May the Lord bless and keep you this weekend.
I’m very grateful to ShareWord for sponsoring the blog this week with some important news.
Today’s Kindle deals include a selection of excellent commentaries and other works.
(Yesterday on the blog: A December Family Update (and Non-Travel Report)
Unfiltered Christmas
Here’s an encouragement to have an unfiltered Christmas. “Material beauty will never be enough. The best of earth will never meet the deepest longing of our brokenness. We long, like pining Bethlehem, for our Mighty God to do great things for us. And He has.”
Do You Ever Feel Rushed by the Beauty of Forgiveness?
Brad Hambrick says, “It’s worth asking, what part of forgiveness is beautiful? The answer is, the last part. The early and middle parts of forgiveness are heinous. They are the parts of the movie or novel that cause us to cringe.”
The Snowflake Mystery (Video)
This is a really neat video about the mysteries behind snowflakes.
Social Activism and the New Testament
There are some really interesting points made in this article. “The New Testament chiefly concerns itself with individuals, households, and local assemblies of Christians, and it is not hard to see why. A society characterized by justice, mercy, and faithfulness is only possible insofar as individuals themselves actually do the much harder, less glamorous work of embodying those virtues. One must rid the garden of snakes before seeking dragons to slay abroad.”
Reign with Christ, Hold the Suffering
“There is no reigning with Christ without suffering marking the life of a believer. It is not possible to order off the Christians menu, requesting to ‘hold the suffering’.”
Blame It on Luther?
Carl Trueman makes an astute observation here: “It is always easier to blame the other side for the dark crimes of history while assuring ourselves that it would have been so much better if we had been in charge.”
Flashback: Sweet Promises of Blessing, Terrible Threats of Judgment
How do we, as adults, show honor to our parents? What are our continuing obligations? What about parents who are difficult, absent, abusive, or even dead?
It is well to be familiar with the whole system of Christian doctrine. But it is far better to know repentance by experience and to feel it inwardly in our own hearts.
—J.C. Ryle
