If you feel like you waste time at all,
work really hard on your time management this month.
Cut out or cut down on time wasters that amuse
but ultimately add nothing of any real or lasting value to your life. excerpted from Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper:
"God created us to live with a single passion:
to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.
The wasted life is the life without this passion.
God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work
not to be made much of,
but to make much of him in every part of our lives."
June 2005 challenge: If you haven't given much thought to Jesus
(lately or ever), spend some time considering what He said about Himself.
Read the Gospel of John through once, and give it some thought.
exerpted from Mere Christianity by CS Lewis:
What are we to make of Christ?"
There is no question of what we can make of Him,
it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us.
You must accept or reject the story.
The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said.
Others say, "This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go,"
but He says, "I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life."
He says, "No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me.
Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined.
Give yourself away and you will be saved."
May 2005 challenge: Develop a plan to give generously and sacrificially
on a regular basis to someone (or more than one someones!) in need,
and then do it.
excerpted from Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes:
So how can we escape the power of materialism?
God's Word pointedly offers the cure for materialism -- the grace of giving.
Paul holds high the example of the impoverished Macedonians and their abundant giving (2 Corinthians 8:1,2).
Those Macedonians were really poor -- dirt poor, under "the most severe trial."
But out of [their situation] came incredible grace, and their poverty and trials were mixed
with overflowing joy that "welled up in rich generosity."
Grace giving gives until it hurts.
It affects your lifestyle.
When you begin grace giving, there are things you cannot have and things you must pass up.
Giving is not a meritorious work that enhances our position before God. We're not earning brownie points.
The way you spend your money and the way you give really does reveal what is in your heart.
Ask God what He wants you to give.
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