What Could You Accomplish If You Got Rid Of...

...cable TV. JR Vassar has some of the answer.

Judgment Questions

This morning, John Piper posted a challenging thought on Twitter. He wrote, "Questions God will not ask at the last judgment: Did you get a good tan?"

I don't concern myself with how dark my tan is. However, this thought struck a deeper cord. How many things do I concern myself with that will not matter when I see the Savior face to face?

So, here are some other questions God will not ask at the last judgment:
-Did you see the final episode of ________ (insert your favorite TV show here)?
-Was your bed comfortable?
-Did people think well of you?
-Did you get a good interest rate?
-Did you have enough in your retirement account?
-Where you properly diversified?
-Did you have an iPhone?
-What was your high score on Wii bowling?
-Did you stay up to date on all the latest technology?
-How was the food at ________ (insert your favorite restaurant here)?

Breaking News: American Dream and God's Dream Can't Fit Together!

I'm massively challenged by this one question interview with Paul Tripp.

Here is an excerpt:
You can't fit God's dream (if I can use that language) for his church inside of the American dream and have it work. It's a radically different lifestyle. It just won't squeeze into the available spaces of the time and energy that's left over.

And I'm as much seduced by that as anybody. We have sold our four-bedroom house because our kids are gone, and we've bought a loft in Chinatown, Philadelphia. And we're amazed at how simple our life has become. We're grieving over how we let our life get so complicated.

Last year, for example, I put almost $2,500 worth of gas in my car. This year, I've put $159 in the first quarter. It's because we're walking places, and that slows our life down, and we're near the people in our church because we're within walking distance of the church. And we've had so many natural encounters with people because of that.

We're living in a much smaller place. We got rid of most of our stuff. As we went through it, we laughed about how we just collected stuff. All that stuff has to be maintained. It grabs your heart, it grabs your schedule, it grabs your time. It becomes a source of worry and concern and need to pay.

So we've just been confronted with how all of those things that aren't evil in themselves become the complications of life that keep us away from the kind of community that we need in order to hold on to our identity.

Biblical Productivity

In case you haven't seen them, CJ Mahaney has been writing a series of posts dealing with busyness, procrastination, roles, goals, and redeeming the time. You can see what he has done so far here.

I have found his thoughts both encouraging and challenging. I am realizing that a procrastinator dwells within me and that he must be put to death.

Shopping for Time

The new book by CJ Mahaney's wife and daughters is out. It looks very practical and helpful. Get it at WTS Books. Anybody want to join the 5am club?

Simple and Recollected

Early in George Whitefield's life, he used 15 questions each evening to examine himself:

Have I,

1. Been fervent in private prayer?

2. Used stated hours of prayer (1 hour in morning, 1 hour at noon, and 1 hour in the evening)?

3. Used spontaneous prayer every hour?

4. After or before every deliberate conversation or action, considered how it might tend to God's glory?

5. After any pleasure, immediately given thanks?

6. Planned business for the day?

7. Been simple and recollected (contemplative) in everything?

8. Been zealous in undertaking and active in doing what good I could?

9. Been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did?

10. Been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?

11. Recollected in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?

12. Taken time for giving thanks according to William Law's rules?

13. Been dilligent in studies?

14. Thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?

15. Confessed all sins?


(Dallimore, p. 80)


After pondering these, think of the kind of person these questions would tend to produce:

1. Devoted to prayer (Col. 4:2). See numbers 1, 2, and 3. He separated private prayer from the scheduled hours of prayer. Evidently, private prayer was done at a different time than the 3 scheduled hours. Add to that the spontaneous prayer every hour.

2. Thankful (1 Thess. 5:18). See numbers 5, 11, and 12.

3. God-ward focused (Col. 3:1-2). See number 4.

4. Others-focused (Gal. 6:10). See numbers 8, 10, and 14.

5. Redeeming the time (Eph. 5:15-16). See numbers 6, 11, and 13.

Redeem the Time...Because the Days are Evil

I was shocked out of my morning slumber by this picture on CNN.com. I am assuming this is one of the persons killed by the gunman in a Utah mall.

What shocks me is the contrast between her lifeless body and the store she is in front of. It is certainly not sinful to shop at a store like this. However, I doubt anyone wants to meet the Judge of the universe after having spent 30 mins and $79.95 in this store.

This reminds me of Jonathan Edwards' 7th resolution: "Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life."