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A La Carte (March 5)

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Good morning! Grace to you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include a few interesting titles.

The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking

“Positive thinking says if you just dig deep enough in yourself, you will find strength to conquer anything. The gospel says when you have no strength left, God will sustain you. Positive thinking looks to goodness in creation to solve immediate problems. The gospel looks to the Creator to solve eternal problems. Positive thinking holds up in everyday struggles, but in the deepest and darkest times offers very little. The gospel, however, shines brighter than ever in the deep darkness.”

Why Do You Want to Go to Heaven?

Jon Bloom: “In one sense, the Bible tells us relatively little about the specifics of heaven. Descriptions of heaven are often analogical or symbolic, framed in archaic images we might find strange. In another sense, however, the Bible speaks of heaven all over the place, and in ways very relevant to us. The Bible, on almost every page, speaks not so much of the mansions and Maseratis that may come, but of the great Satisfaction for which our souls deeply long.”

Render to God

“Something has to change. It’s time to make a shift. Blending into the world around us is no longer an option for the church. The culture rejects the Christian worldview and won’t be appeased by anything short of total ideological surrender, so it’s time for us to get counter-cultural.”

Largest U.S. Evangelical Adoption Agency Waves the Rainbow Flag

Joe Carter explains how and why the largest evangelical adoption agency in the US began to wave the rainbow flag.

Hello? Is Anybody Listening?

You may need this reminder that God is not a distracted parent who is constantly fixated on his iPhone.

Book Banning in an Age of Amazon

Abigail Shrier’s newsletter on Amazon’s decision to ban Ryan T. Anderson’s book on transgenderism is an important one. “In a time marked by so much suppression of speech by Big Tech, the muggings can begin to run together. We are already growing accustomed to cancellation. But of all the violence to free inquiry we’ve witnessed in the last year, the deliberate disappearance of a mainstream conservative book is among the very worst.”

Don’t Despise Transfer Growth

Pastors tend to disparage transfer growth but, as Stephen Kneale shows here, perhaps they shouldn’t. “There is a legitimate discussion to be had about hoarding resources. We should be talking more strategically about where people go, why they go there and how we can get them to move to the areas of greatest need. There are legitimate questions to be asked about whether a church of 500 or 600 people needs more people to transfer in or whether the kingdom is better served by encouraging those people to go to a smaller church in need of help. All of these things are legitimate to ask and there is a right discussion to be had about them. But…”

Flashback: 3 Tips for Responding to Criticism

In his little book True Friendship, Vaughan Roberts offers three tips for responding to criticism, and especially this kind of criticism—the kind that comes in the context of friendship, of iron sharpening iron.

I don’t need to look good so Jesus can look good; I need to be honest about my colossal spiritual need so he can look all-sufficient.

—Sam Allberry

  • A Batch of New Books for Kids

    A Batch of New Books for Kids (and Teens)

    Every month I put together a roundup of new and notable books for grownup readers. But I also receive a lot of books for kids and like to put together the occasional roundup of these books as well. So today I bring you a whole big batch of new books for kids of all ages…

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    A La Carte (March 28)

    A La Carte: The case against the abortion pill / What I’ve learned about grieving with hope / Heartbreaking deception: teen girls, social media, and body image / Could podcasts save the church from stupidity? / Count it all joy / and more.

  • What God Wants You To Forget

    What God Wants You To Forget

    We are never far from reminding God of our credentials, of providing him with a curriculum vitae that lays out all we are, all we have been through, and all we have accomplished for his sake. We are never far from making the subtle turn from grace to merit, from what is freely given to…

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    A La Carte (March 27)

    A La Carte: New music / Millennials and GenZ / Scotland’s new hate crime law / Cate Blanchett, Easter is for you / Why the Reformed pray for revival / What truly happened to Jesus on the cross? / and more.

  • New and Notable Books

    New and Notable Christian Books for March 2024

    As you know, I like to do my best to sort through the new Christian books that are released each month to see what stands out as being not only new, but also particularly notable. I received quite a number of new titles in March and narrowed the list down to the ones below. I…

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    A La Carte (March 26)

    A La Carte: God delivers from the suffering he ordains / The beautiful partnership of family and church / The end of religious liberty / On whales, menopause, and thanks to God / Ordinary women, extravagant gifts / and more.