The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today, my friends. I don’t know if you are in the habit of scrolling to the bottom of this newsletter each day, but consider doing so. Every day I include an interesting and hopefully inspiring quote all the way down at the bottom. Today’s is from Al Martin.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several good books like All That Is in God and I Prayed and Nothing Changed.
Recommended Reading
When Helping Hurts in Pastoral Counseling. Casey McCall takes a cue from a popular book to tell how biblical counseling can sometimes have the opposite effect it’s meant to have. “My efforts to make things better were really making things worse. Because I believe my experience is not uncommon, I want to share what I’ve learned about how this dynamic occurs and how counselors can avoid it.”
The Darkest of Dark Ages. Carl Trueman is never one to make reality sound rosier than it deserves to be. In this article at WORLD, he describes our current times as the darkest of dark ages. “A new Dark Age is upon us. The therapeutic culture has perverted our culture’s moral imagination. … Fail to back Pride Month, surely the most blatant current form of Western imperialism, and be decried as a hate-filled bigot. We truly live in a world where good is called evil and evil is called good and where the murder of innocents is seen as a sign of moral progress. Indeed, the former Dark Ages perhaps don’t seem quite so dark in comparison.”
Gideon’s 9700. I enjoyed this little reflection on the flip side of a well-known story. We think often about Gideon’s 300 soldiers, but what about the other 9,700? “Our culture prizes positions of prominence on the frontlines, and many of us find ourselves aspiring and striving to be part of the 300 on the frontlines. But sometimes God’s glory is most gloriously revealed with us as part of the 9,700 on the sidelines instead.”
How to Spiritually Lead Your Family. John Beeson’s kids are just about launched into life, and from that perspective he shares some tips on being a spiritual leader in the home. “I have experienced ebbs and flows of successes and failures as the spiritual leader of our family. By God’s grace, our kids are faithfully following Christ and vibrantly living out spiritual lives. Angel and I give God all the credit and glory for the ways in which we have been able to encourage Camille and Soren’s spiritual development; anything good we gave them the Father first gave us.”
In or Out? Roman Catholic Attitudes Towards the Christians “On the Threshold”. Leonardo De Chirico considers the Roman Catholic view that Christians can be “on the threshold” and remain there. “‘I’m Catholic, but I don’t go to church.’ ‘I’m Catholic, but in my own way.’ ‘I’m Catholic, but …’ How many times have we heard friends or neighbors say these things? These are people who, while they continue to identify with a vaguely defined religious identity – in this case Roman Catholicism – do not fit into the traditional features associated with the practice of that faith.”
I May Not Be the Best, but I Choose to Be My Best. There’s a simple truth that anchors this article: “We will never hear Christ say, ‘Well done, great and perfect servant.’ No, what we want to hear is ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’.” Of course, that should not motivate complacency, but instead help us to be realistic about our own state.
Enjoying
Reading. My reading ebbs and flows as my interests ebb and flow. I tend to read books voraciously for a time and then go through spells when I’m more interested in other things. I’m in one of those spells now. And you know what? I’m okay with it. I’ve been having a lot of fun learning some new tools and methods related to other parts of life, while also enjoying some World Cup matches on TV. This weekend we plan to start replacing some old and wrecked flooring in our home, so I am not likely to do much more reading in the weeks to come!
Watching. I have never been a big fan of soccer/football, but Aileen loves it and was eager to watch the World Cup. We knew Canada was never going to get too far, so we did not bother getting emotionally invested in Canadian success. That has freed us to simply enjoy the games, and we have! If we had to pick a team that we are rooting for, it would be England. (Observation: North American sports have an internal code that prevents flopping or tattling so that in baseball you’ll get hit by a pitch, in hockey you’ll get in a fistfight, and in football you’ll get crushed by someone massive. Soccer has none of this, which must be part of the reason there’s so much flopping, exaggerating, and other embarrassing displays that really harm the game.)
Going. Nowhere! We took our week of summer vacation before summer really began, which means we have two months of being at home before the fall season begins with Labour Day. I am very much okay with that.
Flashback
My Great Daily Challenge As a Christian. So often I fail to love God with my whole heart and to love my neighbor as myself. Why? Why do I fail to live the way I want to live, the way God tells me to live, the way God enables and equips me to live? What is the great daily challenge?
You can have all the facts about God—good, biblical, and Reformed truths about God…But unless you learn to cultivate that all-pervasive sense of His presence, it won’t make much difference in how you live.
—Albert N. Martin
