day no. 15,379: our Father in heaven and fathers on earth

Psalm 78:1-7
Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,  things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments

It is a father's job to remember what his father taught him. It is also his duty to pass along this to his son. The next generation should receive their information first hand from their fathers by way of the forefathers. The story of God is a story of fathers loving sons and handing down an inheritance of remembering our Father in heaven.

day no. 15,378: thorns, thistles curses and Christ

Hebrews 6:7-8
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

The land that bears thorns and thistles is cursed. It is worthless. It is cursed land. It's end is to be burned. The curse of thorns and thistles being applied to the land goes back to the garden of Eden and the sin of Adam.

Genesis 3:17-19
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

We are that land. That is our curse. We produce thorns and thistles and as a result, we deserve to be burned. 

But Christ became a curse for us.

Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"

Jesus bore a crown of thorns and thistles on His head in order to bear the thorns and thistles our head, Adam, deserved. Jesus sweat blood from His forehead in order to bear the weight of the curse our head deserved. He did this in order to bear the curse of our head and to become our new Head.

We are led by a Head that once wore a crown of thorns and thistles. Jesus sweat blood in order to produce bread for us to eat so that in returning to dust, we might rise from the ashes. 

day no. 15,377: daily bread

"A daily portion is all that a man really wants. We do not need tomorrow's supplies; that day has not yet dawned, and its wants are as yet unborn. The thirst which we may suffer in the month of June does not need to be quenched in February, for we do not feel it yet; if we have enough for each day as the days arrive we shall never know want. Sufficient for the day is all that we can enjoy. We cannot eat or drink or wear more than the day's supply of food and raiment; the surplus gives us the care of storing it, and the anxiety of watching against a thief. One staff aids a traveller, but a bundle of staves is a heavy burden. Enough is not only as good as a feast, but is all that the greatest glutton can truly enjoy. This is all that we should expect; a craving for more than this is ungrateful. When our Father does not give us more, we should be content with his daily allowance. Jehoiachin's case is ours, we have a sure portion, a portion given us of the king, a gracious portion, and a perpetual portion. Here is surely ground for thankfulness." -- C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Like manna, God provides for our daily needs daily. Also, like the manna, trying to hoard today's provision in order to provide yourself with tomorrow's needs often goes rotten. God gives daily. He could give us a lifetime's worth today and make it enduring enough to last all of our days, but He chooses instead to be intimately involved on a daily basis, providing us with our needs, serving us daily.

day no. 15,376: what gets smithed, get shipped

"When we are looking at a man’s family, we are looking for what we want to see duplicated—for Paul tells us that it will be duplicated." -- Douglas Wilson, The Neglected Qualification

Whatever is manufactured in the home will be moved beyond it. Whatever is produced behind closed doors will be distributed once they are opened. 

Whatever gets smithed at home will get shipped outside of it.

If you don't like what you see when you look into a man's home, you should not want to see that man set up as an example or a target. A pastor/elder is a target. He is set up as an exemplar of what other men, fathers, husbands, brothers and sons should aspire. In other words, if you would not want more of a man's family in the world, then do not promote that man to the position of pastor/elder.

day no. 15,375: it's a tough call

"Be tough for your wife, which is a very different thing than being tough on her." -- Douglas Wilson, Flesh of My Flesh

God made men strong. They are built, God-tough. The reason is so that they can be hard for their wives. Their broad shoulders were meant to carry loads for her. To clear the driveway for her. To take the heavy, cumbersome trash bags out for her. When men go rogue, they either do so by being weak where they were made to be strong or by using their strength for something it was not intended for. So men either refuse to chop wood because it's too cold or they use the axe to chop up the house. These fall short of the glory for which God created men -- to be strong and good. If you are tough on your wife, you are a bully, using for wicked gain what God gave you to employ for her good. If you are tough for her, you are like Christ, giving your gain to her because God is good.

day no. 15,374: sharpies and smoothies

"In marriage, much depends on understanding the God-given distinctions between male and female, and much depends on understanding how they are intended to blend in an organic and complementary way. But we stumble—we were supposed to blend our wills, becoming more and more like-minded, and we were supposed to keep our personalities distinct and sharp, becoming daily more and more like ourselves, growing up into ourselves. Instead of this, we blend our personalities, and everything and everybody gets all tangled up, but we keep our wills distinct, becoming increasingly stubborn as the years go by. And then we wonder at the conflicts." -- Douglas Wilson, Flesh of My Flesh

God likes writing with a sharpie and He enjoys making smoothies. But when we make smoothies out of sharpies, they taste bad and kill us to boot. And when we try to write with a smoothie, we make a mess of everything. 

God's desire is for a man and woman in marriage to use sharpies for their personalities and to make smoothies out of their wills. A man should not lose himself in his wife. He should surrender his will for her. A woman should not be absorbed in her husband. She should surrender her will to him. 

Oneness is the goal of marriage. This is best accomplished by blending your wills in a smoothie while keeping your personalities distinct like sharpies. This allows two to become one in a way that complements. This allows the key and the lock to be one unit without becoming one giant lock or one great key. Key and lock, arrow and string, violin and bow: two distinct personalities, one clearly defined will. The distinctions are sharp in form and function which gives way to the smoothness of the functionality. The purpose is produced smoothly because the personalities are kept sharply.

day no. 15,373: the right kind of bright: love children, raise warriors, hate evil, praise God

"We (must) finally recognize the importance of the time we are called to invest in our children. Because it is a long war, it crosses generations. In a very short space of time, your children will join you in the line, and a short time after that, their children will join them. This means that we begin by fighting for our children, but we must end by fighting by means of them. We must do two things simultaneously—we must fight today’s battles, and we must recruit and train tomorrow’s warriors. If I am allotted more than the proverbial three score and ten, I hope that as my children and grandchildren are hitting their stride, I will see myself as still fighting through them. I hope that I have the privilege of seeing a lot of downstream damage to the work of the adversary. Decades from now, when my descendants are giving fits to whatever progressives are calling themselves in the 22nd century, I hope that my name is a hissing and a byword to God’s enemies. A short-sighted man who throws himself into ministry, neglecting his family in order to do so, is not just demonstrating for us that he doesn’t understand his wife and kids. He is demonstrating for us the fact that he doesn’t understand the nature of true ministry. A man who is wrong about children will find it difficult to be right about anything else. So what we need (as I’ve said in other places) are more children with the right kind of bright in their eyes, like Jonathan after he ate the honey. We want children who have that kind of bright in their eyes because they have fathers who gave them the honey in the first place. " -- Douglas Wilson, The Neglected Qualification

THIS!

Ministry is primarily multi-generational, mission-minded, multiplication of disciples that begins in the home and produces the right kind of bright.

Love children.

Raise warriors.

Hate evil.

Praise God.