Lloyd Jones on “The Christian’s secret of a Happy Life”

I read this today in the latest issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine. It is an extract from a sermon on John 1 by Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones :

(…) Another trouble with our attitude towards sanctification is that we desire to be happy rather than holy. We want happiness so we go to our meetings, our conferences, our conventions, to get ‘it’. What is ‘it’? It is the happiness of getting rid of our problems. A book that has had a great influence has a significant title: The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. That’s it! ‘Happy life’! Come along, I will tell you. I can make you happy quite easily. You need not wade through your Bible, you need not understand theology, you need not go this long, roundabout way via the law. Here you are: ‘The Christian’s secret of a happy life’. But happiness does not come first.

What does come first? Holiness!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-09-25

  • Bible Works 9 installed on a virtual machine on my Mac, looking good, looking forward to test it next week @bibleworks #
  • @TonyRucinski google working here in reply to TonyRucinski #
  • Now to Rostrenen for the monthly Bible study. The sun is shinning, looking forward to the 45min trip. #
  • Eph 6:19, pray for me and my colleague as we go out to the weekly market this morning to do some evangelism. #
  • Euan Murray from the Scottish rugby team: It's basically all or nothing, following Jesus. I don't believe in pick 'n' mix Christianity #
  • The fool says in his heart there is no God: http://t.co/QcDnr2GP #
  • Reactions on DSK's television interview, in French: http://t.co/wozx4wS9 #

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BBC Sport – Rugby World Cup 2011: Devout Euan Murray questions Sunday matches

Scotish Rugby player said a few years ago:

“It’s basically all or nothing, following Jesus. I don’t believe in pick ‘n’ mix Christianity. I believe the Bible is the word of God, so who am I to ignore something from it?

“I might as well tear out that page then keep tearing out pages as and when it suits me. If I started out like that there would soon be nothing left.

“I want to live my life believing and doing the things (God) wants and the Sabbath day is a full day.

“It’s not a case of a couple of hours in church then playing rugby or going down the pub, it’s the full day.”

As a result of his convictions, he won’t be playing in the rugby world cup game this Sunday. Amen. At last a Christian man with convictions.

Read the full article on the BBC website: BBC Sport – Rugby World Cup 2011: Devout Euan Murray questions Sunday matches.

First Breton Lesson

My first Breton lesson was on Monday night. I had at first hesitated between learning Breton or starting rock climbing again. My friend Alan convinced me that I should live dangerously and get started on the Breton.

Well, that was an experience… There were quite a lot of people (12-15 I think), but I expect some will drop out in the coming weeks. It was very unstructured and difficult to follow, but we managed to learn to count up to 30, and the teacher got started on telling the time. Some in the group have already done some Breton, so there are different levels in the class, which won’t help. Anyway, I’ll give it a try. It might require some extra work on my own, but once I understand how things work, it should ve fine. I’ve been told there are similarities with Welsh, which will help.

The most evil of people are actually pretty ordinary

A Jewish man who was translating for the American Psychiatrists who were assessing German War criminals in Nuremberg after the second world war says this:

“Did we learn anything from these psychiatric tests? No. We didn’t find anything abnormal, nothing to indicate something that would make them the murderers they would become.

In fact, they were all quite normal. Evil and extreme cruelty can go with normality. (…)”

Read the article on the BBC website: Jewish US Army translator who got close to the Nazis

Love your neighbour, indicate when you change directions.

We all forget to indicate when we change directions, don’t we? Most of the time, we don’t even think about it, and some of us never indicate.

One incident reminded me of the importance of indicating when we change direction. I was approaching a stop sign at a crossing, and the car in front of me had already stopped. The road was wide, and although the other car wasn’t indicating, he was bearing right and he seemed to be turning right. So I went onwards and stopped on his left side, since I was going straight. I looked around and started to cross the road. The guy on my right did the same, but instead of turning right, started turning left (no indicators on). We were going slowly, and looked at each other. He let me go before him and turned. No accident, the guy didn’t look angry or upset that I had gone forward at the same time as him. But it made me think: isn’t indicating where I am going a way to show love to my neighbour? So, if you truly love your neighbour,  next time you change direction or if you are going to take a car over on the motorway, please, put your indicators on.