A video you should watch (and it has my voice!)

I'm not back to keeping up this blog yet (that will have to wait until after the wedding, I think!) but I thought I would point you to a youtube channel that belongs to my fiance, Loris, and his friend, Hossein.

I actually linked to their videos on this blog at the end of 2009, at which point I only knew Loris as an aquaintance. We had met once during street evangelism, and then I saw him at a Bible study for several weeks, and then we didn't see each other again until the summer of 2010 when we were both out with the street evangelism group again. It was watching the videos he had written that made me see his interest in Scripture and love for Christ, which then made me want to get to know this guy better! Which obviously happened because now we are getting married in just a few weeks! Wooh! Anyway, that is some background for you...

So back to my intended point - I had the priviledge of doing the voice recording for their most recent video, so any of you long-time readers can hear my voice, if you'd like. Because that is just so fascinating, is it not? (I know that I like seeing or hearing the people behind the blogs I've followed for a while!) But with or without my voice, I love this video - it's much-needed encouragement to strive against sin and towards faithfulness to our love and bridegroom Jesus Christ.

So without further ado!

True Woman conference

Laaadies! You can now watch, listen or read all the messages from the True Woman '10 conferences. Nancy Leigh Demoss says that a true woman is:

A woman willing to surrender every area of her life to reflect the beauty and heart of Christ to the world. She's serious about obeying God, determined, by His grace, to live up to His Word in her life!

There were three conferences held this year, with some different messages at each. Go here to choose your conference and listen away! All free!

1nemind

Check out 1nemind's channel on Youtube for some great videos on apologetic and biblical topics...here's part one of Prophecies & Parallels of Christ in the Old Testament - but be sure to go to the channel for the other parts and much more!

Serving China's Persecuted Church

In case you missed the last post, please go HERE to send a Bible to a persecuted believer for free - all you have to do is click the button provided on the page.

Well hello there.

This blog has been neglected. Maybe I am the only one who's noticed. :)

BUT, I'm planning on getting back to more frequent writing and posting over the summer, starting soon. I hope. Meanwhile, a couple things you might want to check out:

The Daily Spurgeon widget on my sidebar - just scroll down to read; click it to add to your own blog. I love Spurgeon, so if you do too, enjoy!

Why We Believe the Bible (The Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Authority of the Bible) This is a series by John Piper, taught as a seminar for The Bethlehem Institute. You can download all five messages for free online, or watch the videos. The seminar notes are also available for free. Just go HERE for the links. Again, all for free! I'm so grateful to Desiring God for their generosity in offering this crticial series (like most of their content) as a free resource!

That's it for now people. Always remember to stop and look up through the trees when you are lying on a blanket with a good book this summer!

Learning about Islam

A while back I came across Answering Islam, a website for Muslims who want to learn about Christianity, as well as for Christians who want to better understand Islam in order to refute it from a biblical standpoint. I've only gone through a few of the categories and articles, so read with discernment, but so far this seems like an excellent resource, especially if you are building relationships with Muslims through work, school, evangelism efforts, etc.

A few sections of note:

Why They Converted - Personal testimonies of Muslims who came to saving faith in Christ.

Muslims Asking Christians - Answers to common questions.

Muhammad - Examining "whether Muhammad is a legitimate / true prophet in the tradition of the Biblical revelation." (obviously he is not!)

I realize this might not interest a lot of you, but again, it might be a helpful site to bookmark if you ever need some help in discussing Christianity with Muslims. Keeping in mind, as with any study of cults and false religions, that the best way to spot error is to have a firm knowledge of truth. (Found in the Word of God, the Bible!) I once heard it put like this: To know if a stick is crooked, you only need to hold it up to a straight one!

Christ - our Passover Lamb

"Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." 1 Cor 5:7

From the Bible places blog:

"We read about sacrifice in the Bible but we don't really understand what that means. We read passages that talk about the "life being in the blood," but those are just words that we don't really consider. We "know" that the wages of sin are high, but we don't get the life lesson that the ancient Israelites received every year.

The point of sacrifice was simply this: you deserve to die because of your sin. This animal is dying in your place. Watching the priest slice his throat and watching the blood drain out drove the point home much better than reading a chapter of Leviticus.

Today New Testament believers know that the blood of bulls and goats is not enough to take away sin. But I think that we can often just take for granted Jesus' death in our place. We don't think about his innocent blood draining away because we can't conceptualize it. We don't always appropriate the idea of substitute because we've never seen a living object die in our place. But our loss can be this: sin is easy because forgiveness (we think) is cheap."

This post provided a link to an actual video of a passover lamb sacrifice. It was difficult to watch, but I'm glad I did. You can check it out HERE. (Warning - graphic)

I hope you have a wonderful weekend rejoicing in our crucified and resurrected Lord!

Seeing Christ

Are you seeking to grow in your love for the Lord? I recently discovered a gem of a message - check out Session 2 from the Seeing & Savoring Jesus Christ conference. (John Piper, 2007 Regional Conference)

If you love audio teaching don't miss this!

I have to point you to an amazing site I recently stumbled across: Faith By Hearing. Be sure to check it out! From the site:

"Soft words produce hard hearts,” says John MacArthur. How true this is. And the preaching that comes from many modern, man-centered churches is soft and unable to tenderize the stony hearts of men. How urgent it is that we find godly preachers who have a high view of God and a high view of Scripture.

Faith by Hearing is designed to collect and categorize the ever-growing availabilty of great Reformed and conservative evangelical audio preaching & teaching that has a high view of God and Scripture. This is not merely a machine gun listing of sermons and lectures (though it may seem like that at times.) This is a personal project to encourage others to be blessed by the preaching and teaching of godly men who are faithful to the all-powerful Word of God."

On a side note, I love the header graphics of John Owen, Martin Luther, and John Calvin making good use of their ipods. :)

Dealing with that longing...

"Yes, that's it! Exactly what I've been learning but have failed to put into words..."

Such was my response to reading John Piper's answer to the question, "How can I long to be married without obsessing about it?" If you're struggling with this, or just want to gain a godly perspective on your season of singleness, you can read the edited transcript of the answer here. (As well as download the full-length audio, which I'm off to do!)

Here's an excerpt, but you're missing out if you don't read/listen to the whole thing!

"A lot of people are just consumed. They can't seem to shake it. And I think the answer there is not so much, "Fight, fight, fight! Stop doing that! Stop doing that!" but rather, 'Devote yourself to knowing and loving God. Immerse yourself in the Word.'"

What's the Point?

From Grace to You:

"Crossway released a multi-author work entitled Preaching the Cross , for which John contributed one chapter. The book, a highly recommended resource, is a call to pastors and church leaders to have ministries that are gospel-centered. Today’s article comes from John’s chapter, and recounts an experience he had early in his ministry which made a lasting impact on him."

The article - The Day I Missed the Point - delivers a much needed reminder to us all as we study God's Word. You can read it here.

Note: For those interested in the book, it looks like you can read the entire text online here.

Merry Christmas to my readers!

Like many, this has been a busy season for me. An increased work schedule, Christmas preparations and other demands have meant not much time for thinking about this blog! I have been doing quite a bit of reading and thinking, however, so I plan to share some of that on here soon.

Hopefully you are able to slow down over the next couple of days and truly focus on the beauty and meaning of the season for us as believers.

Here's a video that clearly reminds us why the world is in desperate need of the Christ we celebrate. Merry Christmas!

Free Sovereign Grace Download

Speaking of hymns, the songs that were sung during Together For The Gospel 2008 (mentioned in this post) were recorded and made into a CD. If you head on over to the Sovereign Grace site you can download three of the songs for free! (I love the joyful way that these songs are sung!)

Sufficient Grace

"God gives all grace, God makes all grace abound so that you always have all sufficiency for all things and an abundance for all good deeds. This is lavish grace. This is profuse grace. We’re given grace to repent, we’re given grace to believe, grace to be saved. We are given grace to understand the Word of God. We’re given grace to wisely apply the Word of God. We’re given grace to overcome sin. We’re given grace to defeat temptation. We’re given grace to endure suffering, disappointment, pain. We’re given grace to obey the Lord. We’re given grace to serve Him....

God is the only sufficient source of power that can come to our aid in every single situation we will ever face in life..."

- from Sufficient Grace for Humbling Circumstances, Part 1, by John McArthur

Want to listen and/or watch? Go here. (under the television tab)

T4G conference audio

I just recently discovered that the messages and panel discussions from the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference can be downloaded for free! My MP3 player is being put to good use!

Why this conference? Taken from the T4G website:

T4G is convinced that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been misrepresented, misunderstood, and marginalized in many churches and among those who proclaim the name of Christ. The goal ... is therefore to reaffirm this central doctrine of the Christian faith and to encourage local churches to do the same.

Speakers include Ligon Duncan, Thabiti Anyabwile, John McArthur, Mark Dever, R.C. Sproul, Albert Mohler, John Piper and C.J. Mahaney. I'm especially enjoying listening to the panel discussions. :)

Go here for the free downloads!

Attention All!

John McArthur's sermons are now available as free downloads at Grace to You!

True Woman '08

Hey ladies, the True Woman conference starts tonight and you can watch the live video feeds online!