Questions for the New Year

Every year for the past four years I go to Don Whitney's website and print out a copy of his "Ten Questions for the New Year" and take a week to prayerfully and thoughtfully fill out the answers. Right now a lot of people are making New Year resolutions and doing so aimlessly. There is nothing magical about making resolutions at the beginning of a new year, but this time does provide us an opportunity to pause, reflect, evaluate, and take focus. Since I have found these 10 Questions to be so helpful I am going to post them here but feel free to go to Don's site.

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you "Consider your ways." Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?
12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could simplify in that area?
13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?
16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
17. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?24. What's the most important trip you want to take this year?
25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
27. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
30. What's the most important new item you want to buy this year?
31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

Today after church we drove out to the single mountain that had some snow on it. Here are the results. lol.

Battle Mt.

Yesterday I was out on one of my training runs and went out a little further on a road I had not been to before. My turn around point put me at the foot of a hill that I had seen many times before from the freeway (I-15) but had no clue about it's name or history. Upon reaching the trail that lead up the hill I read a sign that revealed the hills name: "Battle Mt." What was atop of this mt. was what really interested me. From the freeway for many years now my eye has always been draw to the large cross that adorned it's top.
When I reached the top this is the view I was treated to:

It was beautiful. After doing some surface research I have managed to find out that the cross up there has nothing to do with being a memorial for a battle. So I asked some folks who are from the area what battle the hill was named for. None of them could tell me for sure. I wonder what kind of sermon illustration I can draw from that one day. I am sure you can think of some.

Sneezing Makes Me Laugh

Here is a short clip of my baby girl, Chloe, as I was trying out my new cell phone's video camera.

The WRATH of God: A Reasons for Christmas

Christmas in America is a very interesting time of year. Most of the population to some degree or another acknowledge that Christmas has something to do with the baby Jesus in a manger but little else is known by them. Even Christians seem to have little reflection on the Incarnation. Why did the Son of God have to be born into mankind? Why did the Divine Word, the Second Person of the Trinity become human? I want to take a post to meditate on this question. Just a chance to pause and reflect.


I want to first start with the bad news of Christmas. Yes, Christmas has a dark and scary side. Christ came to the earth as a babe for a few reasons and one of those was because of the wrath of God against mankind. But before I can even mention God's wrath I have to go back even further. What angered God in the first place? Sin. Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law/character of God in deed, thought, attitude, or nature.

At the dawning of creation man attempted to usurp the rule of God and proclaim himself as god.
Man (Adam specifically) was created righteous and free from sin and endowed with freedom.
He was "posse non peccare" - able not to sin, but the ability to sin was there. However, his defiance of God's law brought sin into the world and imputed sin to his lineage (Rom 5.12-21, I Cor 15.21-22, I Tim 2.14, Ez. 28.11-19). Now man has been left "non posse non peccer" - not able not to sin. In Romans 2.5 we read that God's wrath is reserved for the unrepentant sinner: "But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." Because God is infinitely holy and righteous sin is held with the greatest of indignation in his eyes. But what does God's wrath look like? How does it manifest itself upon the sinner? One has only to look at the Cross of Christ to observe the wrath of God poured out upon someone. Though Christ was perfectly sinless He bore upon Himself the guilt for people (the elect of God) and thus the wrath of God that is due that guilt. God the Father and Son did this in perfect harmony in order to be both just and justifier; to redeem a people for them self. The wrath that should have been laid heavy upon us was taken by the Beloved Son of God, Jesus Christ. What a Savior!
But how does this fit in with Christmas? When we think of the birth of Christ we must think of the reality of the incarnation of the Son of God. This was no mere babe laid in the manger. This was the Son of God! He was Divine! One with the Father! Why was He sent? Why not someone else? The answer is simple yet profound. God is infinitely Holy. Sin -- your sin -- has offended Him to an infinite degree. Only God was capable of bearing the weight of the wrath that such an offence merited. Only Jesus could save us. And for those who have repented and trusted in Christ He has saved you! Merry Christmas! You have been spared from the wrath of God by a loving Savior!


"Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." Romans 5:9


I'll leave you with this clip from John Piper about the wrath of God.