I decided to give my blog a face-lift for Christmas.  Over the next couple of weeks you'll notice some updates happening on the face of things and hopefully I'll get this death star fully operational. In the mean while, why don't you give my blog a gift this Christmas and subscribe in your feed reader of choice and spread the word.

1. Guys who use snow as another means of an adrenaline rush (snowboarding, mountain climbing, etc.) 2. Guys who like to dance in it like fairies. Then there are guys like me, who do nothing but shovel the devil's white concoction. I detest snow. This is the pic Sherry took of me again this morning after shoveling the 10+ inches out of our driveway.

Here are a few things to browse while you're out and about on the internet superhighway: Jonathan Dodson has posted some of a little Q & A he and I have had recently. Jonathan always gets me thinking. While you're at it, check out his post on the 50/50 gospel. I have posted a comment over at From Eden to Zion. Jeremy Pryor is another guy that will push you to think. I am enjoying listening to The Whitest Boy Alive. Maybe you will too.

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world...By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us. -St. John (1 John 4) The false gospel of fear is merely a flicker of motivation compared to the flame of the gospel of love in Jesus.  Oh but how often we "love" our brothers out of fear of what will happen if we don't, rather than because of how Jesus first loved us. Preaching the gospel to myself a little...or a lot.

Jonathan Dodson makes us take a look at how our songs to God sometimes reduce him to a cosmic girlfriend. He offers three suggestions for writing songs for worship that speak of God's great love, not cheap love: Contrast God’s great love with his great wrath. The more we see God’s just wrath, the more we see how great his love is to save us (“a wretch like me”). Show how God’s love is ours in the death of his Son. Text after biblical text ties God’s unfailing love to the sacrifice of his Son. Articulate the greatness of God’s love alongside the magnitude of his glory. Reveal that God’s love is just one aspect of God’s many-splendored glory. Read the full article.