Good morning. Grace and peace to you.
It’s a very solid day for Kindle deals. They include Waiting Isn’t a Waste, Gentle and Lowly, and Costi Hinn’s God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel, among others.
It’s Safe to Be Sad
“We’re all sufferers. Few experiences are universal across all human experience, but suffering is one of them. Every person reading this knows something of the sadness of our fallen world, the sadness of sin and its effects: chronic pain, terminal illness, divorce, abuse, underemployment, wayward children, infertility, miscarriage, betrayal, rejection, and loss.”
Jesus Was Not Born in a Stable
It’s interesting what we can assume to be true until our view is challenged a bit. “This long-held idea demonstrates just how much we read Scripture through the lens of our own assumptions, culture, and traditions, and how hard it can be to read well-known texts carefully, attending to what they actually say. It also highlights the power of traditions, and how resistant they are to change.”
Keep the Gospel at Your Fingertips
Stephen Witmer: “We may have the basic facts of the gospel story present in our grey matter, but is gospel truth accessible and impactful? Is it at our fingertips when we receive unkind criticism, when a friend betrays us, when the medical scan raises concerns? In those moments, do we really know the gospel?”
Unburden Your Soul to God
Justin addresses a mistaken notion of prayer. “This idea of prayer is basically just throwing all your garbage up in the air and hoping it won’t fall right back down on your head again; because, in the end, there’s no one up there to catch it, and hold it, and help you with it! But this is a far cry from the biblical view of prayer, which is taking real problems to a real God, who really does have more strength then us and more wisdom than us. And this God really does care about our difficulties.”
Time Is NOT Money
Here are some helpful thoughts about faithfully stewarding your time toward the highest purposes.
What a Person With Intellectual Disabilities Needs Above All
“I often think about my daughter’s need for salvation. I am convinced of this idea: people with disabilities need the Savior far more than anything else, including healing.”
Flashback: 3 Parenting Myths We Are All Tempted To Believe
While we must insist that the dominant focus of parenting is parents discipling their children, it still takes a church to raise a child. Parents and their children equally need the local church.
While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.
—Tim Keller
