Do you hear others talk about all that God is teaching them in Bible
study, and feel like you’re missing the boat? Do you sit down to read
your Bible but find yourself easily distracted? Do you wonder if it is
possible to have consistent, meaningful quiet time?
Me too!
Several months ago, I challenged you to commit to read your Bible every
day for thirty days. Several of you agreed to do so. In fact, since the
arrival of the New Year some of you have re-committed to this challenge
as part of your resolutions.
What a great idea! In fact, I think we should join you. We could all
benefit from laying a solid foundation for 2009 by jump-starting our
prayer and devotional lives.
And, I’m willing to sweeten the deal.
As I think about my resolutions for this year, my thoughts keep
circling back to one key charge—be a Truth speaker. Sure I’d like to
shed a few pounds, stay more organized, eat better, sleep more…but, if
I am going to commit to focus my efforts in a direction that truly
matters, I want it to be in the area of knowing and proclaiming God’s
Truth.
The end of December means a wrap up of our focus on discernment (if
you’ve missed that discussion, check it out in the archives). But Nancy Leigh DeMoss will continue this conversation with a two-week series starting later this month.
January 26 – February 6 Nancy will be discussing the topics of
discernment and deception on Revive Our Hearts radio. You can listen
online here. Since this is such an important topic, I will be putting excerpts from those broadcasts here on the blog.
So, mark your calendars and make plans to listen. Then hop back to this blog so we can talk about it!
Are you heading somewhere fun for Christmas break? Maybe you’re off to
the mountains to ski, or on your way to grandma’s for some yummy food
and family time. Why not take us with you?
If you’ve been tracking our conversation on the blog this month, you
know we’ve been talking a lot about discernment. More specifically,
we’ve tried to hone in on how to discern truth from lies in the media
we watch, read, and listen to.
This can be a difficult task. It isn’t always obvious when a media
choice is feeding us lies and it can be difficult to walk away once we
realize we’ve been deceived. What’s more, there are so many books, and
movies, and shows available to us that finding worthwhile material can
seem a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack.
If you’re looking for an online tool to help you discern whether a particular book is a wise read, check out www.discerningreader.com. You can find book reviews, recommended reading lists by people like John MacArthur, and author interviews. You can even get the scoop on upcoming releases. Very cool!
Here’s another segment from Nancy’s series on A New Earth. Pay close attention to how Dr. Whitney encourages us to respond when we discern an imposter of Truth.
Twilight certainly isn’t the first book, series, or movie to desensitize readers toward Truth. Many of today’s hottest media choices are laced with harmful contradictions to God’s Word.
Nancy recently tackled one such book on Revive Our Hearts radio. As part of a two-day series, Nancy examined the best-selling book A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. She was joined in the studio by Dr. Erwin Lutzer and Dr. Don Whitney. That conversation contained great insights for those of us who are learning to discern, especially in the area of our media choices.
Admittedly, I have not read Twilight or seen the movie. I want
to walk the talk and avoid this series since I’m campaigning hard for
you to do the same. But, since many of you have read these books and/or
seen the movie, I thought it might be helpful for you to hear from
another Twilight reader.
My friend, Jessica has read all four books and seen the movie. She is a
college senior and a volunteer in the youth group my husband pastors.
As we started talking about this issue in our youth group, Jessica
started to re-examine her opinions on the series. I asked her to share
them with you.