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A La Carte (February 11)

A La Carte Collection cover image

The God of love and peace be with you.

Today’s Kindle deals include a few picks for pastors and a few for others. As usual, there’s lots to choose from.

(Yesterday on the blog: Dumb Will Do)

To Those Living in Secret Sin

If you are living in secret sin, please read what Esther Liu has written here. “From the title, you may assume I will tell you to bring your secret sin into the light, which is true. Yet, I know this invitation may sound trite and unappealing. If it were that easy, you would have done so already—but chances are it is more complicated for you.”

Inseparable

Olivia’s article is long but rewarding. She offers a biographical story of coming to a deeper understanding of God’s love and concern for those who are suffering. “I imagined my tears evaporating up to heaven. I wondered how many trucks full of tear bottles God had to reserve for me. Maybe he had to special order an extra large size or a whole fleet of those massive semis. ‘WIDE LOAD,’ they would say in a bright yellow banner while they drove down the heavenly highway.”

The Time Jesus Left the 99

This is another excellent biographical article. Vanessa Doughty tells how the Lord brought her back when she began to stray. “Satan will use anything to entice us away from our devotion to Christ. He can use even good things like family, friends, a career, an education, entertainment, and prosperity as tools to draw us farther from Jesus. For me, he used my desire for knowledge to lure me farther from Christ.”

The Spiritual Discipline of Remembrance

“Over and over, God commands his people to remember how hard, dark, sad, and ugly things were. And then, to celebrate the incredible contrast of his love, goodness, and might that rescued them from adversity of all kinds. The remembrance we’re called to isn’t a ‘focus on the positive’ outlook that skims past the hard and onto the happy ending. In order to truly understand the depths from which we have been saved, we have to admit how deep those depths were.”

Is No-Contact a Biblical Response to Toxic Relationships?

Daniel considers what appears to be a rise in people instituting a no-contact rule in response to difficult relationships.

Learning Relational Wisdom in Conflict Using James 3:17-18

Those who are experiencing relational conflict (or attempting to help others through it) will benefit from this one by Brad Hambrick.

Flashback: You’re Only Human

…what if your limits are not a bug but a feature of your humanity? What if these limitations are God’s gift and, therefore, good and worthy of embrace? 

The church is not only where disciples go once a week; it’s where disciples are made.

—Michael Horton

  • The Paradoxes of Christianity

    Learn how to engage with cultural issues in a deeply countercultural way. When we embrace the paradoxical character preached by Jesus in the Beatitudes, we experience rich and surprising blessing.

  • Foggy future

    On the Far Side of Obedience

    To be human is to be finite—to be limited in our knowledge of past, present, and future. We exist within strict boundaries of time and space, so that we cannot see beyond our present location or beyond our present moment. This is a feature of our humanity and not a bug…

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    A La Carte (October 13)

    A La Carte: I miss the stars / Count the cost / Shame as the vicious trap of sexual sin / Clouds of shame and unbelief / When you’ve been blindsided / Book and commentary sale / and more.

  • For All the Noise We Make…

    We must be as eager to hear the Scripture as to hear the sermon, and we must be as expectant that God will speak to us through the Word as through the message. Rightly do many churches preface their Bible reading with words like, “Listen as I read God’s holy Word.”

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    Weekend A La Carte (October 11)

    A La Carte: Why dads still matter / Character in absurd times / Don’t get baptized in the Jordan / Gen Z is spiritually hungry / Extending hospitality to children / and more.