Morning Reading: Luke 3.10-14, 18 NLT – John the Baptist

Reading: Luke 3:10-14, 18 NLT

The crowds asked, “What should we do?” John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.”

Even corrupt tax collectors came to be baptized and asked, “Teacher, what should we do?” He replied, “Collect no more taxes than the government requires.”

“What should we do?” asked some soldiers. John replied, “Don’t extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay.”

John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people.

Prayer: Holy Spirit – Help me to receive John the Baptist’s warnings as “Good News” – as a way of aligning my life with Your Kingdom purposes. And help me sort through my response to genuinely impoverished people… as a rich Westerner. I ask it in Jesus’ name.

Change my heart Oh God…

Is a college education worth it? Re-blog: “… A Most Peculiar Institution”

normal_jesuslordtome_copy Peanut Gallery: I’ve been thinking about my family growing in “wisdom, stature and favor with God”… and I’m not seeing how a college/university “liberal arts” education fits in with that. More… it seems to me that today’s college/university experience runs counter to – and is a detriment to – their Christian formation, i.e. becoming more like Christ.

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Jesus’ early life. But I’m pretty certain that it didn’t include drugs, sex and rock & roll… living off-campus with co-eds at age 18… on Joseph’s dime. Jesus grew in “wisdom, stature and favor with God”… he sought out wise people… he learned a trade… and he got a life. And that’s what I want for my kids.

Ephesians 4:15-19 Phillips NT
True maturity means growing up “into” Christ

^14-16We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love.

Have no more to do with the old life! Learn the new

^17-19This is my instruction, then, which I give you from God. Do not live any longer as the Gentiles live. For they live blindfold in a world of illusion, and cut off from the life of God through ignorance and insensitiveness. They have stifled their consciences and then surrendered themselves to sensuality, practising any form of impurity which lust can suggest.

With a few exceptions, there’s not much “growing up into Christ” on today’s college campuses. Instead, most of today’s college students leave with an “attitude”… $200,000 in debt… no job… and end up living in their parent’s basements.

stupid_voter College has changed dramatically since I graduated 50 years ago, and even since my kids graduated 15 years ago. I’m just not seeing how it fits into my grandkids’ spiritual formation.

The result is perhaps a fourth of the liberal arts courses — many would judge more like 50% — would never have been allowed in the curriculum just 40 years ago. They tend to foster the two most regrettable traits in a young mind — ignorance of the uninformed combined with the arrogance of the zealot.

Folks, it’s time to re-think this whole college thing… and Victor Davis Hanson‘s article re-posted below is a good place to start.
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An Anatomy of a Most Peculiar Institution
pjmedia.com
Victor Davis Hanson
December 28th, 2012
view original

A Campus-full of Contradictions

Almost everything about the modern university is a paradox. It has become a sort of industry gone rogue that embraces practices that a Wal-Mart or Halliburton would never get away with. It is exempt from scrutiny in the fashion that the Left ceased talking about renditions or Guantanamo Bay once Barack Obama was elected, or a Code Pink goes after a NRA official in the way it would never disrupt a hearing on Fast and Furious. In other words, the university is one of the great foundations of the Left, and so is immune from the sort of criticism that otherwise is daily leveled against other institutions.

So let’s take a 10-minute stroll through the campus and learn why costs soar even as students are ever more poorly educated.

The Curriculum

A student’s life on campus is a zero-sum game. For each elective like “The modern comic book,” or “Chicana feminisms” or “Queering the text,” students have no time (or desire to) take more difficult and instructive classes on the British Enlightenment or A History of World War I or Classical English Grammar. (Yes, despite the relativist, anti-hierarchical university, concepts really do exist like “more instructive.”) The former are mostly therapeutic classes, entirely deductive, in which the point is not to explore an intellectual

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Morning Reading: Luke 2.40 ESV

Luke 2:40 ESV
“And the child (Jesus) grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.”

jesus grew in wisdom Prayer: Holy Spirit – strengthen us and fill us with your wisdom and grace. And today, I particularly pray for my children and grandchildren – Josh, Robin, Calvin, Carter, Caleb, Camille, Amy, Shane, Mia, Noah, Jacob, and Mason. Lord Jesus – help them to become more like you. Amen.

“Living with the end in mind.”

The-End-Is-Near-DIF-2

“Begin with the end in mind.”
Steven Covey (7 Habits… # 2)

I’m a guy who likes to know where I’m going and what I can expect along the way. I don’t need all the details filled in, but I do need to know my general direction. “Whatever” doesn’t cut it for me. But that has not always been the case here in The Peanut Gallery… particularly during the last election cycle. At times I’ve been disoriented… off on tangents. So, I’d like to re-focus in 2013.

Refocus with the end in mind.

As I see it, America has crossed the spiritual/cultural “Rubicon” – our nation is rapidly moving into post-Christian territory. Where it will all end, I don’t know. But the failed secular/socialist European states have become our government’s role model. And, to turn a phrase, “I have never been more ashamed of my country.” Truth be told, I never thought I would ever say those words about America. But the lights are dimming on “the shining city on a hill.”

And… there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I’m a dinosaur… a Christian social, economic, constitutional, and national security conservative… one of the aging remnant – yesterday’s news. So what now?

Live knowing the end is near.

“Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days. Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of God.” Ephesians 5. 15-17 (Phillips NT)

At my age, the end will come sooner… rather than later. My 4 year old grandson asked me, “Poppa, how old are you?’ I said, “I’m old.” But he wanted a number, and pressed, “But how old?” I said, “I’m 72.” He said, “That is old.” Then thought about it, and added, “I can’t even count up to 72.”

So the Apostle Paul’s counsel “to make the best use of [my] time… and live life as one who knows its meaning and purpose” is a timely word to me… especially in relation to The Peanut Gallery. I want to address the issues that I believe are important to God, to the future of my grandchildren, to America and to the world.

“Jesus at the center of it all” will be the theme of The Peanut Gallery in 2013 – offering “help and hope” as best I can… albeit from an old guy’s perspective, sitting in the cheap seats.

Thank you for reading this far. And thank you for your insights and blogging contributions that broaden my Christian world view. You are greatly appreciated.

Morning Reading: Luke 2.1-5 NLT – Journey to Bethlehem w/video (YouTube)

mary-joseph-nativity-art-lds-191342-print Luke 2.1-5 NLT

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant.