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Sitting Is Killing You!

Many of you may have already seen this infographic. I first stumbled across it a few months ago, which started me thinking. Last week, I found it again, on Michael Hyatt’s blog. This was originally posted on visual.ly. But it’s incredible information.

Empty Chair

 

As a result of this, and some additional research, I’ve decided to replace my current desk in my office with a standing desk. I’ll post a few photos of it once I get everything in place, which I expect to see happen in the next three weeks or so.

Until then, read this. But be warned; it may challenge the way you think!

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The Gift Of Peace

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

There are several gifts that God gives us that are closely tied to Christ’s birth. Over the next couple of weeks, we will look at several of them.

The first of that comes to mind is the gift of peace.

The Gifts Of Christmas

Luke 2:14 says:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests.

The angels cried peace on the night of Christ’s birth. But what does that mean?

Dictionary.com defines peace as…

A state of mutual harmony between people or groups, especially in personal relations.

That’s good, but it doesn’t quite explain just what it is that God is giving us through Christ.

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Memorize The Sermon On The Mount – Week 43

Wrapping up his discourse on false teachers, Jesus confronts us with a scary thought.

Check out the passage in Matthew 7:21-23.

Matthew 7:21-23

Frankly, this passage scares me.

There will be many people who will claim to be serving Christ, but the reality is this: they are serving their own motives instead.

God, who sees straight to the heart, will discern this, and Christ will deny that he knows them.

What scares me most is the fact that I know my own motivations. I try, but I know just how much I fail to serve Christ rather than my own selfish interests.

Thank God for his grace and strength, because there’s no way I could do this on my own.

Do you ever feel a sense of trepidation, like you might not be doing all you can for God? What do you do about that? Let me know in the comments.

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Our Tradition: Decorations And Movies

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

Our kids get really excited about our Christmas traditions. And, to be honest, so do I.

And the day after Thanksgiving is probably my favorite day of the year because of this.

The Gifts Of Christmas

This is the day we decorate the house.

First of all, I’ve booked this day as a recurring entry on my calendar. It’s always pre-booked, so that I will never forget and double schedule something else on this date. That has the added benefit of communicating to my wife and kids just how important this day is to me.

Once we are all awake, the work begins. The kids clean and vacuum the house, especially the living areas while I’m unloading boxes from the storage area under the stairs.

After the living room passes inspection, we set up the tree. We now have a pre-lit tree, so it’s a little easier than in years past.

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Top Posts For November 2011

Hard to believe winter is here!

We actually had a pretty good snowfall on Monday night, my 40th birthday. It didn’t last, but the kids loved it for a few minutes. They went out and played in it as it fell around 10:00 pm. Crazy!

But with winter comes a blog series I’m pretty excited about. It’s called The Gifts Of The Holidays, and in this series, I’m examining several key characteristics of both Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with some of the Randleman family holiday traditions.

I still have several books that I have for give-aways. I’ve been trying to post these over the past few weeks, but time seems to keep running out on me. I hope to make at least a couple of these available this month. Stay tuned.

 Wordle.net Word Cloud for November 2011

In case you missed them, here are my top seven posts for November:

  1. Hubble Deep Space Field
  2. Book Review: Charlie And Trike In The Grand Canyon Adventure by Ken Ham And Karen Hansel
  3. Video Review: Book Book Cases For iPhone 4 and iPad 2
  4. The Principle Of The Path by Andy Stanley – Extended Review Part 4
  5. The Maniac And The Messiah
  6. E.M. Bounds On Prayer… One More Time
  7. Tips For Becoming More Consistent In Your Bible Reading

No surprise, my post containing an image of the Hubble Deep Space Field easily generated five times the traffic as any other post.

Two of my top seven posts were book reviews, and one was a video review. Two of the top posts were from 2008 or 2009.

I’m going to cheat. I usually tell you what my favorite post of the month was. This time, it’s a series, with four parts so far. It’s The Gifts Of The Holidays. Which one was yours?

If you are a blogger, leave a comment with your top post for the month. If you don’t blog, leave a comment with a favorite post or blog that you read this month.

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Memorize The Sermon On The Mount – Week 42

This week’s passage continues the discussion about false teachers.

Take a look at the passage in Matthew 7:18-20.

Matthew 7:18-20

Jesus was a master at creating vivid imagery in his teachings. He has an incredible way of painting a picture with words that is perfectly displayed in the mind’s eye.

This example is no different.

Tagging onto last week’s passage about false teachers and the way that you can recognize them, this example explains just what will happen to those teachers.

Jesus talks about fruit. Just like trees, if we bear good fruit, that’s great. But if we bear bad fruit… Well, bad trees are destroyed.

“Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

Are you bearing good fruit, or bad fruit? Let me know in the comments.

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Our Tradition: Expressing Thanks

This is part of the series The Gifts Of The Holidays: Celebrating Thanksgiving And Christmas. Read more from the series!

One of the character traits we are trying to instill in our children is gratefulness.

And so we have developed several traditions that help to foster this.

The Gifts Of Thanksgiving

This is a habit we strive for all year long, but it seems especially powerful around Thanksgiving time.

It’s the habit of expressing our thanks.

For us, it’s simple. When we are seated at the table for our Thanksgiving meal, we go around the room, allowing each person the chance to share what they are thankful for, especially over the past year.

We also do this on a more immediate basis in our family devotions regularly. We each share something we are thankful for from the day or the last week.

We have five young kids. It gets pretty entertaining as they come up with things that they are thankful for, because once they share the basics, such as family, food, our home, and friends, we encourage them to get more creative.