The effects of the Fall...

Tonight I was reading the first 3 stories from The Big Picture Story Bible, by David Helm to Sarah and Hannah. We have recommended this story bible before as a great resource for family worship because it so beautifully connects all the stories of the Bible together as God's one big story of redemption. There are probably too many pictures and not enough words for Christopher at this point (though he still enjoys it), but it is at just the right level for the girls to understand. We have read it to them over and over again and they are getting the themes of redemptive history written on their hearts, which is such a joy to see as a parent.

The first story is titled "The Very Good Beginning", which talks about how God created all thing, created people in His own image and established His good rule over His people. The second story is called, "The Very Sad Day", which talks about when sin entered the world and changed everything. As I was reading about Adam and Eve's choice to believe the lies of Satan and mistrust the goodness of God and how sad they were after sin had entered into their hearts, I noticed that Sarah was wiping tears away from her eyes. I stopped reading and asked her why she was sad and she said, "Because it was such a sad day for Adam and Eve...and could you please turn the page?" It really tugged at my heartstrings to see how deeply affected she was and I was eager to get to the good news on the next page as well, where God promises that He will one day send Someone to crush Satan's head and rescue His people from sin. Sarah closed her eyes and said, "Please God, could you send Jesus to crush Satan's head again?" I assured her that Jesus already crushed the power of Satan when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, and that one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes (there's a great picture of this in the last story titled, "The Very Good Ending", which I showed Sarah) and we will never again experience sin, sadness, pain, suffering or death in the new heavens and new earth.

Thank you Lord for breaking through my 4 year old's little heart tonight with the hard truths of the Fall and the deep assurances of the Gospel. And thank you for reminding me of those truths through her eyes. May we both continue to recognize our desperate need of salvation and cling to Jesus our Rescuer.

Eating the Forbidden Fruit

If it seems that we speak too much about Christopher it's because so many funny things come out of this child's mouth.
Tonight during family worship I was quizzing Christopher on his catechisms. We'd learned a whole bunch of newer questions in the past few weeks so I thought I'd go back and review some of the older ones that we hadn't revisited in a while.
Q#33 - What was the sin of our first parents?
Christopher answered, "Eating the fruit of the Spirit."
Guess we need to review some more...

Being moved by the Gospel...again. (posted by Mindy)

Anyone who is close to me will tell you that I am not one who is easily moved to tears. I used to view this as a strength, but now see it as kind of an emotional weakness that is simply a result of a hardened heart and therefore an inability to truly empathize. I cannot tell you how many times I've thought to myself, "I should be crying in this situation..." whether it be in a moment of comforting someone else in his/her pain or simply confronting my own sinfulness. Now, I'm not saying that I wish I were one of those people who could cry at the drop of a hat. That's just not how the Lord wired me and it would be completely inauthentic of me to do so. But I do want to grow in the area of empathy as well as grieving over things that are truly painful. I think my tendency is to avoid dwelling on pain and sadness at all costs. I'll keep myself 'busy' and ignore problems as if they don't exist or quickly move to look on the bright side. I have a really hard time identifying with people who struggle with depression because I just don't ever go there. Again, I don't want to become melancholy or morbidly introspective but, rather, mature in having the right emotions in the appropriate situations.

All of that rambling is to say that I am caught off guard every time (however infrequent) I am moved to tears. The other night, John, the kids and I were having family worship and I was responsible for reading the Bible story to the kids. We read from a few different 'choice' story Bibles and that night we were at the story of the crucifixion as told in The Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

Right in the middle of reading about the soldiers and crowds mocking Jesus and how He willingly endured it all, my eyes began to well-up with tears. The story is retold so beautifully that I'm going to share portions of it here:

"You say you've come to rescue us!" people shouted. "But you can't even rescue yourself!"
But they were wrong. Jesus could have rescued Himself. A legion of angels would have flown to His side - if He'd called.
"If you were really the Son of God, you could just climb down off that cross!" they said.
And of course they were right. Jesus could have just climbed down. Actually, He could have just said a word and made it all stop...
But Jesus stayed.
You see, they didn't understand. It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there. It was love.
"Papa? Jesus cried, frantically searching the sky. "Papa? Where are you? Don't leave me!"
And for the first time - and the last - when He spoke, nothing happened. Just a horrible, endless silence. God didn't answer. He turned away from His Boy.
Tears rolled down Jesus' face. The face of the One who would wipe away every tear from every eye...
The full force of the storm of God's fierce anger at sin was coming down. On His own Son. Instead of His people. It was the only way God could destroy sin, and not destroy His children whose hearts were filled with sin.

I think it's sadly common for our hearts to grow cold and hardened to gospel story after years of living the Christian life. This could be a result of many different reasons (i.e. lack of time in the Word, prayer or simply meditating on God's grace in salvation; forgetting how sinful we are and therefore our desperate need for salvation; Bible study becoming purely an academic exercise; lack of true fellowship in the Body of Christ/the Church; etc.) So I was deeply thankful that a fresh and simple retelling of the gospel by a children's story Bible would move me. In reading it aloud, I was forced to listen in a new way to what my sin deserved and yet how much I am loved by God in the Cross of Christ.

For those of you who attend Trinity, this and other story Bibles are available for purchase in our church's bookstore. For those of you who don't, you can order The Jesus Storybook Bible (and other great books) from the Westminster Bookstore by clicking here. I hope that you find it profitable for your children as well as renewing the joy of your salvation.

Using the "Jesus Storybook Bible" in family worship

For quite awhile now Mindy and I have been happily using David Helm's The Big Picture Story Bible. We've read it cover to cover with Christopher and Sarah so many times we can't count and we have loved it. (When Christopher was younger, we read the same story every night for a week, which really helped him stay engaged. As he grew older, we began to pick up the pace.) It is sensitive to the heart of biblical theology, avoids moralisms, contains beautiful artwork, and is simple enough for a 2 year old. But we've exhausted it.

We recently received in the mail a new one and have been using it for about a week now and we can highly recommend it now to you. It is Sally Lloyd-Jones' The Jesus Storybook Bible. The reading grade level of the text is a nice middle ground between Helm's book and Catherine Vos' fine Child's Story Bible. Like Helm, the theology is rich. For example, in describing Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, Lloyd-Jones does a masterful job connecting Jesus as the Second Adam to the first Adam, contrasting Adam's disobedience to Jesus's obedience and the desert to the garden. The emphasis throughout is on God's sovereign plan of salvation through Christ and she does a terrific job tying every story to that central theme. And like Helm's Big Picture Story Bible, the artwork is superb, perhaps even a little better. If you have kids, Mindy and I highly recommend it for your evening times of family worship! (It is also a great, easy introduction to Christianity for any new believer or curious unbeliever.)