It has been a long but good day here in Woodstock, GA. We got up early and had the kids dig into their stockings. Then, once family had arrived from far and wide, we got busy opening what looked like just an obscene amount of gifts (there are, after all, eighteen people involved). After a great breakfast, a few of the menfolk (mostly) headed downstairs to package up copies of my book to be sent all around the world.

That’s my brother-in-law Rick checking labels against the spreadsheet, me stuffing books into envelopes, my brother-in-law Justin putting the 3 cent stamps on, my dad putting on the rest of the stamps, and my brother-in-law Pat writing “Media Mail” in hundreds of envelopes. It wasn’t fun work, but we had a good time. Or I did, anyways.

We got most of the tough work done and it remains just to take all of those books to the post office tomorrow.

Anyways, from my clan to yours, have a very Merry Christmas…

I’ve seen a few blogs where the authors are outlining their Christmas traditions. I’ve also been asked by some readers what my Christmas includes. So I thought I’d let you in on the Challies family Christmas. The way Aileen and I celebrate Christmas is a bit of a blend of two family traditions.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I grew up as part of a tradition that celebrated Christmas but did not generally emphasize it as a day to remember the birth of Jesus. It was not quite a secular holiday, but neither was it a sacred one. Aileen’s family was actually quite similar. So our Christmas traditions include little by the way of reading nativity stories (though we did that on occasion) or lighting candles. It’s also worth mentioning that our Christmas traditions are evolving as time goes on. Now that my family has moved to the U.S., we spend every second Christmas in the south. My parents and all of my siblings gather (from Toronto, New York City, Atlanta and Chattanooga) and we celebrate Christmas together. That means we have (at the moment) 18 people gathering together. The off years, where we celebrate at our own at home, is a lot quieter but maybe not quite so much fun.

On Christmas Eve we usually just enjoy appetizers and snacks and try to get the children to bed at a good hour. And we tend to turn in fairly early as well as we know the next day will begin early. We might watch a movie or play a game or just hang out. Just before bed we lay out the stockings and make sure the gifts are where they need to be. There’s no mention of Santa.

Christmas morning we begin with stockings for the children and then eat a breakfast of croissants and bacon and egg rings (which my mom makes). Those bacon and egg rings are made in muffin tins and are really quite delicious—much better than standard bacon and eggs. That’s a tradition that goes back as far as I can remember. After breakfast we get to work and begin opening gifts, moving from youngest to oldest and going round after round. After a few rounds order inevitably gets thrown the wind and we just open whatever is left. Then we begin to look towards the afternoon and begin work on a turkey dinner (which we try to convince my brother-in-law to make since he cooks up a mean turkey). We tend to spend the day fairly quietly, just enjoying family and lots of good food. There’s inevitably a game or two going on and some music playing. We eat together and then head our separate ways. This year we’re beginning what we hope will be a new tradition by heading out the day after Christmas for a family outing (which, this year, will probably take us to the Chattanooga aquarium).

And that’s about all. We try to keep Christmas fairly simple and low-key. It’s usually just about the best day of the year.

Yesterday morning (shortly after posting my John Owen post, as it happens) we bundled the family into the car and began to drive south. Far south. We are on our way to Atlanta to spend some time with my family. Yesterday we made it from Toronto all the way to almost the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. I’m writing today from a hotel that I believe is in a town called Corbin or something like that. I must have had a little too much Coke yesterday (I’m not a coffee drinker so Coke gives me my caffeine for the highway) because I didn’t sleep very well and then woke up early. I thought I’d get some writing done while the family catches up on lost sleep.

As I lay in bed last night I was thinking about how long this drive is (16 hours each way, or so) and how easy it would be to waste that entire 16 hours. I determined before we left that I was going to try to take advantage of the time and to that end packed some good audio books—Max McLean’s recording of The Pilgrim’s Progress and an audio version of Desiring God. Aileen the supermom packed a great bag of goodies for the kids—coloring books and stories, stickers and stamps, and nearly everything else a kid could want to use up some of the long hours. The kids haven’t quite yet caught onto the joy of traveling games—counting out of state plates, etc. But they had a good time with their treat bags and with a couple of DVDs as well. I didn’t listen to as much as the audio books as I might have liked, but did make some progress through The Pilgrim’s Progress since I thought the children would be more likely to enjoy that than Desiring God.

I’m determined that we’ll make the most of these two drives and thought I would ask you what you do to keep from wasting your drives. Every family, I think, sooner or later does a ridiculously long drive. If you’ve done that, why not share what you do to redeem some of that time. I’d be eager to learn.

Rebel soldiers were starting at one end of a large room, taking women away one by one and bringing them back after they were finished with them. Helen's first impulse was to hide and not have to bear this humiliation again. Then she thought of Jesus. He put himself forward as a substitute for us. The fellowship of his sufferings—she moved to the front, to try to protect some of the other women from undergoing a new trauma they might possibly have escaped so far.

She looked back later on this whole period and wrote: “We learned why God has given us His name as I AM (Exodus 3:14). His grace always proved itself sufficient in the moment of need, but never before the necessary time…As I anticipated suffering in my imagination and thought of what these cruel soldiers would do next, I quivered in fear…But when the moment came for action…he filled me with a peace and an assurance about what to say or do that amazed me and often defeated the immediate tactics of the enemy.”

She writes movingly of how abandoned she felt…”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His answer to her was a removal of the fear as if it had been rinsed out of her—and a strong sense of his arms around her, holding her and comforting her. She felt as if he were saying, “When I called you to myself, I called you to the fellowship of my suffering. They are not attacking you. They are attacking me. I'm just using your body to show myself to the people around you.”

Those paragraphs are taken from Noel Piper's, Faithful Women & Their Extraordinary God and the chapter providing a brief biography of Helen Roseveare. It’s a portion of the book that has stayed in my mind, even a couple of years after first reading the book. It moved me when I first read it and it moves me now. The account has been meaningful to me as I’ve begged God to show me where sin has taken a hold in my life—those hidden areas that far too often are difficult to see. There is some sin in my life that is so obvious that I simply cannot deny it. But there is some sin that is buried far beneath the surface and only God can call it to my attention. A sin God has revealed to me as I consider the deliberate hardship of this faithful woman is that of valuing my own comfort. Life in North America, even as a Christan, can be far too comfortable for my own good. A comfortable faith is, I believe, a dangerous faith.

This account has also been meaningful to me as I’ve pondered what it means to give everything—to lay it all on the line for the sake of my Savior. In some ways it seems that there would be a certain heroic quality in giving my life for my faith. We reserve a quiet awe for martyrs and justifiably so. But somehow it seems that what Roseveare offered was almost more than her life. She suffered in a way that surely affected the rest of her life. She was willing to give her life, but in a sense gave even more than that when she made her way to the front of that line. What an example of faith!

How many people would be willing to lay not just their lives, but their bodies and their dignity on the line, as she did? How many would be willing to be used as she was, believing all the while that what men were doing to "the least of these" they were in fact doing to her Savior? How many would be willing to do this knowing that they would have to live forever with the consequences? How many would be willing to do this out of love for women she did not even know?

I stand amazed at this story. Really, I do.

It was only later, when Roseveare had returned to her native England, that she discovered an amazing chapter of her own story and one that had been written at the same time. "It was the very night of Helen's attack. [A] woman had been awakened with a strong sense to pray intensely for Helen, whom she only knew of. She prayed and didn't feel free to stop until a certain time that she named to Helen. Given the difference in time zones, that was the same time that Helen had been washed through by the peace of God and known that she wasn't abandoned by Him."

As Helen Roseveare abandoned herself to men, she was in reality abandoning herself to God and to His promises. She was willing and able to trust that as she gave herself to God, He would be her strength. She knew that her body was but a vessel God was using to show Himself to the people around. She knew in her heart of hearts that the anger of the men was really an anger directed at God. And unbeknownst to her, while she went through her ordeal, other believers were holding her up before the throne of Grace. He did not forget her.

In 1989, 120 young people sat cross-legged in the Piper living room and dining room, covering nearly every square inch of floor space. They had accepted our open invitation to anyone who thought missions might be in his or her future.

As Helen Roseveare stood by our fireplace and looked into their faces, she reached backward toward the mantel and eased a long-stemmed rose bud from a tall vase. As she spoke, she broke off the thorns, the leaves, the petals, the green out layer of stem—every element that makes a rose and rose. All that was left was a lithe, straight shaft. The pieces that lay on the floor were not bad things. But, she explained, they had to be removed if she were going to make an arrow. God does this to us, she said. He removes everything—even innocent, good things—that hinders us from being the arrows that he will shoot for his purposes at his intended target.

And that is a lesson we can all draw from her story. We all need to abandon ourselves to God so that He can make us arrows fit to shoot for His purposes and at His intended targets. Like so many faithful men and women that God has used for His purposes, we need to allow Him to strip away layer after layer of ourselves, that we might be wholly and completely His.

A couple of days ago I posted a short reflection on grace and how foreign a concept this is to sinful humans. I wrote about my son and how, at a time he had received a gift he valued a great deal, he attempted to repay this gift with all the money he had (which was, it turns out, only one dollar). His offer was a kind one and even a generous one, but one that showed a misunderstanding and a misappreciation of a gift. Gifts, after all, are not repaid. They are given in grace.

My wife runs a small eBay-based business where she sells storage products (CD racks, DVD towers, and so on) along with fireplaces—electric and gel fuel. The nature of the business is such that all of the these products are drop-shipped and the addition of an extra one or two cogs to the wheel leads to the occasional difficult customer service situation. Yesterday she described to me one of these situations. A woman who had purchased some gel fuel from her had received only a partial order. It was the fault of the company that shipped the product but, of course, since my wife was the one it was purchased from, it was her responsibility to deal with. She did her best to make it right, attempting to get the full order sent right away. But this woman wanted more—she felt that she had been inconvenienced and she demanded compensation for this inconvenience. At first she asked for a discount on her purchase and then upped the ante asking for a whole case of this fuel gel to be added to her order. All of this because she only received a partial order.

I thought about this and wondered if I would do things the same way. If someone inconvenienced me by failing to provide the level of service I expected, would I demand to be compensated? Is it my right to have a perfect shopping experience every time? To be honest, I don’t know. But as I thought about this situation, I thought about grace and realized that just as it is foreign to us to accept grace, it is also foreign to us to extend grace. Why couldn’t this woman have simply extended grace? Was this issue so serious that she could not simply generously extend grace, seeking to build bridges rather than grasping for more? Would I have done any differently? What is it about grace that makes it seem strange to us?

I guess this may be the point of the parable of The Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23-35). Those who have been forgiven are expected to forgive. Those who have been given grace are expected to extend grace.

But do we?

I’m going to be in the Atlanta and Chattanooga areas over the holidays this year, hanging out with my family and then attending the Reality Check Conference (where I’ll be blogging, book signing, and having fun). So that means a couple of days in Adairsville, GA, a couple of days in Woodstock, GA (which, I hear, is a ‘burb of Atlanta) and a few days in Chattanooga, TN. Looks like it’s going to be a busy week or ten days!

While down south I have been asked to speak at a couple of churches and thought I’d let you know in case anyone out there in cyberspace is interested in attending. On December 23rd I’ll be speaking at Grace Community Church which meets in Dawsonville, Georgia. I believe the worship service begins at 6 PM and will be followed by a Christmas candle-light service. Then, the next Sunday, December 30th, I’ll be speaking at Lyndon Avenue Baptist Church in Chattanooga. The service begins at 6 PM.

At both services I’ll be speaking on Hebrews 5 and teaching on the Bible’s call for us to be men and women of discernment. On the 30th I believe I’ll also speak a little bit on my experiences working in the blogosphere and in new media.

So if you live in the area and if you’re itching for something to do on a Sunday evening over the holidays, feel free to visit either of those churches.

Have you ever considered what it must have been like for Adam and Eve to walk and talk with God in the Garden of Eden? Have you thought of the things you would say to God if you were to hear His footsteps today? What Christian hasn’t experienced a pang of jealousy when he reads “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” And what Christian hasn’t experienced a pang of remorse when he reads how Adam and Eve squandered that unique privilege. There was God, walking in the garden as He had done before. Adam and Eve recognized the sound of his footsteps. But this time, instead of rushing to Him and rejoicing in His presence, they fled and they hid from Him. They had sinned and they knew that there were consequences for such tyranny. They feared their Maker.

Ever since this fall into sin, the history of God’s people has been a history of mediation. Mediation is a concept we encounter quite often today. We hear of sports contracts being settled by mediation; we hear of lawyers becoming involved in mediation between divorcing couples; we hear of strikes being settled by a mediator who stands between the workers and the corporation and handles communications between them. These hint at mediation as we understand it from the Bible. In rejecting God’s goodness and benevolence and in putting himself in place of God, Adam erected a barrier between himself and God. The close communion that had once existed was ruptured and destroyed. No longer would God come walking to them in the cool of the day; no longer would He allow them to stay in His Garden. He forced them out and barred the way so they could not return. The very next passage of Scripture relates the first murder. Human history had taken a drastic, horrifying turn for the worse. The lines of communication were shattered.

From that time, God no longer allowed people to commune with Him in the same way. From that point on, man could no longer approach God as they had in the Garden. They had to approach God through a mediator. When we think of mediators we may think first of Moses, a man to whom God revealed Himself and a man whose task it was to then make the will of God known to the Israelites. After Moses was Joshua, and after Joshua were judges and prophets. There were priests to stand between God and man, offering to God sacrifices on behalf of the people and bestowing God’s blessings and curses on His behalf. Always there were mediators, always there were people standing between God and man. Always people must have realized their inability to approach God as they were. Always they must have wondered, “how can we approach God directly?”

There are some words whose meaning we understand without difficulty and some that seem to require a little more work. When we think of the word immature we understand that the prefix -im is equivalent to -un or not. A person who is immature is a person who is not mature—he displays a lack of maturity. But a similar word, immediate does not often strike us in the same way. If we break off the prefix it begins to make sense. Im-mediate harkens back to an older and perhaps less common understanding of that word. The American Heritage Dictionary defines immediate as “acting or occurring without the interposition of another agency or object; direct.” Immediate indicates access that does not require mediation. It is immediate access to God that we so wish to have, but that we cannot have.

Since man’s fall into sin, we have longed to be able to approach God directly. And well we should, for God made us to enjoy this unbroken communion with Him. We were made in the image of God and were made to know God. We long to enjoy an unmediated relationship. But even today, even in this New Testament era, we still rely on mediated revelation. God has been gracious in giving us His Word and His Spirit to communicate truth to us. But even this is mediated truth, truth mediated through the Spirit.

God sent a better mediator in Jesus Christ—a mediator that was better than Moses and better than the priesthood, judges and prophets. 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the mediator of a new and better covenant.

Jonathan Edwards says this about this great mediator:

The redeemed are dependent on God for all. All that we have--wisdom, the pardon of sin, deliverance, acceptance in God's favor, grace, holiness, true comfort and happiness, eternal life and glory--we have from God by a Mediator; and this Mediator is God. God not only gives us the Mediator, and accepts His mediation, and of His power and grace bestows the things purchased by the Mediator, but He is the Mediator. Our blessings are what we have by purchase; and the purchase is made of God; the blessings are purchased of Him; and not only so, but God is the purchaser. Yes, God is both the purchaser and the price; for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings by offering Himself as the price of our salvation.

We rejoice that God has accepted the mediation of His Son. We rejoice that we can approach the throne of God. But still we realize that there is a mediator. To speak to the Father, we speak through the Son. To hear from the Father, we rely on the Spirit. Still we need someone to stand between. Still we long for the im-mediate. We long to see God as He is. We long to approach Him directly. We long to have the relationship fully and finally restored. We look in that dim mirror, always wishing we might see face-to-face.

On Friday evening the menfolk and womenfolk of this household went separate ways. I took my son upstairs and he and I continued playing a computer game he enjoys, saving the world from tyranny. We were sure that this was much more important than what the ladies were doing. Aileen and the girls stayed downstairs and began getting the house into the Christmas spirit. A couple of hours later, with the threat of evil worldwide domination thoroughly vanquished, my son and I returned downstairs to find the house transformed. The Christmas tree was decorated and popcorn strings were almost finished being strung together. Christmas lights and garlands were wrapped around the handrail from upstairs to downstairs. I was pleased. I know how much it means to Aileen to keep the house “seasonal.”

It was not until later that night, as I was turning out lights and locking doors right before heading to bed, that I noticed that Aileen had put a Christmas tablecloth on the kitchen table. I don’t know why, but for some reason seeing that just made my night (and, by Aileen’s own admission, it’s not even a very nice tablecloth). I went to bed that night, just praising God for my wife. As she lay beside me, fast asleep and breathing softly, I was filled with gratitude that God has given her such a desire to tend to our home.

If I were a single guy, I’m quite sure that it would not occur to me to decorate the house for Christmas. I definitely would not have a Christmas tablecloth for my kitchen table. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have or need a table since I’d likely just eat takeout at my desk every day while working 16-hour days. I wouldn’t decorate for Christmas because Christmas decorations don’t mean anything to me.

Or that’s what I thought. But that silly tablecloth told me that they do mean something to me. In that tablecloth and in those decorations I see my wife’s desire and her ability to make this season special. I see her God-given ability to do something I cannot do—make this house a home.

Every now and again I get concerned that people are going to think this blog is getting too commercialized—that I keep trying to sell you things. I’m not into blogging for that. But sometimes it’s fun to talk about things like this, so bear with me. Today I’m going to talk about Christmas music and offer up some suggestions.

A few of my favorite blogs have been offering Christmas music suggestions. I don’t think lists of favorites get much more eclectic than those for Christmas music. After all, there are so many available that people can search far and wide and far across genres to make their picks. David’s picks range from The Master's College Choral to Nat King Cole. Zach’s picks are surprisingly mainstream for Zach (and include, to my great surprise, selections by both Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant). He also goes with Harry Connick Jr., Charlie Brown, and Kevin Max.

I am not a big fan of Sufjan Stevens and his rather weird music, but I do think his Christmas set Songs for Christmas (42 songs across 5 EPs) is an amazing set and one you probably haven’t heard before. He sings plenty of the traditional songs interspersed with some of his own. Songs like “I Saw Three Ships” (disc 2), “Once in David’s Royal City” (disc 2) and “The Friendly Beasts” (disc 3) are done very, very well. With five albums recorded over five years, there is something for everyone on these CDs. I love ‘em! The set comes with “a 42-page booklet with an original Christmas essay by acclaimed American novelist Ricky Moody, two essays, a short story by Stevens, a holiday sticker, chord charts, lyrics, comic strip, family portrait poster, photos, and an animated video.”

Christmas Songs is the latest album by Jars of Clay and one that showed up just in time for Christmas. The guys, who are among the most talented musicians in all of Christian music, provide fourteen songs, some of which are classics and some of which are originals.

Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man was released last year by Sovereign Grace Ministries. You’ve probably seen ads for it running on this site. It offers twelve original songs by Bob Kauflin, Mark Altrogge, and the other Sovereign Grace musicians.

City on a Hill: It’s Christmas is an entry in the City on a Hill series and one that brings some Christmas favorites and a few originals by bands like Caedmon’s Call, Jars Of Clay, Third Day and Sixpence None The Richer.

If you’re in the mood for some lighter fare, Relient K’s Let it Snow Baby, Let it Reindeer is kind of fun. It has seventeen songs, some of which are the typical holiday favorites and some of which are Matt Theissen’s typical Relient K tunes. At the very least, it’s a fun album to listen to! If you bought 2003’s Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand you’ve already got half the songs. If you like that, you may also enjoy the Gloria EP by Hawk Nelson.

Of course it’s not Christmas if you don’t listen to at least one Trans-Siberian Orchestra album at least once. I’m kind of partial towards The Lost Christmas Eve. And you’ll need to listen to Handel’s Messiah at least one time as well. Better yet, read it and keep a Bible handy as you do so.

Those are my picks. What are your favorite Christmas albums?

Aileen and I were once members of a church that, after a few years of existence, began to de-emphasize doctrine. Some of the pastors seemed to reach the conclusion that “doctrine divides” and that the church really just needed to focus on evangelism and on “action.” They seemed to determine that a sound theological foundation held in common was unattainable and unrealistic. Therefore, doctrine should be laid aside and the church should rally around the things we had in common—a desire to reach others with the gospel and a desire to serve other people. It was a bit of a naive strategy, of course, and one that was bound to cause problems. Soon the church began to fracture into camps—those with backgrounds in one Christian tradition began doing things in one way while people from a different Christian background began doing them a different way. For a time chaos reigned. In some small groups members of the church would serve the Lord’s Supper, in others they wouldn’t; in some small groups people were baptizing each other and serving Lord’s Supper to children. There was no standard and eventually the pastors had to step in and intervene. By then, though, it was too late and many of these small groups “defected.” Having created their own theological identity and one that was at odds with that of the pastors, some of these groups left en masse. It was an inevitable result, I think, and one that proved to me that critical importance of doctrine being held in common by members of a church.

I found myself thinking about that church this weekend. I spent a good bit of my time reading the manuscript for Collin Hansen’s Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists, a book that is set to released sometime in the spring. The book discusses some of the resurgence of Reformed theology in our day and does so, in large part, through interviews with some of the pivotal figures in this resurgence. There was one quote by Josh Harris that caught my attention: “Once you’re exposed to [doctrine], you see the richness in it for your own soul, and you’re ruined for anything else.”

This is something I’ve experienced in my own life and something I’ve seen in the lives of other Christians. I once went on a weekend men’s retreat that featured teaching from several local pastors. We heard some interesting messages about serving our wives, about being men of integrity and so on. We had joyful times of worship and lots of time to blow each other away with paintball guns. The thing that has remained in my mind, though, was one of the sermons delivered that weekend. While we had received a steady diet of fairly typical evangelical sermons, one of the pastors stood and delivered what was, in effect, a biblically-grounded expository message. He simply opened up the Bible and explained to us what it meant and how we could apply it to our lives. He gave us real doctrine—true meat instead of mere milk. As we walked from the meeting room to our cabins I could tell there was a buzz running through the crowd of men. They had enjoyed the sermon and had been electrified by it. But they had no category for it. I heard comments like, “I don’t know what that was, but it was amazing! I wish we could hear more teaching like that!” I sat with a small group of men a few minutes later and introduced to them the concept of expositional preaching. Most had never heard of any such thing; neither had they ever enjoyed a sermon like it.

It was a pivotal moment for me. I drove home to me something that the Bible teaches but something I had never really seen before—that true believers want and eventually need to move from milk to meat. Though they may not have a category to describe what is missing from their lives they will feel a restlessness. The Spirit works in them to give them a craving for solid food. And when they take a bite of that food, their eyes light up and they know that they are experiencing something that they were meant to enjoy.

I saw this time and time again. The church was so good at bringing people in through the front doors. They would come in and very often would be saved. Many people were drawn in, became believers, and were baptized. But often they would not last at the church too long. Within a few months or a couple of years they would often step right out the back door. Few left the church and left the faith altogether. Rather, they would leave and head for churches where there was teaching that was more biblical. They would head for churches where the Word was the main thing. They would be drawn to stronger, more biblical teaching, even when they did not know how to express what they needed or what they longed for. Eventually they would find it. Needless to say, Aileen and I felt the same call. Though we stayed some time for the sake of our friends, eventually we, too, had to leave to find a place where the Word was central. And we could never go back.

This takes me back to Josh Harris. Once you’ve been exposed to doctrine you see the richness in it for your own soul and you truly are ruined for anything else. Just as a young child craves solid food, Christians will and must crave the meat of the Word. And once you’ve tasted it, there is no going back.