A La Carte (June 29)

Good morning. Grace and peace to you.

My family has returned from our week-long vacation and are thankful to have spent the time together. It was our first time seeing Michaela and Caleb since the wedding, so it was especially nice to see them enjoying life together. The Lord is good to give us times of rest.

Sales & Deals

Today’s Kindle deals include a pair of books from Crossway that are relatively new and deal with an important subject. You’ll also find Costi Hinn’s book on the prosperity gospel.

Recommended Reading

The Lost Art of a Wandering Mind. Melissa reflects on the simple but important practice of allowing your mind to wander, something she considers a lost practice in this digital age. “What an odd turn for humanity to make. God has given us so much more to work with, so much more to bring us pleasure and interest, excitement and joy, and it’s all in our heads. To choose not to make use of the thinking abilities He’s given us is to choose a truly boring, flat, uninspired life.”

Act In Accordance With Your Prayers. Michael Kelley expresses the importance of coupling prayer and action. “We might say that one of the ways we express our confidence in God’s ability and willingness to answer our prayers is through our actions in accordance with those prayers. We pray for God to change someone’s heart, and so we share the gospel with that person. We pray for God to provide our daily bread, and so we actively search for a job. We pray God would turn our children towards Him and we actively treat them with Christlike love and compassion.”

7 Reasons God Takes Pleasure in Election. Sometimes you know from the title alone that it’s going to be an article by John Piper, and that’s the case with this one. “I am often asked by people, ‘Does it really matter what we believe about election? Is it really relevant to how we live and minister?’ My answer is, obviously, yes. And I think it will be helpful if I close with seven reasons why this teaching is precious to me and why I believe God has pleasure in it. In each of the following points, ‘this truth’ refers to the truth of God’s free, sovereign, unconditional, individual election by grace of who will be saved.”

Four Essential Responsibilities of a Shepherd. It is important for both pastors and non-pastors to be reminded of the essential responsibilities that come with the office. After all, it’s the responsibility of the pastor to carry out these functions and the responsibility of the members to ensure they are helping the pastor focus on them. “If you click on a job posting at ziprecruiter.com, you’ll find the job overview, the specific responsibilities, and the required qualifications. This information clarifies what the job entails. But when it comes to the work of a pastor, it’s Scripture that lays out the job.”

What About Bob? We are all experts at expressing love toward people who will only ever be at a distance from us. But real love is shown to those who are close-up to us. “‘Those lost people over there’ or ‘those Christians in that country’ are easy to love because theoretical people don’t sin against you; you don’t see their blemishes or know their struggles. You’ll never stay up late to hear them cry after a miscarriage. You won’t ever have a disagreement about doctrine and then worship together two days later. The theoretical love that you have for that person lives in your mind and you can convince yourself that you would really love them if you only had the chance. But would you?”

A Critical Heart Is a Miserable Heart. We’ve all done this, right? “Dinner wraps up, and you hug your friends goodbye. Pulling out of their driveway, you feel caffeinated by all that your observant eyes noticed during dinner. You burst with ‘insightful’ judgments, confident your spouse is thankful to be with someone so in tune with human nature.” But actually, “you dissect your friends with an unfriendly scalpel, filleting their lives like frogs in biology class.”

Recommendations

The past couple of weeks I have been asking you to tell me what you recommend, then shared it in Weekend A La Carte (be sure to check it out). Let’s do it again!

Let me know what you are enjoying and would recommend to other readers. It could be a book, an article, a product, or anything else. I will compile some of them and share them on the weekend. Just fill out this form to share what’s bringing you joy these days—and what might bring joy to others. (The form won’t appear in the email newsletter, so you’ll need to click through to fill it out.)

If you are recommending a product, please consider providing a URL.

Flashback

Not a Lack of Food, But a Lack of Hunger. We have before us all the spiritual food we could ever need…The question is whether we will take and eat—whether we will satisfy ourselves with the bounty spread out before us.