Good morning. May the Lord be with you and bless you as you serve and enjoy him today.
Sales & Deals
Today’s Kindle deals include a variety of deals on books that cover many different topics: parenting, evangelism, ethics, recovering from betrayal in marriage, and more.
Recommended Reading
Follow the Parenting Formula. J.V. Fesko writes about our tendency to want to follow a formula when it comes to raising our children. “It seems like there’s more or less a ten-year cycle in the church that new parenting formulas crop up. People will start talking about the latest parenting methods, whether it’s for infants or older children. I’ve seen books, videos, and even Sunday school curriculum floating around churches all with the promise that if parents follow the simple steps and principles, they will successfully parent their children around the various pitfalls of life. Each time this cycle unfolds I find parents buying-in hook, line, and sinker. But what’s worse is not only do they buy-in to the formula, but they begin to evangelize and encourage, even demand, that others follow suit.”
Are We Raising Pharisees? Cody Watson also writes about parenting, since he wants to help parents ensure they don’t settle for raising good little Pharisees. “Would you feel like a success as a parent if, by the time your child turned thirty, they had accomplished the following? Studied and memorized almost the entire Bible. Maintained near-perfect church attendance. Respected in their community. Gives faithfully to their church. A great many good Christian parents would look at that list and say, ‘Yes! We have won. This is success.’ Their children have kept the faith and found success in the world. We get to have our cake and eat it, too. Herein lies the danger.”
Reading the Psalms. Pastor Warren Peel at Gentle Reformation reviews the new devotional book God Is Our Refuge and Strength on the Psalms, coming this month from Banner of Truth, by William Boekestein and Rob Ventura. Dr. Ian Hamilton says about it: “Buy it. Read it. Meditate on it. Be deeply encouraged by its authentic spirituality.” (Sponsored)
Why Do We Get So Excited About Celebrity Conversions? Stephen Kneale, whom I suspect may be responding to my article on Alice Cooper, asks why Christians get excited about celebrity conversions. “I recently saw a post asking whether a particular figure in the public eye was really a Christian. This is not the first or only post of this kind. They pop up frequently. I am not going to sit here are rake over public figure’s testimonies and pronounce on them one way or the other here. Rather, I want to ask a more basic question: why are we so desperate to front public figures this way?”
Public Executions, Public Criminal Trials, and the Formation of Souls. I’m sure you’ve heard that there may soon be a publicly broadcast execution in the United States. John Reasnor looks to history to consider why we need to be cautious with viewing death or, even worse, being entertained by it. “Those who participate in this kind of justice carry a burden, and we, as a society, should weigh it. Even if executions should not be hidden away among a handful of government officials, that is a far cry from broadcasting them to millions who do not know the victims, do not know the guilty, were not impacted by the crime, and had no role to play in the prosecution. Whatever public character God’s law gave to executions served a purpose, and community participation in justice is not the same as a livestream for all of society.”
He’s Worthy of Your All. I think the best part of this article comes with the application questions at the very end. “Do I see Jesus as more valuable than anything else in the world, or do I see Him as just another obligation? Are there areas of my life (relationships, career, hobbies) that I prioritize over Jesus? What would it look like for me to reorient my life to the mission of Jesus this fall?”
The Best Possible Outcome. Jodi Adrian considers what it means to hope and pray for the best possible outcome when it comes to unborn children. “What happens when a strong, self-sufficient woman becomes the mother of a child whose almond-shaped eyes and hypotonic body shout to the world, ‘I am weak and dependent!’? By God’s grace, my eyes began to grow new lenses, and the truth became progressively—and beautifully—more clear.”
Euthanasia in Canada
The Canadian government recently said it would not be extending the right to euthanasia to those whose sole condition is a mental illness. This is obviously a very good thing, but the good news was tempered with bad: the government also announced it will permit advance directives.
Wesley J. Smith writes In Canada, New Push for Euthanasia for People With Dementia and shows how dangerous and evil advance directives are. “Once this proposal is law, people will be able to order themselves killed in the future when they reach a particular point of incapacity. And they wouldn’t be able to change their minds once they became incompetent because they would no longer be legally entitled to make their own care decisions. So, even if they were happy, not suffering, and now wanting to live, they would still be lethally injected.” Just think about it: You may be very content and happy even if you are experiencing dementia, but the advance directive will tell doctors to put you to death regardless. And you will have lost the right to object because you will have been deemed incompetent.
Meanwhile, Jonathon Van Maren writes Mark Carney’s Liberals Play Games With Vulnerable Lives. “Fraser announced that while the government would be permanently banning euthanasia for those suffering solely for mental illness, it will be expanding euthanasia to include those who have signed advanced directives, which Health Canada defines as ‘advance requests’ for euthanasia made by someone before they are eligible. A clinician judge decides when that moment arrives for the patient (who, due to dementia or another condition, is no longer capable of giving contemporaneous consent).” Not only that, but these two pieces of legislation, one curtailing euthanasia and the other expanding it, will be bundled into the same vote, meaning that conservative Members of Parliament will need to vote against even the parts of it that they agree with.
Flashback
Great Gifts but Little Faithfulness. I am convinced eternity will show that some of the people who honored God most fully by making the best of their gifts were all the while entirely unnoticed by the likes of you and me.
Your patience will be grown by trials, and it will be demonstrated in forgiveness—and neither comes naturally, which is why it is a work of the Spirit within us.
—Alistair Begg
