“If you love your children;  if you would bring down the blessing of heaven upon your families;  if you would have your children make their houses be receptacles of religion when they set up in life for themselves;  if you would have religion survive in this place, and be conveyed from age to age;  if you would deliver your own souls, I beseech, I entreat, I charge you to begin and continue the worship of God in your families from this day to the close of your lives. . . . Consider family religion not merely as a duty imposed by authority, but as your greatest privilege granted by divine grace."  (Samuel Davies, from "The Necessity and Excellence of Family Religion")

“Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”  (Thomas Watson)

"When sin becomes bitter, Christ becomes sweet, and worship becomes real." (Dave Harvey)

Does God deserve to be worshiped by your household today?  If your answer to that question is 'yes,' then put family worship into your schedule and build the rest of your day around it.  If you take just 15 minutes a day to read the Scriptures to your family and then pray for your wife and children, you have great reason to be encouraged by how God is using you to honor Him and bless your family.

"Your weaknesses do not keep you from God.  It's your delusions of strength that do."  (Paul Tripp)

Good afternoon, men,

Our server is down at the church, so I am communicating this way.  Please pass it along to others, if you think they might not be subscribed to the Man Blog.

As for this coming Sunday, Mike Berry will be preaching.  I should find out tomorrow more about his topic;  and when I do, I will pass it along to you.

Please know that you are invited to join us tomorrow at the 2^nd Day Man Forum Breakfast.  I really appreciate the men who stepped forward with the idea and the plan to pull off this breakfast.  But God has been good to us men this past year, and His goodness is worth celebrating.  Our Man Forum meets from 6:00am – 7:05am, and we would love to see you there, even if you are not able to stay the entire time.  At the 2^nd Day Man Forum, we typically read excerpts from men who have something encouraging or challenging to say to us as men and we also spend time in God’s Word together.  If you are free tomorrow morning, feel free to come!

Summer Advance:  Here are the readings for this week.  If you can read through these passages with your family, that would be great!

Mark 4:1-20

Mark 4:21-41

Mark 5:1-20

If you are a husband and/or a father, then you have an official ministry position in the church.  You are a pastor!  If there is any way we can be of service to any of you to help you in your roles or in your walk with God, please let us know!

With much appreciation!

Milton

If I sin and then deny it, sin wins.

If I sin and then call my sin good, sin wins.

If I sin and then minimize the evil of it, sin wins.

If I sin and blame others, sin wins.

If I sin and blame my circumstances, sin wins.

If I sin, and view my sin as a complete reflection of who I am, sin wins.

If I sin, and then say, "This is who I am and who I forever will be," sin wins.

But if I commit a sin, and confess it as wholly mine and no one else's,

If I flee to the cross and bathe in Christ's atoning blood,

If I see at the cross my sin condemned and myself justified,

And if I hearken to my Savior's voice which says, "You are free,"

Then, and only then, is my sin defeated.

"Few women will fail to submit to a man on a cross." (Phil De Courcy)

"If, as the apostle argues, ‘He that does not provide for his own house,’ in temporal things, ‘has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel;’ to what greater degree of apostasy must he have arrived, who takes no thought to provide for the spiritual welfare of his family.”  (George Whitefield, in his sermon, “The Great Duty of Family Religion”)

“Both Whitfield and Edwards have been quoted as referring to every household as a little church, and every father a pastor.  This, of course, was in no way meant to imply that the home operated in place of the church.  Both men, like others who echoed this sentiment in their day, were churchmen.  Their point was simple.  The church does not meet as often as the home.  Thus, if Christ is to be worshipped daily, it is incumbent upon the home to play an important spiritual role.  Consequently, fathers, as heads of households, are thrust into a pastoral role.”  (Voddie Baucham, What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, 155).

“One of the greatest needs of our time is men willing and able to serve as priests and prophets in their homes.  In fact, this is the most common prayer request I receive from married women.  They all want their husbands to be the priest/prophet of their home.  Most would be willing to part with goods and comfort if it meant they (and their children) would be led by their husbands in the home.” (Voddie Baucham, What He Must Be If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, 153)

"I, for one, am allergic to helplessness.  I don't like it.  I want a plan, an idea, or maybe a friend to listen to my problem.  This is how I instinctively approach everything because I am confident in my own abilities. 

It took me seventeen years to realize I couldn't parent on my own.  It was a not a great spiritual insight, just a realistic observation.  If I didn't pray deliberately and reflectively for members of my family by name every morning, they'd kill one another.  I was incapable of getting inside their hearts.  I was desperate.  But even more, I couldn't change my self-confident heart.  My prayer journal reflects both my inabilities to change my kids and my inability to change my self-confidence.  That's why I need grace even to pray."  (Paul Miller, A Praying Life, 59)

We are wanting our people to read through the Gospel of Mark this summer, and we are wanting all of our heads of households (including single moms!) to take their families through the Gospel of Mark the summer quarter.

The Plan:  We have broken the Gospel of Mark into 36 readings, so if you do a reading from Mark 3 times a week, then at the end of 12 weeks you will have completed the Gospel of Mark.

The Resources:  Obviously, you will need your Bible for this, but we are also making available the following resources: 

King’s Cross:  the Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, by Timothy Keller.  This is a very readable book which contains numerous meditations on various passages throughout the gospel of Mark.  This is not a verse-by-verse commentary on Mark, but is a collection of meditations on various basic Christian themes that are interwoven into Mark’s Gospel.  Timothy Keller handpicks certain stories and incidences in Mark and uses them to discuss certain themes that lie at the heart of Christianity. 

We would love to see all of our people go through this book this summer.  You will find much in this book that will edify and encourage you, and you will also find various stories and explanations which our heads of households might find worth sharing in their Family Worship time as they go through the Gospel of Mark.

Weekly Emails & Blogs.  If there are any additional ideas and suggestions or resources to help you as you read through Mark and/or as you lead your family through Mark, we will try to provide that for you through weekly emails or postings on the Cornerstone Blog & Cornerstone Man Blog.

FOR OUR MEN!  2^nd Day Man Forum.  In our 2^nd Day Man Forum times (Tuesday mornings from 6:00am – 7:05am), we will take some time each week to discuss various issues from Mark and King’s Cross that might be of help to you as you work through Mark privately and/or with your family.  The goal of the 2^nd Day Man Forum is to encourage our men in their leadership of their families, but we will be taking time to help each other out as we go through Mark’s Gospel together. 

Why do this in the summer?

1. Because there is no Sunday School during the summer quarter.  This program will provide an opportunity for us to accomplish some of what might have been accomplished during the Sunday School hour.  Think about it . . . three readings a week, praying, along with any discussions that you might have with others and especially with your family.  At the very least that’s 30 or 40 minutes of time, and probably more!

2. Because summer is the time of year when we have the most time available to do the things we “want” to do.  If you don’t have the time to read through Mark privately and/or with your family during Family Worship in the summer, then you will probably never have the time.

3. The rest of the year is often so busy, especially coming into September.  Summer is a great time to take a breath, re-evaluate, and establish some good habits that will hopefully endure through the fall, winter, and spring.

For heads of households (husbands, fathers, & single moms):  Don’t feel pressure to teach through the Gospel of Mark (although it is ok if you do).  If all you did were read the passage and the assigned readings and then pray for your family members, then you have great reason to be encouraged by what you are doing.  God can do much with a few loaves and fish, especially when those loaves and fish are being delivered by a husband, father, or single mom who is seeking to step out in faith and lead their family in the worship of God.

“When our kids were two, five, eight, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, I wrote this in my prayer journal:

March 19, 1991.  “Amazing how when I don’t pray in the morning evil just floods into our home.  I absolutely must pray!  Oh, God, give me the grace to pray.” (Paul Miller, A Praying Life:  Connecting with God in a Distracting World, 58)