Questions We Ask Can Help Us Grow Stronger
Hi everyone, the year is certainly up and running and in case this ends up being my last chance to write something for our weekly newsletter, I wanted to provide you with questions that came from an article I read a while ago. It can be found at:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/ten-questions-for-a-new-year
Of course, I will only provide you with some of them. So here they are:
1. What’s one thing you can do this year to increase your enjoyment of God? Our enjoyment of God comes primarily through the means of grace he has given us. He has promised to bless us most directly and consistently through means such as his word, prayer, and the church.
2. What’s an impossible prayer you can pray? There is more than a dozen “but God” statements in Scripture, such as in Romans 5:8, which reads, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” What’s a “but God” prayer you can pray for the coming year?
3. What’s the most important thing you could do to improve your family life? If your family doesn’t practice family worship, beginning there is the single best recommendation I could make. Just ten minutes a day, simply reading the Bible, praying and singing together.
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year? Would it be a personal spiritual discipline (that is, one you practice alone), or an interpersonal spiritual discipline (one you practice with other believers)? Once you decide, determine the next step and take it.
5. What’s the single biggest time-waster in your life, and how can you redeem the time? Social media? TV? Video games? Sports? Hobbies? It’s easy for any of these (or something else) to take too much of our hearts and time. Is repentance required?
6. What’s the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church? While we often stress the fact that individual believers are the body of Christ, the New Testament actually says seven times to one that the church is the body of Christ (see Eph.5:23). How can your church be stronger this year because of you? Serving? Giving? Praying?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year? Praying frequently and fervently for someone’s salvation makes us more sensitive to opportunities to share the gospel with him or her. Will you commit to praying for at least one person’s salvation every day this new year?
8. What single thing can you plan to do this year that will matter most in ten years? In eternity? Short-term deadlines tend to dominate our attention. Busyness and fatigue often limit our vision to just getting through today. But don’t let the tyranny of the urgent distract you from something you’re neglecting that would have enormous long-term impact on your soul, your family, or your church.
Rev. Ian Barnett (Acting Rector)