The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you today. (Note: if you subscribe to this content through email, please note that you may be receiving an error today. I have asked the newsletter service to fix it ASAP. There is no cause for concern—they just need to adjust a setting.)
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include several volumes from the Gospel in the Old Testament series—one that’s worth collecting when you find good prices. You’ll also find other books like The Well-Watered Woman and For Me To Live Is Christ.
Recommended Reading
I Sold My Body and Couldn’t Quit Heroin. But God Pursued Me. Christianity Today has been sharing a series of testimonies from people whose path to the Lord led through severe hardships. This month it features Paige Lohman, whose story is difficult to read, yet beautifully displays God’s grace. “I remember spending a night in a cheap motel room and looking at my reflection in the mirror. I saw a hollow shell of a woman staring back at me. A thought pierced through the haze. What if you die this way? If heaven and hell are real, I wondered, where would my soul go?” (This is a gift link, so you should be able to get past the paywall.)
It’s OK to Love the Church, Even in Her Imperfections. I appreciate Andrew Walker’s attempt to identify and respond to an ugly trend among Christians. “A peculiar habit exists among evangelicals: constantly grandstanding about the perpetual failures of the church.” (You may need one of your allotment of free articles from WORLD for this.)
Living in an Empty Nest. Tessa Lind writes about adjusting to one of those realities that many people find so difficult: living in an empty nest. “I miss them. But they don’t miss me. The walls echo memories of years well-lived.”
The Gratitude Shift. Melissa isn’t yet an empty-nester, but she is at that phase where the children begin to leave. In this situation, as with others, she is learning the importance of gratitude. “But I’m choosing not to dwell on days long past when he was just a little fella following me around the house. Instead I’ve been thanking the Lord that I’m here and that I have gotten to witness this phenomenon of a little boy growing into a man.”
Help Me Let Go. Here’s a third article that has some thematic overlap with the last two. Vanessa Doughty also considers the changes in life and understands she needs help letting go. “At times, I am caught off guard by time’s passage and guilt and regret plague me. My mind begins a looping critique of all my missteps and failures and, quite honestly, my natural inclination is to grab hold of that which I fear losing all the tighter. ‘If I could only have more time, I could fix everything!’ my thoughts scream as if God listed ‘a perfect life’ on my To Do list.”
The Right Focus in Leadership. Leaders of all kinds (though perhaps especially those who are in leadership within the church) will do well to consider what Casey McCall says about the right focus in leadership. “Since we cannot always produce the exact outcomes we prefer, we should at least make sure we are pursuing truth, acting virtuously, following wise habits, and prioritizing faithfulness to God along the way. If our process is righteous, we can rest in the knowledge that the outcome resides in the loving hands of God.”
New Book Releases
Most (though not all) new Christian books are released on Tuesdays. Here is a roundup of some titles that are brand new.
- Stand in Awe: How Reverence Transforms Our Worship and Our Lives by Laura Story. “Singer Laura Story explains why humble reverence is essential for honoring God in our songs and with our lives.”
- The Letter to the Ephesians: An Exegetical and Theological Commentary by Thomas Schreiner. This one actually released last week, but I didn’t do one of those columns then. Either way, it’s there now and I’d be shocked if it’s anything less than brilliant.
- A Church That Cares: A Biblical Guide to Loving One Another Well by Helen Thorne-Allenson. To be fair, this one was also released the previous week, but I wanted you to know about it.
TGC Church Map
When I travel and look for a like-minded church to visit, there are two sources I rely on the most: 9Marks and The Gospel Coalition. TGC has just overhauled and improved its directory (while also introducing a subscription fee to be listed on it). It has become much easier to search, and the recommendations should be even more trustworthy.
Flashback
What Does Trouble Do? Not one of your troubles has been wasted and not one has been for nothing. Each has had a blessing in it, a calling in it, and an invitation from the Lord to know him deeper and serve him better.
God is calling us to so greatly love others that we do not desire for them anything that might separate them from God.
—Rosaria Butterfield
