As we are continually bombarded with the seduction and enticements of this world, we must have our minds renewed and be looking to God’s word as to how to live our lives in a manner pleasing to the Lord. The world, the flesh and the devil are drawing our affections and desires away from the one true God and as a result we end up worshipping the created things rather than our Creator. Read this article and let it be a reminder to us to, “Therefore prepare your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that was brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 1:13

Mr.B

 Receding Men and Rotting Hollywood

By Denny Burk on December 19, 2012

Peggy Noonan takes a hard line against the vulgar fare that seems to be so ubiquitous in the material coming out of Hollywood. She begins by noting the general malaise that has fallen over our country. She writes:

We are making more sick teenagers and young men now, not fewer, and this is going to continue as our culture breaks up. I think we all know this, deep down.

Let that land on you. She says “we” are making more “sick teenagers and you men.” By that, she means that we as a society are failing to raise up boys to be good sturdy men. I agree with her. The fact that the majority of young men today fail to make all the major transitions to adulthood until they’re nearly 30 years old easily proves the point (e.g., moving out of their parents home, becoming financially independent, getting married, having children).

I also agree that much of the material that Hollywood churns out every year is not helping. It is coarsening our culture, not ennobling it. On this point, Noonan really takes Hollywood to task, and it is worth quoting her at length:

Everyone who has warned for a quarter-century now that our national culture has become a culture of death—movies, TV shows, video games drenched in blood and violence—has been correct. Deep down we all know it, as deep down we know our culture has a bad impact on the young and unstable who aren’t sturdy enough to withstand and resist sick messages and imagery.

When Hollywood wants to discourage cigarette smoking it knows exactly how to do it, because it knows exactly how much power it has to deliver cultural messages. When Hollywood wants to encourage environmentalism it knows how to do it. But there’s a lot of money to be made in violence, and God knows there’s a market for it—in fact, the more people are fed violence the bigger the market grows, so it’s an ever hungry, always growing market. This is exactly what you want if you’re in a tough business and don’t have a conscience.

Republicans have no sway in Hollywood, none. They are figures of mockery, sometimes deservedly so. If they get into the act here, Hollywood will be able to ignore them, and nothing will change. But the Democrats and the president are in a different position. They could change things for the better.

President Obama should have a Nixon-to-China moment. If he tells Hollywood it has made America sicker, Hollywood will be forced to listen. It won’t be so easy for them to turn away.

If the president had strong, clear, uncompromising words—if he made an address aimed only at them, a clear and unsparing one that told the truth as everyone knows it—that would make a real difference

In light of the events that unfolded in Newtown,CT. last week, I think you will find this article by Doug Wilson enlightening .Please continue to pray God's grace and comfort over the families and the town of Newtown.

Mr B.

That Will Be Soon Enough

Written by Douglas Wilson

Lest it be misunderstood, I wanted to follow up on my post about the propriety of certain kinds of arguments in the immediate aftermath of something like the Connecticut tragedy. The issue is not relevance, but demeanor and spirit, in this case measured by timing. The issue is not whether you are right, but whether you are right all the way down. If you do not know what spirit you are of (Luke 9:55), the wrongness down below will work its way to the surface, and one day you find yourself among the Westboro Baptists. Suppose you lived in a neighborhood where a horrific murder took place, and the grieving family members were clustered on the front lawn. Suppose the neighbor on one side of the victim's family was a salesman for security systems, and he believes that had they only purchased it last month like he asked, all this could have been prevented. And suppose the neighbor on the other side of them had a bad experience with that very same security system, and started to argue with the salesman neighbor about it. Does it really matter who is right? Let me illustrate it another way. I believe I can say without controversy that I have dedicated a significant part of my life to getting Christian children out of the government school system. Those are my convictions, and I haven't altered them. I am a declared and open foe of the whole system, as I think many may have gathered by this time. And yet, I want to say that Victoria Soto, the first grade public school teacher who gave her life for her students, was everything a teacher ought to be. There is no greater love than that (John 15:13). There is no finer teacher than that; she was no hireling (John 10:13). And I don't care if she was a member of the Connecticut Education Association. If she was, then a member of the CEA crowned her teaching career with greater glory than I have done. If my politics on the thing blunt my ability to see that, I am more ideological than principled. Dragging in irrelevant issues is obviously wrong-headed because the issues are irrelevant. Relevant issues -- like abortion and gun control -- need to be brought in at the right time, and at just the right time. If you crowd them in early, you come off like an opportunist trying to sell something. If you bring them up after the memory of the tragedy has faded completely, you have missed a genuine opportunity. If the security system salesman had a good heart, and a good security system, he would have had a long talk with his wife that night about what they do to make the neighborhood safer, and they would do so in a way that will likely be appreciated. My father taught me many years ago that the point is to win the man, not the argument. If you win the man, the argument follows. And if you have won the man's attention and respect, you will have the opportunity to present an argument that will be heard. There are issues that we must address, and address in the near future. But I don't just want to say them with no one listening. That is not a prophetic voice -- that is just venting. In the aftermath of this, we will make decisions, and we shouldn't make stupid ones. As we debate those issues, we must do so intelligently. As Christians, we must begin with the gospel issues. We have to know and understand that we cannot cultivate a culture of death and expect life to be honored and respected in that culture. The abortion culture has had consequences, and if you compare the president's recent remarks with his abortion record, the irony really is flabbergasting. We need to say so, but we need to say so at the right time -- not because the issues are unimportant, but rather because they are crucial. We will also debate gun control. But if people are introducing legislation before the funerals are held, the only thing we should say in response is that we believe that respect for the victims dictates waiting until a more appropriate time before we get into it. When we get there, which will be pretty soon, another issue (a relevant one) that must be placed on the table is the place of prescription drugs in all this -- in the last ten years, out of all the school shootings by young people, what prescription drugs were they on? May we talk about that? Yes. When the time is more appropriate, and that will be soon enough.

The Story of God

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace
Isaiah 9:6





Forgiveness 
Click here to hear Matt Chandler, Pastor of The Village Church, as he speaks on the importance of Forgiveness at Christmas!

A WORD FROM MR.B

I can’t say enough about the importance of praying for our children. We need encouragement and hope as we trust God to awaken the hearts of our children. Let’s be like the persistent widow in the parable in Luke 18 who continued to come to the judge for justice. Let’s come to our heavenly Father and keep asking and “pray and not lose heart.”

12 Promises Every Parent Should Ask God To Fulfill

by Mark Altrogge on November 26, 2012

God doesn’t guarantee he will automatically save our children, but gives us many promises to inspire us to pray and believe him to answer.

I review these promises from occasionally and use them as springboards for prayer for my descendants. For example:
Isaiah 54:13 All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children.
I might pray, “Lord Jesus, you have promised your people that all our children shall be taught by the Lord. Please do this! Please reveal yourself to all my children and grandchildren and descendants and bring each one into peace with you through your blood.” Consider using these promises as you pray for your children:
Isaiah 59:21 “And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from this time forth and forevermore.”
Psalm 102:28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.
Psalm 112:1-2 Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments! 2 His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed
Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. 4 They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. 5 This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.
Isaiah 61:8 …I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the LORD has blessed.
Isaiah 65:23 They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them.
Proverbs 20:7 The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him.
Proverbs 14:26 In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.
Jeremiah 32:39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them.
Deuteronomy 4:40 Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for all time.
Acts 2:31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.
Don’t quit praying for your children until the day you go home to be with the Lord. Even if you don’t see them saved in your lifetime, God can still save them.  Although he doesn’t guarantee they will be saved, he promises to hear our prayers, that the prayer of the upright is powerful and effective, and he gives us good reasons to believe he desires to save whole families.

Encouragement from Mr B.

A Word of Encouragement to Parents who are trusting God for the Salvation of their children. James 5:16b "the prayer of a righteous man/woman is powerful and effective", continue to trust God and His Word and DON'T give up!

Is the Arm of the Lord Too Short?

Posted by Marty Machowski on Sep 25, 2012 in Parenting, Uncategorized
There is nothing more difficult to trust God for than the salvation of our children because only the Lord can save.  Trusting God for our children’s salvation is kind of like a young lady trusting God for a husband.  If she marries early in life, it wasn’t too hard.  But, real worry threatens when she crosses 25 with no hope of a man on the horizon.  Similarly for parents, it is not so difficult if God rescues our children from their sin at a young age.  But once they hit their teens and start sinning like adults, our faith and trust in God is really tested.
After God lead Israel out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, you would think trusting God would be easy.  That wasn’t Israel’s experience.  God lead them through a desert to teach them to trust in him and it didn’t take long to see just how wise God was.  Israel started complaining right away.  God provided manna for them to eat, but they wanted meat.  God’s anger burned against their sin and Moses despaired.  In Numbers 11:14 Moses cries out to God saying, “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.”  Wonderfully God replies to Moses, he gives him help by appointing seventy elders to stand with him and encourages him with these words,  “Is the LORD’s hand shortened?”  In other words, God tells Moses, “You can trust me, for I can do with my mighty hand what you can not do.”
Isaiah used the same words to describe God in rebuking the people of Israel, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save” (Isaiah 59:1).  God’s hand is not too short to provide meat for the Jews wandering in the desert, not too short to rescue his people Israel from their rebellion, and not too short to save our children from their sins.
My wife was well on her way to thirty when God brought us together and we were married.  She, like most over twenty-five-year-old women, had to trust God for what she could not see, yet was around the corner.  We too as parents need to trust God for the salvation of our children, something that is hard to see when they cross the threshold into adulthood as unbelievers or when their sin is causing us profound despair.  When doubt, discouragement, and despair threaten to engulf you, remember God’s encouragement – his arm is not too short that he can’t save your son or daughter from their most terrible sin.
There is a saying based upon this truth, “It’s never too late to pray.”  It is never too late to pray because God’s arm is not too short to save. It is never too late to pray because God is a saving God who delights to bring salvation to his children.  Often, he allows circumstances to grow grim before he saves, like being hemmed in by the red sea.   The problem is, like Israel complaining for lack of meat on the other side, we are too quick to forget the amazing salvation God brought us through.  After all, if his arm was not too short to save us, we should trust it is not too short to save our kids.

If you are a believer in Christ, you have been saved and redeemed from your "old life".  But, what happens when you can't seem to break free from an individual sin or sins? I believe that this article,  by Steve Gallagher will shed some light on the oftentimes difficult topic of sexual sin and how to be truly free.

Steve Gallagher asks the question," How can you be saved and still doing this? You can, if you have a sincere heart and belong to Christ, your days of bondage are coming to an end".

Larry


How Can I Be Saved and Still Be Doing This?
by Steve Gallagher

This may come as a surprise to many readers, but sexual sin in and of itself has never sent
anyone to hell any more than a person’s morality can secure him or her a place in heaven. People
are sent to hell because they have never been converted—regardless of how moral or immoral
their outward behavior might be.

Having said that, the practice of willful sin, of any kind, could certainly be considered as
evidence of an unredeemed life—even for a professing Christian. So does that mean if someone
is given over to sexual sin that it is proof he is headed into hell? Maybe, maybe not.
I tend to lump “Christian” sexual sinners into two basic groups: those who are sincerely striving
to disentangle themselves from their past life of sin and those who are exerting only enough
effort to fool themselves and those around them. Determining which group a man or woman is in
is no easy matter.

Experience has taught me over the years to look for certain indicators as to an individual’s
actual spiritual condition. The following are the sort of unspoken questions I consider when
dealing with such a person.

1. How does this person respond to a convicting sermon, article or passage in the Bible?
Insincere “Christians” tend to avoid sin-confronting messages and those who present them.
Instead, they are attracted to peddlers of easy-believism. This, of course, is no new phenomenon.
When Isaiah was trying to win the Jewish people back to their God, he faced a great deal of
hostility and resistance. He wrote, “They are always rebelling against God, always lying, always
refusing to listen to the LORD’s teachings. They tell the prophets to keep quiet. They say, ‘Don't
talk to us about what’s right. Tell us what we want to hear. Let us keep our illusions. Get out of
our way and stop blocking our path. We don’t want to hear about your holy God of Israel.’”
(Isaiah 30:9-11 GNB)

How different is the attitude of a man or woman who truly wants to be free! He is drawn to
Scriptures that bring a sense of conviction about his sin; he is attracted to preachers who present
an uncompromising message; he seeks out counselors who will tell him the truth about himself.
This person may still be caught up in some form of habitual sin, but he will not attempt to silence
the voice of the Holy Spirit in his life—in fact he longs for it.

2. How does the guilt of sin affect the person?
Guilt is a natural reaction to sexual sin and is not necessarily an indicator of a person’s spiritual
status. Most unbelievers and pseudo-Christians (people involved in church life and yet
unconverted) will feel a degree of shame about being involved in sexual sin because of the social
stigma attached to it. However, that sense of shame is shallow and comes and goes.
On the other hand, the true believer who keeps failing will nearly always experience guilt on a
much deeper level. Their overriding concern is not the possibility that their sin might be publicly
exposed, but that their fellowship with God has been greatly compromised. When a true believer
gets off track spiritually, he undergoes constant inner turmoil. The Lord, in His mercy, makes
sure that His son feels miserable until he rids himself of the ongoing sin in his life and makes
things right with God.

3. Does this person feel compelled to “fight the good fight?”
Whether or not a person is really battling the pull of temptation is another good indicator to his
spiritual condition.

I cannot recount the times men have told me that they “struggle with” pornography or some other
form of sexual sin, and, when I begin to ask them about their ongoing war with temptation, they
recount a long list of failures. “Where’s the struggle?” I ask incredulously. “You have only told
me about a life of defeat; you haven’t said anything that leads me to believe that you are actively
fighting those carnal urges! The fact that you are using terminology such as ‘struggle’ only
indicates that you are exaggerating your spirituality while minimizing the seriousness of your
problem.”

One common denominator among those who successfully fight their way out of the terrible hold
of sin is that they are always trying to move forward spiritually. They may have failures, but they
never quit fighting.

It may take some time for an individual saved out of a life of wickedness to find real freedom
from it. The hold of sin can be extremely powerful, but one thing is certain: if this person has
truly been converted, sin will not—cannot—hold him indefinitely.

The Apostle John forever debunked the notion that a true believer can practice sin when he
wrote, “The man who claims to know God but does not obey his laws is not only a liar but lives
in self-delusion… The man who lives “in Christ” does not habitually sin. The regular sinner has
never seen or known him.” (1 John 2:4; 3:6 Phillips)

There is something, or rather Someone, inside a bona fide believer that will not allow him to rest
until he finds freedom from the hold of willful sin. How can the Holy Spirit indwell a professing
Christian who regularly practices evil? Or as Paul put it: “How can light and darkness share life
together? What common ground can idols hold with the temple of God? For we, remember, are
ourselves living temples of the living God, as God has said: ‘I will dwell in them…’”
(2 Corinthians 6:14b, 16 Phillips)

In the final analysis, if a person is sincere, he will end up on the right side in the end; if he is
insincere, he will find himself locked out of the Kingdom. It’s really as simple as that.
One need only look at the different paths Saul and David took. Every time King Saul disobeyed
God, he attempted to justify his behavior, shift the blame off himself or minimize the sinfulness
of his actions. Insincerity characterized his entire life with God.
How different it was for David. Once Nathan the prophet confronted him about his sin with
Bathsheba, all of his defenses wilted. He crumpled into a heap and exclaimed, “I have sinned
against the Lord!” Out of that heartfelt sorrow came forth the earnest prayer found in Psalm 51.
And there, in the sixth verse, he penned the words that perfectly describe what God is after:
“Sincerity and truth are what you require…”

How can you be saved and still be doing this? You can, but if you have a sincere heart and
belong to Christ, your days of bondage are coming to an end.

2012 www.purelifeministries.org. All rights reserved.

  Because we take the Gospel for granted and it has become so familiar to us, we see it as something for the unsaved and not for us. This article by Tim Challies points us to the reasons why preaching the Gospel to ourselves is important everyday.

Larry

Preach the Gospel to Yourself

Tim Challies

Jerry Bridges was talking about preaching the gospel to yourself and being gospel-centered long before it was cool to do so. One of the great burdens of his ministry has long been to have Christians understand that “the gospel is not only the most important message in all of history; it is the only essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living by it. … Christians are not instructed in the gospel. And because they do not fully understand the riches and glory of the gospel, they cannot preach it to themselves, not live by it in their daily lives.” In other words, we teach people just enough gospel to get saved, but then move on to other things. Bridges wants us to understand that we never move on from the gospel.
In the third chapter of The Discipline of Grace, Bridges provides a powerful, thorough review of the gospel and does this by looking at Romans 3:19-26. He offers an exposition of that passage and through it leads to this imperative: Preach the gospel to yourself. Let me provide an extended quote that gives some of the how and the why:

To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God’s holy wrath is no longer directed toward you.
To preach the gospel to yourself means that you take at face value the precious words of Romans 4:7-8: “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
It means that you believe on the testimony of God that “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). It means you believe that “Christ redeemed [you] from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for [you], for it is written ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13). It means you believe He forgave you all your sins (Colossians 2:13) and now “[presents you] holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22).
Turning to the Old Testament, to preach the gospel to yourself means that you appropriate by faith the words of Isaiah 53:6: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
It means that you dwell upon the promise that God has removed your transgressions from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), that He has blotted out your transgressions and remembers your sin no more (Isaiah 43:25). But it means you realize that all these wonderful promises of forgiveness are based upon the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
It is the death of Christ through which He satisfied the justice of God and averted from us the wrath of God that is the basis of all God’s promises of forgiveness. We must be careful that, in preaching the gospel to ourselves, we do not preach a gospel without a cross. We must be careful that we do not rely on the so-called unconditional love of God without realizing that His love can only flow to us as a result of Christ’s atoning death.

This is the gospel Bridges wants the Christian to preach to himself day-by-day. “When you set yourself to seriously pursue holiness, you will begin to realize what an awful sinner you are. And if you are not firmly rooted in the gospel and have not learned to preach it to yourself every day, you will soon become discouraged and will slack off in your pursuit of holiness.”

Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

Freedom from Sexual Sin

Encouragement from Mr. B

While we are living in times of great uncertainty, it is of utmost importance that we remember who is really in control.  God’s word is to remain the foundation of our lives.  I pray that you would find much comfort and peace in your times of fear and trials from these scriptures below.

Eight Reasons Why My Anxiety Is Pointless and Foolish

1. God is near me to help me.

Philippians 4:5-6: “The Lord is at hand; [therefore] do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

2. God cares for me.

1 Peter 5:7: “. . . casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

3. My Father in heaven knows all my needs and will supply all my needs.

Matthew 6:31-33: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

4. God values me more than birds and grass, which he richly provides for and adorns; how much more will he provide for all my needs!

Matthew 6:26-30: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

5. The worst someone can do to me is to kill me and take things from me!

Matthew 6:25: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” [I.e., you still have eternal life even if you have no food; you will still have a resurrection body even if you are physically deprived.]

Luke 12:4: “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.”

Luke 21:16, 18: “Some of you they will put to death. . . . But not a hair of your head will perish.”

Romans 8:31-32, 35, 38-39: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? . . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

6. Anxiety is pointless.

Matthew 6:27: “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” [Answer: no one.]

7. Anxiety is worldly.

Matthew 6:31-32: “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things. . . .”

James 4:4: “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

8. Tomorrow has enough to worry about and doesn’t need my help.

Matthew 6:34: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Lamentations 3:23: “[God's mercies] are new every morning.”

By: Justin Taylor via The Gospel Coalition