The God of love and peace be with you today, my friends.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several good picks from The Good Book Company. Among them you’ll find two volumes of the excellent God’s Word for You series, which is ideal for personal, family, or group study.
Recommended Reading
Your Faith Muscle Needs Exercise. Paul Tautges is exactly right here: Your faith muscle needs exercise if it is to be strong and resilient. “When suffering comes your way, you have two basic choices: you can choose to persevere under trial and grow in endurance, or you can run from pain and be robbed of growth. One way you gain; the other way you lose. If you decide you have had enough pressure and develop the habit of running from all trials, you will short-circuit the process of your own spiritual maturity.”
Store Treasure in Clay. Dave Harvey marvels at God’s wisdom and purpose in using clay pots. “This priceless gospel treasure is stored in clay pots. In other words, it’s entrusted to fragile, breakable, easily chipped containers like… us. Clay jars were the Tupperware of the ancient world—cheap, common, expendable. Used for everything from food to waste. Think: disposable plastic cups. Paul says, ‘That’s me.’ That’s us too. Just ordinary, breakable vessels holding infinite value.”
15 Resolves for Maintaining Spiritual Balance in Severe Interpersonal Conflicts. “The pain of interpersonal conflict may seem too acute to bear. Sometimes we see these conflicts erupt suddenly among families, or between church members, or at work or school. They may involve serious allegations that tend to rip people apart in ways that seem irreparable. In these most severe ruptures of confidence, when the necrosis of sin is eating up the lives of those involved, is it possible to rise above and maintain a spiritual composure? Certainly that must be so. But we have to apply biblical principles ruthlessly, without wavering.” Jim Elliff lays out a series of them.
The Benefits of Bivocational Ministry. I thought Bryan Rigg’s defense and celebration of bivocational ministry was quite helpful. “Having served most of my pastorate as a bivocational minister, I firmly believe that being concerned with other vocations can be a blessing to both the minister and the congregation. The following examples illustrate why bivocational ministry is not only viable but often preferable in specific circumstances.”
Access All Areas: Exhilarating Proximity in the Christian Bubble. Stephen McAlpine writes about the exhilaration that can come with being in proximity to the Christian bubble (or any other bubble, for that matter). “One of the most telling admissions in Christian communities that have crashed and burned due to influential but unhealthy leadership is just how intoxicating it is to have high level access to that leader. The proximity is exhilarating. Intoxicating. Lots of words with ‘x’s’ in them! And that proximity is like crack cocaine. Once you get a taste for it, it’s very hard to wean yourself off it.”
How to Change Your Perspective on Time. “The movement of time is a simple fact. We cannot change it. The only thing we can change is how we view and react to it, and I’m convinced that our perspective on time has everything to do with hope.” Seth Lewis helps us think well about the inevitable movement of time.
Book Brief
I was thankful to have caught at least the tail end of Nolan Ryan’s legendary career, albeit only from the perspective of a fan of one of his rival teams. I even remember when he no-hit the Blue Jays back in 1991—the last of his record 7 no-hitters. He was one of a kind and is a fitting subject for a fresh biography. Tim Brown gives it to us in the aptly titled Nolan. He describes Ryan’s story, from his humble beginnings in small-town Texas to the spotlight of superstardom, to withdrawing back to Texas to live the dream of owning a cattle ranch. The biography is a joy to read and is a positive, compelling telling of a noteworthy life. (Amazon)
Reader Recommendations
On Saturdays, I like to share recommendations from readers. So what books, products, videos, sites, or experiences do you recommend to others who read this blog/newsletter? Let me know and visit here on Saturday to see the results. (If you’re reading this via email, you’ll need to visit my site to fill out the form. Go here to read last week’s recommendations.)
Flashback
In My Father’s School Are Many Classrooms. We can always have confidence that he has chosen for us what we would choose for ourselves if only we could know what he knows and see what he sees. We can always be certain the day will come when we will praise and thank him for his every choice, his every decision, his every expression of his sovereignty over our lives.
Man’s holiness is now his greatest happiness, and in heaven man’s greatest happiness will be his perfect holiness.
—Thomas Brooks
