I was home schooled from kindergarten through 12th grade. I am one of the few, the proud, the hard core home schoolers. If there’s one thing I know, it’s home schoolers, and what they like. And if there is one thing that home schoolers like, it’s field trips.

Why do home schoolers love field trips so much? Because every possible action can also count as a field trip.

Let’s say you’ve got a busy day ahead of you. You need to buy ingredients at the store for dinner, but you also need to do school with your children. What could possibly solve this dilemma? Simple. A field trip. Load children into your fifteen passenger van, then take them to the grocery store for a home economics field trip. Or, if you’re going to Trader Joe’s, it could count as a double home economics/exploring world cultures field trip. If you have your son count out the money to purchase the goods, it could also count as an entrepreneurship field trip. The possibilities really are endless.

Let me present another difficult scenario. You need to do many loads of laundry, but you also need to do school with your children. It’s time for a field trip to the basement! As the water gushes over the clothes, you explain the physics behind it all. As you sort the laundry, you help your children develop spatial/organizational skills. As your children throw socks at each other, they are participating in P.E. It’s fantastic.

Are there any situations that cannot count as field trips? Science has identified three. They are:

1. A Justin Bieber concert.
2. Watching any movie starring Nicholas Cage.
3. Playing Angry Birds (although there is debate about this one).

So as you can see, one of the main advantages of home schooling is that your children get to take many more field trips. By the time I graduated from high school, I had taken 14,997 field trips.

Do you have any good examples of field trips you’ve taken?

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

“We need to deal with God… that God may be glorified in our condition, whatever it is. If he wills for us to be rich and full, that he might be glorified in our bounty; if he wills us to be poor and low, that he may be glorified in our patience; if he will have us healthy, that he may be glorified in our labour; if he will have us sick, that he may be glorified in our pain; if he will have us live, that he may be glorified in our lives; if he will have us die, that he may be glorified in our deaths” (Romans 14:8). — Thomas Manton

Discontentment comes from having the wrong goal: our happiness.

Though it is natural to desire to be happy, if this is our goal in life, we’ll always be frustrated and discontented.  First of all, because we can’t always be happy – in this fallen world we will suffer.  We won’t get all the things we want.  And even if we did, earthly things won’t satisfy us.  The only thing that can truly satisfy anyone is Jesus Christ.

The key to growing in contentment is to make our goal the glory of God. To glorify God with our lives, whether we are rich or poor, healthy or suffering.  To glorify him whether we are married or single, surrounded by friends or lonely.

And God knows exactly what will glorify him most.

He knows exactly what to bring into our lives that we might most glorify him.  It may bring him the most glory for us to trust and rejoice in him and declare that he is good through sickness.  We may think we could glorify God most by generosity.  God may know we will glorify him more by trusting him to provide our daily bread.

God glorifies himself in blessing his children.  He’s lavish, generous and gives us many good things, for which we should thank him and praise him.  Yet God’s goal is that we might know him and become like his Son.  And this will glorify him more and make us more happy in the long run than any worldly blessing.

O gracious Father, loving Lord Jesus, wonderful Holy Spirit,
Be glorified in me
Praise you that you always do for me
What is most loving
Most wise
Most merciful
Most good
And what will most glorify you.
Help me to be content
And to praise you in every circumstance
And help me make your glory
The goal of my life.

…

photo by PV KS

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

This quote by E.M. Bounds kicked my butt this morning. Read it slowly, fully aware of the grace of God in your life, fully aware that there is no condemnation in Christ, fully aware that God delights to help us grow.

More time and early hours for prayer would act like magic to revive and invigorate many a decayed spiritual life. More time and early hours for prayer would be manifest in holy living. A holy life would not be so rare or so difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short and hurried. (Power Through Prayer)

Many times my dullness and lack of spiritual growth is my own fault. The means of grace are there, but I don’t take advantage of them. My devotional times are short and hurried.

By God’s grace, I want to grow in my devotional life with God. I don’t want my prayer and reading to be short and hurried.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

A healthy, Christian marriage has to include change. It’s not possible to be joined together as two sinners in pursuit of God and holiness and not help one another along on the journey. Transformation is part of what God is up to in marriage, and He uses us as instruments to accomplish that transformation. Most of us would probably agree with this to one degree or another. But there’s a problem: I want to make my spouse not like God, but like me.

Can you relate?

Ask yourself this: what do I think growth in godliness would look like for my spouse? Now ask a second question: does that change make my spouse look more like Jesus, or more like me?

So you love to read the latest Piper book before you fall asleep, but your spouse (who is faithful in morning devotions) would rather hop in bed and watch reruns of the Andy Griffith show. Is your practice really the mark of godliness – or is it just your practice?

You’re energized from doing hospitality and would have people in your home every night, but your spouse gets worn out by the whole process and would like to have a few nights off. Is that a matter of sinful selfishness on your spouse’s part– or is it just an expression of different personalities?

You want to give every spare dollar to the church’s mission fund, but your spouse thinks saving for your children’s college education should also be a priority. Is your goal the only generous, godly one – or does your spouse simply have a different way of loving God and others with your money?

Here’s where I think many of us (certainly including me!) struggle. Our preferences and our desires and even our own Christian practices get so bound together in our minds that we spend ourselves trying to make our spouses into our own image. Differences between us become threats or areas where the spouse needs to become more like me, rather than opportunities to see God’s glory displayed in diversity. But if we begin to see one another as persons created in God’s image and being renewed through salvation to progressively display Jesus’ image, we may have to admit that our agenda and God’s agenda for change might be very different. Yes, we are to help our spouses change, just as they are to do the same for us. But could it be that growth in godliness, growth in reflecting the image of God in our lives, might be less like the light from a flashlight beam – narrow, defined, and pointing in one direction – and more like the light shone through a diamond – sparkling, diffuse, and scattered in a thousand different glorious directions? Could it be that God wants our spouse to become more godly in a way that complements, but doesn’t imitate, my own walk with Him?

God is not after Christian clones, and we should not be either. Let us pursue change in our marriages and in our relationships, yes – but let’s make sure we’re helping one another become more like Christ, not each other. As we do so the glory and creativity and wisdom of God will be displayed in our diversity!

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

Don’t watch this if you’re squeamish. That being said, this is absolutely amazing. I praise God for the wisdom and insight he has given to these men.

Heart Stop Beating | Jeremiah Zagar from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

ChristianAudio.com is offering the audio book Trusting God by Jerry Bridges for free. This is a classic book, and if you haven’t read it or listened to it you really need to.

You can get it here.

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

Dear Bill,

I’m glad you’ve been reading the letter I wrote to you.  I hope you’re seeing more and more what I’m like in the Bible and all I have done for you.

This week I’m sending you another letter to show you what I’m like.  It’s a living, breathing letter.

It’s your co-worker Chuck.

He’s a letter from me to you.  Check him out.  Observe him.  See what he’s like when the boss isn’t around. See if he works hard. See if he’s faithful. Watch him when others are slandering someone or telling a dirty joke.  See if he joins in.  See how he responds to criticism. When you see what he’s like, you’ll know what I’m like.

I’ll send you more living, breathing letters.  Study them.  Test them out. See how they treat their families. See what they do when people wrong them.  Watch how they treat those who are weak or slow to change. See how they treat those who tend to irritate other people.  See what they do when they go through trials and hardship.  See what they do and say then.  See if they’re cheerful.

I’m not saying my living letters are flawless.  They have their quirks and faults.  But watch them over time.  If you have a chance to observe them for years they’ll look more and more like me.  After you’ve read my letters, write me back.  Tell me you believe in me and want me to rescue you and make you too a living letter of mine.

Watch for my letters….

Love,

Jesus

You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

“Men judge by what is visible, and so they think of God by his servants…. Men are apt to think of God by his worshipers, and by the people that profess themselves near and dear to him; therefore it concerns us to walk so that our lives may honour him.” — Thomas Manton

photo by annstanley59

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

There’s a phrase that gets thrown around in Reformed circles that, I think, has its origins in the Puritans. The phrase goes something like this:

Even my best works for God are stained with sin.

In context, I understand the phrase. It means that even our best good deeds do not make us acceptable to God. All of our efforts of righteousness will not get us any closer to God. In an effort to avoid legalism and trust only in Christ, we remind ourselves that our best works are stained with sin.

But, I think we need to be careful about applying that phrase to ourselves as Christians, because I think it can communicate something unbiblical. When the Bible talks about our works as Christians, the emphasis is on the fact that our works are pleasing to God.

Ephesians 2:10 says:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

When we serve the Lord, we are doing works that he prepared beforehand for us. When God sees us walking in obedience, it pleases him and delights him. God doesn’t look on my good works and say, “Those good works stink! They are stained with sin!” I am joined to Christ, and because I am joined to Christ, my works are pleasing to God. God is my Father, I am his child. God delights in me as his child, and my works as pleasing to him.

My little girl Ella, loves to help me. When I’m about to leave, she brings my shoes over to me and says with a big smile, “Here you go dada!” When she does that I don’t say, “You were motivated by your own selfishness when you brought this over to me!” I delight in her little work for me, even though it was imperfect and slow and not actually that helpful. God delights in my works because I’m his son.

Matthew 10:42 says:

And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.

All of my works for God, down to sharing a cup of water with a brother in Christ, will be rewarded by God. Are my works done with completely pure motives? No, of course not. But God still rewards me for those works! Isn’t that incredible? He honors my work for him by rewarding me. That’s crazy!

Advertise here with Beacon Ads

Much of our serving others requires effort, labor and time. Helping a family move or babysitting or cooking a meal for someone involves work.

But God gives us an almost effortless way to bless others.

A little thought might be required, maybe, but you’re not going to break into a sweat or pull a muscle doing this.  (If you do, you’re really out of shape.)  This way of blessing others is so easy, we shouldn’t be rewarded for it, but our lavish God does.

Here it is:

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life  (Proverbs 10.11)

With our mouths we can give life to others.  We can encourage, thank, appreciate, build up, edify, and point others to Christ with our mouths.  We can stir up, give hope, lift up the downcast and love.  We can teach, bless and sing God’s glorious truths. We can strengthen the weary, or point out where God is working in their lives.  We can pray for others, express our compassion and warn against temptation.  We can welcome newcomers to church.  We can counsel, read Scriptures to each other and share our testimonies.  We can extend forgiveness, teach our children, and tell the good news of Jesus.

Not only can our mouths impart life to others; we can benefit ourselves with our mouths.  When we thank and praise God or rehearse his promises to ourselves, we build our faith and increase our joy.

O Lord Jesus,
Thank you for the gift of speech
Please use me this week
To give life to others
To encourage the weary
To lift up the faint-hearted
To point people to their Savior
To build up your saints
To give your people grace and hope
Please fill me with your Spirit
And give me boldness and opportunities
To share the gospel.
Thank you, Lord.

……….

photo by PinkMoose

Advertise here with Beacon Ads