The Lord be with you and bless you today, my friends.

(Yesterday on the blog: Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God)
Sexual ethics and colonialism for the modern age
This article considers the strange contradictions between society’s hatred of an old form of colonialism and its love of a new one.
The Miracle In Newgate
“The gentle, kindly face of Elizabeth Fry was chosen by the Bank of England to grace the £5 note between 2002 and 2016, reflecting the high regard in which she continues to be held almost two hundred years after her death. Through her work as a prison reformer the lives of thousands of convicts were transformed. Yet that was just one part of her far-ranging ministry which is still influential today. At the heart of her thinking and practice was the regular reading of the Bible.”
Submit Your Felt Reality to God
“A number of years ago, a counselor friend of mine introduced a simple and accessible concept that he regularly uses in his practice. He calls it ‘felt reality.’” This is a good and useful term!
The Return of the Culture War
“Here’s something you often hear people say as they get older: ‘I remember the last time that was popular.’ Fashions once considered outdated come back in style. Movements arise and subside, and then surge again. A benefit of age is the wisdom and perspective you bring to the current moment. History doesn’t always repeat itself or move in predictable cyclical patterns, but the more you study it and the longer you live, the more you see how the present and the past rhyme.” With that, Trevin Wax reflects on the return of the culture war.
It Rots the Bones
“Many months ago, I received an email from a dear, faithful reader, asking for help. Her life was quickly unraveling, and in the midst of persistent heartache, she had fallen headlong into envy. Jealousy towards a woman in her church, whose life seemed quite perfect. This jealousy was destroying her, from the inside out. Envy is the thief of contentment, isn’t it? It reveals an idol tucked in the heart.” It does, indeed.
Charles Spurgeon’s Battle with Depression
“Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) preached to approximately 10 million people in his lifetime, often speaking ten times a week. His 3,561 sermons are bound in sixty-three volumes, and in addition he wrote many books. Wonderful as those accomplishments were, they put demands on his life that no doubt contributed to his battles with depression. (Not least of all that he often worked eighteen hours a day!)”
Flashback: The Benefits and Drawbacks of Following a Parenting Method
We, as parents, can and should learn from methods, but be very cautious about following them too rigidly. We must always ensure our confidence in parenting has not subtly shifted from the goodness of God to the performance of methodology.

Happy the man within reach of a library, the shelves of which are well lined with books of holy biography! —F.B. Meyer

This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Christian Focus Publications. They are offering sets of every book in the Track series to five winners.

If you’re looking for resources that will help young adults to engage with important topics, Track might be what you’re looking for. It is a series of books designed to disciple the next generations in the areas of culture, doctrine, and the Christian life. While the subjects addressed aren’t always simple, they are communicated in a manner that is.
Each written by an experienced author, these books are short, readable, and written with young adults in mind. They take big, important ideas, and apply them to situations that students face on a daily basis. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a summary of the main point, as well as questions that can be used for group discussion, or private contemplation.
Each giveaway set includes the 15 books currently available in the series:

From the doctrine track:
Track: Apologetics by Stephen J. Nichols
Track: Glorification by Derek W. H. Thomas
Track: Justification by Greg Meyer
Track: Missions by Emilio Garofalo Neto
Track: Sanctification by Ligon Duncan & John Perritt

From the Christian life track:
Track: Anxiety by Edward T. Welch
Track: Dating, Marriage and Sex by David Ayers
Track: Depression by John C. Kwasny
Track: Womanhood by Abigail Dodds

From the culture track:
Track: Gaming by Reagan Rose
Track: Navigating Culture by Walt Mueller
Track: Social Media by Jason Thacker
Track: Technology by John Perritt
Track: The Power of Story by Joe Deegan
Track: Worldview by Sharon James

TO ENTER
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. When you enter, you opt-in to receive marketing emails from Christian Focus Publications. The winner will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on Friday, December 16th.

This article is written by Dr. Jeff Myers and is sponsored by Baker Books. In his new book, Truth Changes Everything, Dr. Myers tells the fascinating stories of Jesus followers who lived for Truth and transformed their world in times of crisis. These determined and often quirky figures led the way in human dignity, science, art, medicine, education, politics, justice, and even the idea of meaningful work. If you sense that we live in hopeless days, it’s time to discover how Truth changes everything, everywhere, all the time. Preorder Truth Changes Everything wherever books are sold.

Caleb was forty years old when Moses tasked him, along with Joshua and ten other men, to spy on the land of God’s promise. Numbers 13 lists all their names, but we remember only Caleb and Joshua. The ten forgotten spies surrendered to the enemy of despair without even drawing their swords.
These ten fearful spies announced that the Anakim, the people of the land, were giants living in fortified cities. This was a fact. Yet it shouldn’t have mattered: God had promised that the children of Israel would inhabit the land. Even though the spies had seen God’s miraculous acts many times, fear overruled their faith. God’s chosen people consequently traipsed around the desert for another forty years.
Fast-forward. After forty years of wandering and five years of settling in the promised land, Caleb appeared before Joshua and said, “I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then” (Josh. 14:10–11).
How many octogenarians can honestly make the claim that Caleb made? How many people of any age maintain readiness for the battles they face?
What Caleb said next is even more astounding: “So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said” (Josh. 14:12).
“Give me the land where the giants still are,” Caleb said, in essence. At age eighty-five. Every day for forty-five years Caleb honed his skills, telling himself, “God promised that the giants would fall, and fall they will. Even if I’m an old man when it happens.”
Caleb never lost sight of God’s promise. He stood in the land of giants.
The loss of Truth is a giant-sized problem in our day. Its real-life consequences are severe. Seventy-five percent of young adults say that they are unsure of their purpose in life. Nearly half are counted as having one or more types of mental illness (such as anxiety and depression). Fully half of young adults say that there is “no absolute value associated with human life.”
We are tempted to say, “Truth has been lost. History is at an end.” Yet the testimony of Jesus followers who changed the world is one of hope. We can understand the times and know what course we ought to take (1 Chron. 12:32). Faith can triumph over fear.
In the past, Truth changed everything. It can do the same for us amid the unique challenges of our current age. We, too, can find Truth and share it without fear, whether around the water cooler, at the Thanksgiving table, in the laboratory, or in the halls of power.
Now is the time to take an unflinching look at what Truth is and why it is under attack. Now is the time to sit at the feet of Jesus followers who, in times of great crisis, stood for Truth. Now is the time of choosing for our own age. If ever we needed Truth, it is now.