ESV Bible Reading
I’ve managed to figure out how to use RSS feeds! Now you can navigate on the sidebar for your easy link to the ESV Study Bible Daily Devotional. Enjoy!
Autumn, Daylight Savings, and Praying Through Scripture
Once the gospel becomes fiery and real for you, the soul desires to articulate praise in response to our God, and the result is authentic worship! Because we have seen and tasted the love song of the Savior, our hearts erupt in thankfulness for the gospel. But the gospel does not heal and grow you simply by knowing the doctrine. It is not less than that – but it takes more. The gospel must be ‘prayed in’ to the heart and experienced if it is to shape our whole lives.[1]
So how are we to pray? Many of you are wary of prayer because it seems repetitive, boring, and ineffective. The truth is we are poor “pray-ers” because we disregard the guidance of scripture in shaping and guiding the words we use to pray. Further, we overlook the power of scripture in training us how to listen for the voice of God. Prayer is both words spoken and words received. It is a conversation. How can we hear the voice of God in prayer? By listening intently to his Word.
Learning to pray the scriptures
Before you begin, ask God to shed light upon His word. While you read, you are looking for points of personal connection with the text. Underline or circle words, phrases, and/or themes which register with you. These, then, are the words and phrases you’ll use to guide your prayers. What comes to mind may be positive or negative-it’s ok! Remember that time in prayer ought to be personal and real.
The Practices of Grace
Spiritual renewal can be motivated and encouraged corporately. But for it to take deep root, it must always be experienced personally. Depth is designed to enable you to make use of the “practices of grace” with greater intensity and devotion while on your own.
But we’re pushing forward together. The following steps will get everyone on the same page as we commit ourselves to a gospel-centered encounter with the living God.
Making use of ESV Online: Daily Bible Reading Plan
Step One: Go to www.esv.org
Step Two: Under the title Read it Online, click “Reading Plans.”
Step Three: Scroll down to “ESV Study Bible” and click “Email” as your format.
(There are other options, but minimally subscribe to email updates.)
Step Four: Enter your email address.
Step Five: Begin following the daily reading plan. (NOTE: You don’t have to read on-line. It might be preferable for you to use a standard bible.)
Step Six: Allow what you read to guide how you pray.
Supplemental Reading
Living the Cross-Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney
[1] Tim Keller, “A Simple Way to Pray.”
Depth this Sunday!
Depth is Citylife University Ministry’s contribution toward a church-wide emphasis in building-up mature believers. We are convinced this is a season for digging deep, for challenging students toward authentic Christian discipleship, and for establishing and enabling patterns of spiritual growth that will be the foundation for future progress.
Over the course of the semester, students will be encouraged to participate in a 5 week discipleship curriculum designed to engender spiritual maturity and gospel sensibilities. These 5 weeks are built around and supported by the church-wide School of Christian Formation classes, hosted twice a semester.
When: Depth will be hosted on Sundays in the hour just after Crossroads.
Dates: October 4, 18, November 1, 15, December 6.
We want you to participate! Register HERE.
Spots are limited, so please act soon.
Eustace the Dragon Meets Aslan
“The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.
I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.
Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I was smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”
-C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
How Not to Study
With a wife going to grad school now and myself having already been through that particular wringer, often our evening discussions held in our study (which I endearingly call “the war room”) eventually revolve around the subject of studying. What to study. When to study. Where to study. How to study. Why study? Often these questions revisit us like an unwelcome teenage pop song on the radio. Rarely do I have any useful advice. By God’s good grace to you, however, U.S. News and World Reports kindly asked two profs on their tips to effective studying. Glean what you can. Enjoy. And a happy fall break to those of you on vaca!
For many students, the biggest difference between college and high school is studying: In college, you’re really supposed to be doing it. But many beginning college students have habits and strategies that not only don’t help their studying but actually thwart it. For them, we offer our best ideas for what not to do if you’re going to ace your college studying.
U.M. Retreat |Recovering Our Pursuit of God| Oct. 16-18th
There are certain milestones in each of our lives that have the ability to re-direct the course of our futures. A deep encounter with the living God is the ultimate milestone which not only directs our future but also has the ability to redeem and restore our past.
Join us for a weekend in Middleton, Rhode Island as we explore the idea of “Recovering our Pursuit of God.” For 2.5 days we’ll journey together, both corporately and in times of personal reflection, seeking a God who promises He can be found!
We hope that a full weekend with other students from Citylife will provide you with new friends, a respite from campus, and an opportunity to spiritually re-charge. We’ll spend Saturday afternoon in historic Newport, RI, even enjoying their famous “Seafood Festival” over lunch!
When: October 16-18 (Friday night thru Sunday morning)
Where: Middleton, RI
Cost: $60 (all checks can be written to “Citylife Church”)
Departure Date/Place/Time: Fri, 10/16, Radisson Hotel, 6:30PM.
Return Date/Place/Time: Sun, 10/18, Radisson Hotel, for Crossroads at 2PM.
Accommodations are provided by the Middleton Courtyard Marriott. Breakfasts Saturday and Sunday are provided. Lunch and dinner on Saturday are “on your own.”
Depth: The Platform For Growth
The glory of God is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. It is his life which sets the pattern for humble obedience, it is his death which guarantees sins are forgiven, and it is his resurrection which secures our eternal position within the fold and family of God.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) While the glory of God is that which man cannot look upon and live, we have seen the glory of Jesus, the only Son, equal in weight and substance with the Father, and we’re still breathing! The life and work of Jesus confirms that God has not revealed himself to destroy us. Rather He’s revealed himself to redeem us. Grace has been offered, and it is this grace which becomes the starting point for a dynamic pursuit of God, a God who promises He will be found.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Mt. 7:7-8)
True discipleship is never easy. When Jesus gave his invitation to the 12, he did not attempt to mask the cost: “Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’” (Luke 9:23) Jesus could have lied…he could have said discipleship is easy, it’s comfortable, that it affords you the luxuries of life. Instead he warned his men of the weight of total commitment. He asked them to consider the cost, for what discipleship demanded was every dream, every goal, every aspiration, the very life of the person whom would answer the call to “carry a cross.”
Jesus’ call echoes to us. It is no less clear, no less radical, and no less dangerous than it was 2000 years ago. But what echoes along with the “summons unto death” is the promise of help. In John 14 Jesus addresses the 12 again. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
Discipleship is not your commitment to seek God, though it is at least that. Discipleship is not your personal battle against sin and idolatry, though it is at least that. Discipleship is not even a resolved will to die unto self and to live unto Christ, though it is at least that. Discipleship is first and foremost an encounter with Christ through his Holy Spirit, the Helper, a Spirit who makes his dwelling in the hearts and minds of those who receive him by faith. It is this Helper who makes discipleship even a possibility! Without this gift and grace, our hearts would remain unmoved and lodged in sin.
Discipleship is first and foremost a personal, vital, and intimate relationship with the living God- which prompts you to commitment, which prompts you to battle, which prompts you toward holy resolve. Discipleship is about cultivating and strengthening a personal relationship with God through Christ, a relationship which guides, directs, and influences everything else you touch.
More celebration!
For more info contact: college@citylifeboston.org
For more info
