Eliza

From Eliza Jane – January 2012

From Eliza Jane – January 2012

From Eliza Jane – January 2012

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Sillas! We hope you enjoyed a great feast and a celebration of Jesus today!

Santa Monica – November 25, 2011

The day after a delightful Thanksgiving Day feast we enjoyed a trip to Santa Monica. Our intent was to visit the small city-run Aquarium, but it was closed due to the holiday, we still enjoyed some wild-life.

Throughout our outing Claire hummed a Rosie Thomas song (from her fantastic record, A Very Rosie Christmas), which is a very obvious indication that she was quite pleased with our time.

Autumn 2011 (with one eye open)

Here are some photographs taken this past week. These were taken on Kodak Max 400 with a Canon EOS Rebel Ti, the lens was a Canon 50 mm EF f/1.8.

Drooling means teething, and all this means our baby is growing up.

Lisa and Eliza.

Goof-ball.

This is a little hard to explain, but let’s say it is circus rehearsal.

Mustached

Micaela and Claire using the Spin Art machine.

Spun art…

Eat mor chikin

Eat mor waffle fries…

Doing what she does best…

The rainbow seen from West Creek Park

The Claires high above Central Park.

Climbing trees

One of the children we were entrusted with this weekend made it pretty high up this tree. Can you identify where she is? Here is some help.

More to come…

Fighting fire with fire

“Sin only has power by virtue of its promises. Nobody sins out of duty… the only way therefore to sever the root of that offer of satisfaction is the promise of a superior satisfaction and that’s God…”

-John Piper, How Does Future Grace Work Against Sin?

Places south…

On August thirteenth, I celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of my own birth. Just five days after that we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our wedding. We also celebrated Claire’s birthday this past Monday. It was a busy month.

In September it will mark the eighth year we’ve lived in our home here in Santa Clarita. If I am calculating properly, this is mark the longest I’ve lived in one place and it has become home. Though our true home is somewhere north, this has been a great place to live…

To celebrate our anniversary, Lisa and I (along with Eliza) traveled to Laguna Beach for an overnight getaway. It was a quick trip, but it was a great time together. It was nice to reflect on the blessings we’ve enjoyed in these years. Here are some photographs from our trip–

We stopped at the Alcove Cafe in Los Angeles. Here’s the beverage menu

And some of their desserts, which are quite good

Eliza and I.

After a little bit of traffic slowed us down we went to Balboa Island, a place we’d never been to, and would have likely never heard of. When frozen milk and sugar is offered, that’s a good start…

We shopped at this candle place. Typically places with candles are overwhelming but this place was nice and neutral.

We took a stroll along the edge of the island. It was peaceful and refreshing. I’m so glad Balboa Island was recommended.

The next morning, we walked down to a coffee shop and on the way, we found this really cool patio fireplace at a French Restaurant. The whole plaza around this place was fun to explore, and we stopped in a bakery for some pastries (we were on vacation, right?).

The next day, we walked along the boardwalk at Laguna.

At Laguna Beach.

On our way north we stopped at the Crab Cooker.

I couldn’t agree more…

Cool interior decorating…

And before the drive home we walked on the pier at Newport Beach.

Anyone want to take a guess about which one of these shots were taken on a digital camera?

Using the Scripture but missing Jesus

“If we don’t ultimately view the Bible as an unfolding, cohesive story of God’s redemption that comes to completion in Jesus Christ, our use of Scripture in ministry situations has the potential to miss Him–and so will our hearers. Those we minister to need more than commands, principles, examples, and systematic theological categories per se. Rather, they need to be connected in vital relationship with a Redeemer”

-Mike Emlet, CrossTalk, Westminster Today (Print Magazine), Summer 2011 Issue

Ten Thousand Times More Amazing

Jesus Christ is the final and ultimate and perfect righteous one (Acts 7:52; 1 John 2:1). To others it seemed as if Jesus’ life was going so badly that he must be a sinner. But in the end, all the sin against him, and all the suffering he endured in perfect righteousness, led to his vindication and, because of it, to our salvation. If Joseph is amazing in his steadfastness, Jesus is ten thousand times more amazing, because he experienced ten thousand times more suffering, and deserved it ten thousand times less, and was perfect steadfast, faithful, and righteous through it all.

John Piper, Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (available free here), page 83

Evil Exists for Jesus

Christianity begins with the conviction that God is an objective reality outside ourselves. We do not make him what he is by thinking a certain way about him. As Francis Schaeffer said, he is the the God who is there. We don’t make him. He makes us. We don’t decide what he is going to be like, He decides what we are going to be like. He created the universe, and it has the meaning he gives it, not the meaning we give it. If we give it a meaning different from his, we are fools. And our lives will be tragic in the end.

Christianity is not a game; it’s not a therapy. All of its doctrines flow from who God is and what he has done in history. They correspond to hard facts. Christianity is more than facts, but not less. There is faith and hope and love. But these don’t float in the air. They grow like cedar trees in the rock of God’s truth.

And the reason I make this one of my aims in this book is because I am deeply convinced from the Bible that our eternal joy and strength and holiness depend on the solidity of this worldview putting strong fiber into the spine of our faith. Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead. Rootless emotionalism that treats Christianity like a therapeutic option will be swept away in the last days. Those who will be left standing will be those who have built their houses on the rock of great, objective truth with Jesus Christ as the origin, center and the goal of it all.

John Piper, Spectacular Sins pages 56 and 57.

Are we convinced that even EVIL exists for the purpose of magnifying Christ? Or, are we satisfied to punt on the issue pretending verses like Proverbs 16:4 don’t exist? Understanding God purpose for evil does not hinder our joy, but it is the foundation for it.

Mountasia

On Wednesday evening we visited Mountasia. After thirty minutes in the arcade we enjoyed a quick round of miniature golf. Our kids did pretty well, considering the patience required to play miniature golf. Claire especially loved it.