The gauntlet has been thrown down, the New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 made and the proverbial ball is in my court to do something about it. The trees in the picture above show a progression of the seasons and how they affect the tree. It’s basically the same, except for some surface changes in the leaf color and leaf volume. I feel like this year, so far, has been basically maintaining the status quo.

What should I be changing? Well, the main thing I wanted to change centered around putting God first… in everything. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” I really don’t feel like I’m currently doing that; I feel more like I’m just maintaining the status quo. Sure I started a read the bible in a year program, which I’m currently on track with. Other than that, though, I don’t feel like anything has changed. God hasn’t taken a larger role in my every day life than in 2011… at least not yet. I guess I’m writing this to be out in the open and hold myself accountable before the world (wide web) to never be content with being stagnant in my faith.

How are the other resolutions (goals) coming? I’m still training for the New Orleans marathon in March. I haven’t practiced any piano this year. I did, however, implement some cross training this week which will hopefully start working on the mid-section fat. Finally, we are still working on debt. We’re taking a bit of a step back because our oldest daughter just got braces today. That required a fairly large down payment, which we were able to pay without getting behind in our bills, and adds another payment to our list. I think that we are doing well in that area, though, and expect to keep striving towards the goal of being debt free.

Ever hear that song, “The Future’s So Bright” by Timbuk 3? [Video] The catch phrase goes, “the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.” That is a little of what I feel like looking forward to 2012. We have taken some excellent steps towards becoming debt free, I have a great job, I’m training for my second marathon, I’m growing closer and closer to God… it seems like a year of possibilities (at least at this moment).

So with further ado about nothing, here are my 2012 New Year’s Resolutions.

1. The Greatest Command

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-31

I am not saying that I am a “law” man or a legalist. I fully believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, and not from myself. It is a gift of God, not by works, so that none can boast. (Paraphrased from Ephesians 2:8-9).

However, living as Christ lived is a worthy enough goal. I’ve been stewing over this verse for the past 6 months or so and have decided that this is what I want to focus on this year.

What does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart? What does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your soul… all your mind… and all your strength? What does that type of love and devotion look like in my every day life? What does it look like in the morning before I’ve had my coffee? What does it look like when I’m frustrated with something at work? If I were to truly act out this commandment in my life, how would my priorities change or my life for that matter?

That’s it.

Don’t you think that one is big enough to be the only resolution for this year? lol I think so. I thought about listing some others here, just as a blogging placeholder, but they haven’t really changed from last year. So I’ll just list them out here more as “continuing goals” for this year. They are:

2. Practice My Talents – More specifically, the piano
3. Run in my second marathon
4. Get rid of the gut – I mean it this time!
5. Pay off debt – We are going to hammer on this one until the debt monster is finally dead!

Well, I hope you and yours have a very Happy New Year and an excellent start to 2012! God bless.

1. Die

The point of this resolution was to try to focus my attention and energies on dying to “self”. Did I succeed? Well, not completely. I don’t think this is one you can perfect during your lifetime, though, it certainly is a worthwhile goal. So how much did I grow in this area? To be honest, I don’t have any clue. I know that God promises that He will finish the work that He began in me.

…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6

I’m glad that God is control of the progress, though I do realize that I have a responsibility to live my life “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27).

2. Practice My Talents

This one centered mainly around practicing the piano. How did I do? Fail. I totally did not spend any extra time practicing, other than the time required to prepare for Sunday mornings.

3. Marathon #2

Also a fail, though not entirely my fault. Right after my first marathon I was clowning around with my kids and ended up with a stress fracture, so I was not able to run for quite some time. I was able to get back into training by April, however, the time off was more of a setback then I thought it would be. I did manage to run another half marathon, though, and am currently training for my next marathon.

4. Get Rid of the Gut

Miserable fail! I think it actually got bigger. Nuf said.

5. Pay Off Debt

Success! No, we did not pay off all of our debt. However, I can proudly announce that the only debt we have left is our student loans, the car payment and a small-ish medical debt. Once we decided to get on board with Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and truly get focused, God came along side us and helped us to pay off way more than I could have anticipated.

Well, that’s it for last year. So long, 2011, you were good to us.

I thought I would post links to the audio messages (free download) from the WorshipGod11 conference that Aubrey and I attended this year. These messages were/are really good and I would highly recommend them to anyone.

Gathering to Behold

2 Corinthians 3:18

Ray Ortlund is lead pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He holds a Ph.D. from The University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In addition to a number of essays and articles, he has published five books. He participated in The New Living Translation and the English Standard Version of the Bible, and wrote the notes to the book of Isaiah in the ESV Study Bible. Ray is the President of Renewal Ministries, a Regional Director in The Acts29 Network, and serves on the council of The Gospel Coalition.

Gathering to Rehearse (the Gospel)

Isaiah 6:1-8

Bryan Chapell is President of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Professor of Practical Theology. His insightful Bible teaching can be heard daily via the internet on Living Christ Today. He is the author of many articles and numerous books, including Christ-Centered Preaching and Christ-Centered Worship. Bryan and his wife, Kathleen, have four children and live in Memphis, Tennessee.

Gathering to Hear

1 Timothy 4:11-16

Thabiti Anyabwile is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. He has written numerous books, including The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors and What Is a Healthy Church Member? He also shares his musings and perspectives at his blog, Pure Church. Thabiti and his wife Kristie have three children.

Gathering to Edify

1 Corinthians 14:1-33, Ephesians 4:15-16

Bob Kauflin is the director of worship development for Sovereign Grace Ministries. Bob was a writer and arranger for the group GLAD from 1976 to 2006, and is one of the worship leaders at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He blogs at worshipmatters.com, and his book, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God, was released in 2008 by Crossway. He and his wife, Julie, have six children and ten grandchildren.

Gathering to Commission

1 Peter 2:9

Craig Cabaniss is the senior pastor of Grace Church in Frisco, Texas, near Dallas. His winsome and biblical preaching has been a favorite of WorshipGod conferences in past years. He and his wife, Ginger, have four children.

NOTE: The bios above came from the materials we received at the WorshipGod11 conference and the message titles link to a page on the Sovereign Grace Ministries website where you can download and/or listen to the sermons.

My wife and I recently had the privilege of attending WorshipGod11, a praise & worship conference hosted by Sovereign Grace. It was a great time of worshiping God among 2000 or so other people who were all (mostly) involved in music. So as you can image the praise & worship music was excellent! There were also many practical application sessions that taught various topics like vocal technique, team organization, song selection and even some techie topics like sound equipment and stage volume. The amount of good, solid teaching was overwhelming and Bob Kauflin said during the last session of the conference to NOT take everything home and try to implement it all at once. We are however going to begin trying some of the things we learned. Not just because they are cool or neat, but because we are called in scripture to excellence.

Called to Excellence

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Colossians 3:15-17

So in whatever we do, including leading music on Sunday morning, we should do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Does that really call us to excellence though? For me it does. If you understand who Jesus is, who God is, the one who created everything by His very word [Genesis 1:1], the one by whom all things are held together [Colossians 1:17] then it should change your perspective about just who you are worshiping. This isn’t the president of the United States we are singing to, this is the God of the universe! We should present the very best that we can possibly muster to honor this awesome being.

In addition to the magnitude of who we are worshiping, we should also remember what He has done. The NIV translation of the bible has headings over certain sections. Above the Colossians section quoted above is the label, “Living as Those Made Alive in Christ.” We have been made alive! We were dead in our sins and Christ died [John 3:16] and was raised from the dead [Romans 8:11] so that we could live, all because He loves us. This awesome, magnificent, holy God is also a personal God who loves you. We should offer our very best to Him because of His great love for us and the gratitude that should generate in our hearts.

So What Is Excellence?

“Excellence is the process of becoming better than I once was. I’m not to become better than someone else or even like someone else. Excelling is simply, and radically, the process of improving over yesterday…”
Harold Best
Dean – Wheaton College Conservatory of Music

I like Harold Best’s description here because it boils excellence down to a journey, not a finish line. Excellence is not being the best guitarist in your church. It is not that you can sing for the opera or a pop album or play the piano like Vladimir Horowitz. It may include all or some of those things, but probably not. When we start comparing our skills and talents to those of other people we begin to judge. It may be ourselves that we are judging or the other people, but in either case it can lead to non-edifying thoughts and behaviors. If we are going to compare ourselves to anyone it should be to Christ. In that scenario the only outcome is to realize how vast the difference is, how great is the grace extended to us and to start moving down the road to being more Christ-like.

Wait a minute, Christ played the guitar!? I don’t have an actual scriptural reference to confirm or deny that, but I’m sure if the devil did go down to Georgia and challenge Jesus to a music duel there would be no contest. I think the point I’m trying to make is that whether it is in playing or singing skillfully, knowing the word of God, loving others as ourselves, being generous or being thankful – whatever the case – we should always be moving towards becoming better than we once were.

Financial peace? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Well, if you are like many Americans, myself included, it may seem like it. My wife and I have been on a journey to get out of debt for years now, but we just could never make enough progress. Not only that, but in the midst of it all there has been no “financial peace” to speak of. I am the money manager in the house and after pay day I would get what I called the “after bills blues”. I felt like the guy in the picture above.

Help!

Something had to give; and it has. My wife and I have recently joined a class being offered at our church on finances. It is the Financial Peace University class by Dave Ramsey. We are about five classes in and it has been really good. A lot of the principals were not new concepts to us, but we were just not making good progress. I think this class has served not only to educate us more, but to focus our energies into a unified effort to accomplish a goal. The first of those goals? GET OUT OF DEBT! FOR GOOD!

The rich rule over the poor,
and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Proverbs 22:7 (NIV)

That’s right! The borrower (that’s me) is slave to the lender. A lot of times it feels like it too, when the creditors are calling you and harassing you because you owe them money. Many times I’ve wanted to get angry at these people for always wanting their precious payments, but I can’t. I borrowed money from them and as a person of integrity it is on me to repay that debt in as timely a manner as possible. Sigh. I am flat out tired of being a slave to anyone other than my heavenly Father, my Savior, my Creator.

Changes

Well, something must change, right? Right!

We have established a budget and are sticking to it as best we can. We have employed the “envelope system” for our budget categories that make sense. Dave Ramsey says that, “if you don’t plan where every dollar goes you’ll wonder were it all went.” I’ve proven that plenty of times so we’re going the other way now.

Time to downsize! We’re also downsizing our living expenses. We don’t own our home; we’re renters. So we have notified our landlord that we are not renewing our lease at the end of next month. We are currently in search of cheaper/smaller housing. Cheaper because we need to save money and smaller because the utilities on our current house are killing us.

Sell Stuff! Dave Ramsey says, “sell so much stuff that the kids think they’re next.” This is also a good preparation for the move. We’re having a huge garage sale and will be getting rid of a bunch of “stuff” that we really don’t need. Hopefully we’ll make enough money to help defray the costs of the move so that we’re not too set back in our budgeting.

Prayer

Of course the best action we can take is to pray; connect with the One True God … the guy that owns it all! So do I think I can just pray to God and He’ll take care of all of my debt and give me a huge house and a lot of stuff to fill it? Heck no! He will, however, change me in a way that aligns me more to His will, to His character and gives me wisdom to make better choices.

So, if you are also the praying type, please pray for us as we make some radical changes for the better.

One more Dave Ramsey quote, “live like no one else now so that later, you can live like no one else.”

So we were in the van driving to church this week and the older two kids, one eleven year old girl and one eight year old boy, were reading off a bunch of scriptures. There did not seem to be any pattern, reason or rhyme to what they were reading and it soon became apparent that they were simply picking verses at random. My wife informed me that they were looking for a verse to memorize for Sunday school. They had not been previously assigned one so they simply needed to pick one for themselves. Naturally they were searching for very short verses that they could memorize quickly. All well and good, right?

That’s about the time I hear my son recite this verse:

No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.
Deuteronomy 23:17

My wife and I looked at each other for a silent moment. Hmm.

“Hey, son. Why don’t you pick another verse”, said I.

“Why Daddy?”

“Well, that verse will most likely bring up some questions in Sunday school that your teacher may not want to address on Sunday morning.”

I then returned to driving with a smile on my face trying not to dissolve into laughter. Oh boy. So instead, Aubrey and I picked this verse for them to memorize which has turned out to be a good family verse.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Ephesians 4:29

Happy New Year! It is once again that time; time to make resolutions, promises and goals that we’ll never keep. I’m sure all of the health clubs out there love January because of the most likely number one resolution made: lose weight. I considered skipping this year, but I’ve been doing this for several years now and have actually made good progress towards goals that I wanted to keep. So here I am once again, making my list. Without further ado.

1. Die

Yes, you read it right. My number one resolution this year is die, but not in the natural, mortality sense. I hope to work this year on dying to my self (not myself but my “self”).

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Luke 9:23 – 25

That was Jesus speaking… you know God incarnate, the creator of the universe and everything in it. What does that mean, “take up their cross daily”? The cross was the means of carrying out Jesus’ death sentence. So we must kill ourselves every day? In Romans it says:

…count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:11

So what does it mean to “count yourselves dead to sin”? I’m positive that I don’t have the complete picture. I do know that I love God and want to be in His perfect will, so I will be striving to live this out in my life. How? By attempting to put myself aside. By considering others higher than myself. By serving the needs of my wife, my children, my family, my friends, my church. We humans are extremely self-serving creatures. God knows that this is destructive in our lives and He asks us to lay it aside so that He can give us life more abundantly.

2. Practice My Talents

…more specifically, the piano. God has given us all talents and we should be striving for excellence in those talents, whether that means serving people, encouraging people, administering, cleaning or playing the piano. I have realized that I play the piano every Sunday (almost) and have gotten somewhat lax (ok, completely lax) in my practice. I don’t take regular time to fine tune the talent that I use to praise and worship my God and King. I am resolving to fix that this year and make it a regular habit of practicing my instrument.

3. Marathon #2!

Yes, I completed my very first marathon this past year (November 14, 2010). That is the health/fitness goal that I am most proud of. This year I would like to repeat the feat. However, my new goal for this year will be to complete the marathon and NOT collapse at the end resulting in an E.R. visit. Of course that means I need to get back on my feet and start training again, but I’ve had some physical setbacks via my right foot being injured.

4. Get Rid of the Gut

I seriously thought last year that training for and completing a marathon (26.2 miles) would result in this stupid gut or spare tire disappearing from my midsection. Seriously! I was woefully mistaken, however, and the gut remains. So while last year I quietly included this into the “running a marathon” goal, it gets its very own resolution this year. This also means that I will need to specifically target my midsection with exercise that is not just running. Look out six pack abs, here I come!

5. Pay Off Debt

This will continue to be a resolution until it is all gone. I absolutely hate being in debt to other people and count myself as a slave to creditors, without financial freedom, until such time as I pay that last bill and shed the shackles of debt. We have done well this past year, but I plan on attacking debt with a vengeance this year. It needs to get gone!

So there you have it, my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions. Do you have any resolutions this year?

1. Work on my relationship with God

Check! Though I can’t really take credit. I was discussing this with my wife last night and was having some difficulty as to whether or not I should even have included this item. In Philippians 1:6 Paul writes, “… being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

So yes I have grown closer to God, but I don’t think I really had a choice. The scripture makes it clear (at least to me) that He who began the work in me, that is God who called me to be His child (Ephesians 2:8-10), will complete it. I don’t have a choice in the matter. He will complete it. I think it’s just up to me whether it gets completed the easy way or the hard way; I can participate and willingly follow God or I can rebel and choose my own path so that God disciplines me.

2. Work on my relationship with my wife

I believe I did alright on this front. Though I can always stand to do better. I’d like to say that I loved my wife as Christ loves the church, but that is an impossible task for a broken sinner like me. However, I do love my wife, even more now than I ever have in history.

3. Be consistent with my children’s music training

Fail! The intent of this resolution was that I personally be more consistent in teaching my children piano. However, halfway through the year we got the children involved in home school band and they have really done well there. So it’s not a total loss. They are learning music and having fun, which is the important thing.

4. Run a marathon

Check! Yes, I did! I am actually quite proud of this one. You can read more about it in this article.

5. Pay off debts

Check! We actually paid off two of our outstanding debts this year and have continued to try to stay afloat.

So that’s it. So long and farewell, 2010. We are looking forward to a great coming year in 2011.

I’ve been sitting in a study on the book of James for a while now at my church. The beginning of James talks about the followers of Christ going through trials and temptations. James begins:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” – James 1:2-5

“Consider it pure joy…”? What? How can I find joy in facing trials? Well, the answer to that lies in the fact that God is sovereign and that He allows us to go through hard times and trials in order to perfect our faith. Of course I’m no theologian so take that with a grain of salt; it’s just my understanding at this point in time. Anyway, whenever we are going through hard times it is often extremely difficult to see any benefit, to see how this could possibly work out for our good (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28). I was recently pondering this and  came up with a real life parallel that helps me to gain a little perspective on the topic.

My oldest daughter had to have oral surgery at the beginning of this year. She had some issues with her permanent teeth not coming in that could not be resolved any other way according to multiple dental professionals. My daughter, understandably, was terrified of having to go through this. She would have be “put under” for the procedure and have strange doctors and nurses operating on her without me or my wife present. From her perspective I can see that this was just too much to have to handle. There should have been another way to fix her teeth. We could have waited a little longer, we could have seen more dentists, anything but this. Isn’t that how we respond to trials in our life? Doesn’t it often feel like too much to handle?

From my perspective, this was a necessary surgery for my daughter. There were no other alternatives that would be effective. We had done the research and talked to all the right people. This had to be done. Not only that but we could see the benefit of doing so. Even if my daughter had to go through a traumatic experience and some pain, it was only temporary and would produce a lot of good in her life. Now if we can see like that for our children, how much more so can God see what we are going through and the benefit that it will produce in our life?

Finally, one more perspective that dawned on me is that of my own broken heart. It hurt me to see the fear in my daughter’s eyes as they gave her the gas and shots to make her go to sleep. It hurt me even more to have to leave after she was sleeping and know that the doctor was about to cut on my baby girl. It hurt me when I drove home and my wife held our daughter in her arms in the backseat of the van as she cried softly the whole way home. I absolutely hated to see my little girl have to go through that. Do you think God may feel that way about us? How much more does He love us than we love our children? I believe in some ways God may allow Himself to also hurt for us whenever we must walk through tough times.

Have you had to watch your child(ren) go through hard times? Are you yourself going through a hard time? Talk to God the Father and let Him know how much you are hurting. He loves you more than anyone ever could and He does care about the fact that you do not like the current circumstance. He has also promised that He will never leave us or forsake us.