The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today, my friends.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include a few volumes in the Gospel in the Old Testament series from P&R. You’ll also find 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, besides some other options.
Westminster Books has the CSB Connecting Scripture New Testament on sale. It’s a neat resource. There’s also a selection of children’s books on sale right now, in case that’s of interest. And while it’s not part of the sale, you can still get very good pricing there on my book, God’s Great Big Global Church.
Recommended Reading
How Can We Be Ready to Meet the Lord? Randy Alcorn addresses a basic but still important question: How can we be ready to meet the Lord? “If we are His children, God is for us, not against us. He has assured us our names are written in the Book of Life, and we won’t face the Great White Throne Judgment. He wants to commend and reward us at the judgment seat of Christ. He doesn’t want the works of our lifetime to go up in smoke. He wants us to have eternal rewards—and He has given us every resource in Christ to live the godly life that will result in those eternal rewards.”
Aging Is a Series of Relinquishments. I really appreciate what Barbara Harper says here about aging. “I heard someone on the radio years ago say that one reason our bodies start falling apart as we age is to make us willing to let loose of them. We have such a strong survival instinct, and we often want to stay for our families. But gradually we admit that heaven looks much better than life here. God is gracious to make us aware of our mortality in increments. As we face each relinquishment, we’re geared a little more toward eternity.”
Happy Birthday to You! Celebrating a Wonder of God. Ayrian Yasar explains why birthdays are worth celebrating. “Why are birthdays special? As we get older, we can sometimes feel birthdays aren’t as special or as important to celebrate. They just aren’t as exciting as when we were kids. While the Bible doesn’t command a celebration of birthdays, there are good reasons to continue to celebrate the birth of a person—and a birthday is a perfect time to do it.”
Scattered. I would think a lot of people will be able to identify with Melissa Edgington’s thoughts on feeling scattered as life changes. “It’s a strange feeling when you shift from having a tight little family unit that moves through the world together to this scattered collection of human beings who wave to one another from a distance. In some ways it feels like I’m picking up pieces of a former life I once knew and trying to make them fit into a new puzzle. Those pieces don’t connect anymore, and my brain is trying to keep up with the change.”
Should You Marry Her Anyway? I think there is a lot more that could be said on this topic, but I understand that John Piper works within time constraints for Ask Pastor John! Still, I think this is the framework of a helpful answer to someone concerned about marrying a spouse with a significant sexual history. These two sentences are gold: “Don’t treat the transforming grace of God as less powerful than the corrupting power of sin. That would dishonor Christ, dishonor the Holy Spirit.”
Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out. Yes, you can be certain that eventually your sin will find you out. “I wonder how often we sin and cover our sins. It may be something small. Nobody knows. Nobody will ever find out. It may be something big. Hiding the evidence might take significant effort. Some people may hint at knowing our secret, but a few white lies are enough to satiate their curiosity. No one will ever know.”
Headlines
Here are some noteworthy headlines I spotted in Christian news outlets.
Released After 9 Months. I had previously mentioned the arrest of Chinese house church leader Pastor Jin “Ezra” Mingri. Christianity Today reports that he has been released and has been able to travel to the United States. “The reunion comes after months of prayers from Christians around the world as well as advocacy and petitions to the US government for Jin’s release—much of it spearheaded by his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, and her husband, Bill, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.” (Gift Link)
Young Army Recruits. Christian Today, a U.K. outlet, says that military chaplains are seeing an unusual number of young people professing faith and being baptized. “He said, ‘We’ve got a generation coming through now who are finding themselves feeling quite hopeless. They are finding themselves thinking, ‘what is this all about? He added, ‘The quiet revival that’s being talked about, I think, is a reality and we’re seeing evidence of that.’”
Flashback
Making the Christian Life More Complicated Than It Needs To Be. The only thing that really matters in any context or any circumstance is obedience to God’s will as it is revealed in God’s Word. Thus it is always necessary, and never superfluous, to search the Bible to know the mind of God.
The best evidence of the Bible’s being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself.
—Charles Hodge
