How To Weaken Pride and Cultivate Humility

C.J. Mahaney:

ALWAYS:
1. Reflect on the wonder of the cross of Christ.

AS EACH DAY BEGINS:
2. Being your day by acknowledging your dependence upon God and your need for God.
3. Begin your day by expressing gratefulness to God.
4. Practice the spiritual disciplines - prayer, study of God's Word, worship. Do this consistently each day and at the day's outset, if possible.
5. Seize your commute time to memorize and meditate on Scripture.
6. Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

AS EACH DAY ENDS:
7. At the end of the day, transfer the glory to God.
8. Before going to sleep, receive this gift of sleep from God and acknowledge His purpose for sleep.

FOR SPECIAL FOCUS:
9. Study the attributes of God.
10. Study the doctrines of grace.
11. Study the doctrine of sin.
12. Play golf as much as possible - ("I don't think there is a more difficult or humbling sport.")
13. Laugh often, and laugh at yourself.

THROUGHOUT YOUR DAYS AND WEEKS:
14. Identify evidences of grace in others.
15. Encourage and serve others each and every day.
16. Invite and pursue correction.
17. Respond humbly to trials.

(HT: Trinity Church Blog)

Happy Birthday Isaac Watts

Do you know who Mr. Watts is? Well, for starters he has penned over 500 hymns. Songs that most of us know quite well. Songs include:
Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed
Am I a Soldier of the Cross?
How Sweet and Awesome Is This Place
Marching to Zion
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
the list can go on and on...
For a full list of his songs, click here.

Here is some great bio info on this prolific father of the faith (all found here):

Watts’ fa­ther was Non­con­form­ist im­pris­oned twice for his re­li­gious views. Isaac learned Greek, Latin, and He­brew un­der Mr. Pin­horn, Rec­tor of All Saints, and head­mas­ter of the Gram­mar School in South­amp­ton. Isaac’s taste for verse showed it­self in ear­ly child­hood, and his prom­ise caused a lo­cal doc­tor and other friends to of­fer him a un­i­ver­si­ty ed­u­ca­tion, as­sum­ing he would be or­dained in the Church of Eng­land. How­ev­er, Isaac de­clined and in­stead en­tered a Non­con­for­mist Acad­e­my at Stoke New­ing­ton in 1690, un­der the care of Thom­as Rowe, pas­tor of the In­de­pen­dent cong­re­ga­tion at Gir­dlers’ Hall; Isaac joined this con­gre­ga­tion in 1693.

Watts left the Acad­e­my at age 20 and spent two years at home; it was dur­ing this per­i­od that he wrote the bulk of his Hymns and Spir­it­u­al Songs. They were sung from man­uscripts in the South­amp­ton Cha­pel, and pub­lished 1707-1709.

The next six years of his life were again spent at Stoke New­ing­ton, work­ing as tu­tor to the son of em­i­nent Pur­i­tan John Har­topp. The in­tense stu­dy of these years is re­flect­ed in the the­o­log­ic­al and phil­o­soph­ic­al ma­ter­i­al he sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished.

Watts preached his first ser­mon at age 24. In the next three years, he preached fre­quent­ly, and in 1702 was or­dained as pas­tor of the In­de­pen­dent con­gre­ga­tion in Mark Lane. At that time he moved in­to the house of a Mr. Hollis in the Mi­nor­ies. His health be­gan to fail the next year, and Sam­u­el Price was ap­point­ed as his as­sist­ant in the min­is­try. In 1712, a fe­ver shat­tered his con­sti­tu­tion, and Price be­came co-pas­tor of the con­gre­ga­tion, which had moved to a new cha­pel in Bu­ry Street. It was at this time that Isaac be­came the guest of Sir Thom­as Ab­ney. He lived with Ab­ney (and lat­er Abney’s wi­dow) the rest of his life, main­ly at The­o­balds in Hert­ford­shire, then for 13 years at Stoke New­ing­ton.

In 1728, the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh award­ed Watts a Doc­tor of Di­vin­i­ty de­gree. Watts’ works in­clude:

• Specula­tions on the Hu­man Na­ture of the Lo­gos
• Horæ Lyr­i­cae, 1706-1709
• Hymns and Spir­it­u­al Songs, 1707-9
• The Di­vine and Mor­al Songs for the Use of Child­ren, 1715
• The Psalms of Da­vid Im­i­tat­ed in the Lan­guage of the New Tes­ta­ment (Lon­don: J. Clark, 1719)
• Sermons, 1721-1727
• Reliquiae Ju­ve­niles: Mis­cel­lan­e­ous Thoughts in Prose and Verse, on Na­tur­al, Mor­al, and Di­vine Sub­jects (Lon­don: 1734)
• Remnants of Time (Lon­don: 1736)
• The Im­prove­ment of the Mind, 1741
• Logic
• The World to Come, 1745
• Catechisms, Scrip­ture His­to­ry, 1732

God Loves You and He Proved It.

So here’s the story.
God tells you to do something that you believe is wrong.
What would you do?

God tells Hosea to go out and marry a prostitute. Something that neither you or I would ever do – or even think of doing.

But this is in fact exactly what Hosea does.
Why?
Because God was showing Israel (His bride) something far more controversial than marrying a whore. God was showing her that He loved her.

God does something so radical here.
He takes someone, whom by His own laws should be stoned, and shows such love as to call her His bride.

How amazing and beautiful is this story. How wonderful that this story is our story.

Here is a great video from Brennan Manning on God's love.



Isaiah 61:1-3
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because the Lord has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

Friend, GOD LOVES YOU.
The love that He showed you was fully displayed at Calvary. On the cross and in the empty tomb. Jesus left all that He had for the sake of wretched whores like us.

While We Were Still Sinners

This morning I came across the name Jason Dunham and spent a few minutes reading about his life and death. In 2004, Dunham was a twenty-two year-old Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, serving in Iraq. He became the first Marine since 1970 to earn the Medal of Honor—the nation’s highest award for battlefield heroism—for actions in combat.

On April 14, 2004, he was manning a checkpoint near Karabilah when an Iraqi man whose car they were searching, suddenly grabbed his throat. As Dunham wrestled the man to the ground, the Iraqi dropped a grenade with the pin removed. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. He saved the lives of several of his fellow soldiers. Dunham died of his wounds just a few days later without ever regaining consciousness.

The official Marine Corps citation says, “By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.”

Such gallantry is amazing, inspiring. It should awe us that a man would so selfishly give all he had for his friends.

And yet what Christ did was greater still. As William Farley says in Outrageous Mercy, “At the cross God threw himself on a grenade to save the enemy soldiers…” We would not wish to downplay the gallantry of Corporal Dunham who made the ultimate sacrifice. But neither can we escape the fact that Jesus Christ died for those who were not his friends, but his enemies. What love this is! Even in the greatest of human sacrifices we see just a pale reflection of the depth, the magnitude, of the sacrifice of the Son of God.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Originally found: Challies.com