Displaying posts by Yiyin Ho

As Good Friday and Easter (otherwise known as Resurrection Sunday at CBC) approaches, we as Christians should prepare ourselves by meditating on Jesus Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.  During this time of busyness, it is easy to get caught up in family, traditions, egg hunts, and dress clothes.  However, these things should not distract from focusing on and teaching our kids the truth of what Jesus endured on the cross for our sake.  

Therefore in the next few weeks, I highly encourage you to read a wonderful little book by Frederick Leahy called "The Cross He Bore".  I'm still reading through it currently, but so far it has been an excellent and theologically rich devotional on Christ's sacrifice for us.  It causes me to worship and be thankful to Him who gave up Himself for me.  There are 13 chapters, and perfect as a 2 week devotional leading up to Easter/Resurrection Sunday.  

This book is available in the Calvary Book Nook for $5. 

Here is the Children's choir singing "Away in a Manger" for the Christmas church service -- Enjoy!! (Thanks to Leslie Ponzo for taking the video!)

Merry Christmas everyone!

For those who have time, here's a few thought-provoking Christmas blog posts:

• The Cripplegate talks about Santa here.
• Femina explains the reason for gifts here. 
• Desiring God brushes up on Christology here.
• The Gospel Coalition posts on North Korea and Christmas here.
• Bob Glenn tells us to celebrate and rejoice here. 

Grace Church is streaming their Christmas Concert live online!  Find it here.

Time:

Sat. Dec. 17th 5PM EST

Sun. Dec. 18th 9PM EST

My personal favs:  Jubilant Sykes, Kory Welch

Really good music to get you in the Christmas mood!

The 9 Marks blog has a really good post today about “gospel-centrality” that’s very much prevalent in today’s evangelical culture.  The post seeks to answer this question:

“How do you move beyond the gospel without moving on from the gospel? On the other hand, if the gospel is so all-important, do we need to “move beyond” the gospel in any sense at all?”

The answer, in a nutshell, is this:

“The way for a church leader to move beyond the gospel without moving on from the gospel is to make those organic links explicit in your preaching and teaching. The way to focus on other matters without losing our focus on the gospel is by tracing out their relationship to the gospel.”

I think the author explains clearly about this gospel-centric movement making distinctions/categories between the “essential” (i.e. the gospel) and the “unimportant” (i.e. every other doctrine), and how to combat that type of thinking.  It’s definitely a great read!

For this week's blogspotting, I'm going to pull something a little bit older, at least in the blog world.  Over the summer, Rachel Jankovic wrote a series on motherhood in the Desiring God blog, focusing on being a mother to little ones.  Now I can't really fathom how she has time to write a book while raising five childen under the age of 5, but somehow she does. 

I pull out these articles every once in a while, just to remind myself of the importance of my "job" right now and not to slack off or be complacent.  In a world where "mothering" is not seen as important as pulling in a five or six figure yearly salary, we as women especially need to remind ourselves daily the weighty task we have everyday to raise our children unto the Lord.

Some notable quotes from the blog posts:

Motherhood is a Calling

"You represent everything that our culture hates, because you represent laying down your life for another—and laying down your life for another represents the gospel."

"Live the gospel in the things that no one sees. Sacrifice for your children in places that only they will know about. Put their value ahead of yours. ... If you tell them the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs every day, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work."

"Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross. There is more joy and more life and more laughter on the other side of death than you can possibly carry alone."

Motherhood is Application

"The gospel is not just something to talk about Sunday morning while you are in clean clothes and the kids are looking orderly. It is not limited to quiet times and reflective moods. It is something to apply while you are in a difficult position in the back of the car trying to buckle a child up who is playing the kazoo and needs their nose wiped."

"God is not above these moments. He is teaching us, and leading us, and refining us, in them. He wants to see our faith in action. He wants to see us feeding our children with the grace that he has given to us."

Motherhood as a Mission Field

"When you are a mother at home with your children, the church is not clamoring for monthly ministry updates. When you talk to other believers, there is not any kind of awe about what you are sacrificing for the gospel. People are not pressing you for needs you might have, how they can pray for you. It does not feel intriguing, or glamorous. Your work is normal, because it is as close to home as you can possibly be. You have actually gone so far as to become home."

"At the very heart of the gospel is sacrifice, and there is perhaps no occupation in the world so intrinsically sacrificial as motherhood. Motherhood is a wonderful opportunity to live the gospel. Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Motherhood provides you with an opportunity to lay down the things that you cannot keep on behalf of the people that you cannot lose. They are eternal souls, they are your children, they are your mission field."

The author has also recently published a book titled "Loving the Little Years".  I have read it and it is excellent -- very similar in style to the blog posts.  Each chapter is very short, which is good for me because many times I only have 5-10 minutes here and there to take a break during the day.  It is also available in our Calvary Book Nook, so check it out!

The blogosphere contains and generates so much content each day that one cannot keep up with all of it.  This series of posts will attempt to highlight some noteworthy and insightful articles from the world of blogs.  

The Cripplegate Blog has become one of my favorite Christian blogs in the blogosphere.  Its team of writers and contributors consists of Masters Seminary graduates and many of them are in the trenches of ministry all over the country.  This week features a very insightful series by Jerry Wragg (friend of Pastor Babij from Masters Seminary):

Evangelicalism's Got Talent

Evangelicalism's Got Talent, Part Two

As a seasoned and faithful pastor, he does a great job at explaining what expository preaching is and is not, and how to evaluate whether someone is a gifted teacher of God's Word.

On a related note, the Grace To You blog recently featured a series of blog posts by John MacArthur titled:

Advice for the Young, Restless, Reformed

(check the "Related Resources" section on the bottom of the post for the other posts in the series)

The YRR posts generated quite a discussion in the blogosphere, and Pastor MacArthur's words of wisdom are much needed in this evangelical age where "contextualization" and "missional" is all the rage.

Finally, Thabiti Anyabwile recently wrote a series of interesting posts the term "Celebrity Pastors" on the Gospel Coalition website.  The evangelical culture nowadays has many "famous" and "renowned" pastors that have cult-like followings.  We need to examine ourselves to make sure we are first and foremost most concerned about following Jesus Christ and not idols. 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

These are just some things to think about for us as Christians, and as a part of the local body.  We need to evaluate our own hearts and motives, and also to evaluate our own church so that we can glorify Jesus Christ and lift up God's honor, as individuals and as a church.