defying Missions One of the books that has recently impacted Brenda and me is "Radical" by David Platt.  Brenda and I went through this book in a small group several years ago and it deeply challenged us to more fully give our lives to Christ's work and make decisions, especially financial decisions, that reflect at eternal perspective. This book has challenged not only our lives but our former small group as well as the staff here at Monona Oaks Community Church.   Platt recently spoke at the T4G conference on global missions and his sermon is continuing to gather a large following.  As you think about your commitment to global missions, I encourage you to listen to David Platt's message as you consider how you might participate in God's global mission.

God Speaks Through What He Has Spoken Recently I was reading a book by John Stott called "Between Two Worlds" which is Stott's classic book on preaching.  Yet in the early pages of the book, I was struck by one of Stott's phrases that doesn't just apply to preaching, but to Bible reading and Bible study in general.  Stott makes the pronouncement that God has spoken through his Word, which is absolutely true, but just as importantly, God continues to speak through what he has spoken.  When the writer of Hebrews says that God's Word is 'living and active' what the writer is saying is that God has spoken and is continuing to speak, yet sadly, people harden their hearts to God's Word and don't heed his voice (Heb 4:7).  It is an ongoing problem for humanity.  But another spiritual problem relates to not rebellion, but neglect.  Some of us don't hear from God and our spiritual lives are stale and boring, not from rebellion, but neglect o...