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A La Carte (10/5)

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Shannon Macfarlane Sproul – Shannon Macfarlane Sproul, daughter of Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. and granddaughter of Dr. R.C. Sproul, went to be with the Lord on Wednesday. She was fifteen years old. Do keep the Sproul family in your prayers, remembering that it was less than a year ago that R.C. Sproul Jr. lost his wife to cancer.

Love Not Lost – Here is a mom’s sweet and faith-laced reflection on loving and losing children: “I learned so much about God during the agonizing times. Ever-present. Life-giving. Faithful. Sovereign. Patient.”

How God Saved an Atheist – This is a powerful little story from the life of Hudson Taylor.

The Hardest Lesson – Randy Alcorn has a few great lines in this article: “Sometimes we make the foolish assumption that our heavenly Father has no right to insist that we trust him unless he makes his infinite wisdom completely understandable to us. What we call the problem of evil is often the problem of our finite and fallen understanding. It was the hardest lesson I’d ever had to learn.”

Here are three articles on sanctification, each of which seems to nicely complement the others:

  • Working to Behold – “We are not transformed, as we strive and work our way toward perfection. We are not transformed as we focus on our own sinfulness. We are transformed uniquely as we look on Christ: his beauty and his righteousness. Because of his holiness, we long to be holy.”
  • God at Work – “A few days ago I was talking with a man whose son has recently come to faith after many rebellious years. He now wants to make up for lost time in his Christian life and has become discouraged with the slow progress of sanctification. He was asking his father the simple question, ‘Why?’”
  • Surface Repairs – “Let us not excuse ourselves on the basis that no-one will see and no-one will know. Let us not imagine that a veneer of behaviour will remove the rottenness beneath. Let us not hope that no one will look too closely and see what is really there. We must delve deep to expose and address what is rotten, for our own sake and the sake of one another.”

This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it.

—Richard Baxter

  • Praying church

    The Man Who Plays Pastor

    Christians have long compared prayer to a thermometer that measures spiritual heat. When we grow complacent in our relationship with the Lord, that thermometer almost invariably registers cool, for in such times we pray seldom and we pray without fervor.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (November 15)

    A La Carte: Tempted to be exceptional / Praying to Mary / Sage fatherly advice / Stewards of creation / Slow to speak on social media / Kindle deals / and more.

  • The Avatar

    The Return of the Ancients and the Future of America

    Every now and again, I decide that I will visit the ECPA list of bestselling Christian books and read the number one bestseller, no matter what it is. It is a decision I often regret. I wish the books that rose to the top were the best of the best, but, sadly, they are often…

  • A La Carte Friday 2

    A La Carte (November 14)

    A La Carte: Jesus among the spiritualities / Is that book written by AI? / How to provoke your children to anger / Full of grace and truth / One of the best defenses against depression / and more.