A La Carte (August 31)
May the God of love and peace be with you today.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Space)
The Parachurch in Light of the Church
Jared Wilson: “My new friend fumbled around for an answer. It turned out he was more of a ‘freelancer.’ He had a very clear idea about how his work would benefit the Church with a capital C, the universal church. But he was less clear on how it served any particular body. And therein lies an important matter for the future viability of many parachurch models and the churches they aim to support.”
The Gold Mine in the Local Church
This article encourages you to look for the gold mine that can be found in the local church.
Small Acts of Faithfulness
“Why am I so concerned about personal success?’ I crave accolades for my teaching, mentoring, writing, even my ministry in the church. I long for and expect God to use me in big ways. But what I’m realizing is that God is not interested in what we think of as success. In fact, he most often loves to use weak, obscure people to accomplish his purposes.”
The Liturgy Of Social Media
What is the liturgy of social media, how does it form us. That’s the question this article answers.
Hell and the Lake of Fire?
George Sinclair says, “I was part of the Anglican Church of Canada for many years. This sometimes led me into some odd and surprising conversations. Once I was at a day-long ‘teaching’ event. During one of the breaks, a fellow sought me out in conversation. Given some of the things I had said in our small discussion group, he suspected that I was, in his language, a fundamentalist.”
Why You Should Preach the “Family Gospel”
Kendra Dahl: “My parents endured several years of suffering as I wandered away from my faith. My feelings towards God ranged from ambivalence to hostility as I questioned everything I’d been taught to accept as true. But even as they prayed for me and spoke the truth to me, calling me to repentance and faith, they also did something else. They made sure I knew I could always come home.”
Flashback: War, Women, and Wealth
God, through his Word, calls us to find our reputation and protection in him, to be strong in him even if that makes us weak in the eyes of the world.
‘Fear NOT.’ There is no qualification, no exception, no modification; it is as plain a command as, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ —Frances Ridley Havergal
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A La Carte (December 6)
The Lord be with you and bless you today.
Today’s Kindle deals include a number that are worth checking out. You’ll find several by John Stott, David Wells, and so on.“Rather than just react to pain, the Bible calls us to act towards it. We’re not to just be subject to our pain, blown about in every direction by it. Rather we’re to respond to it, and subject it to the light of God’s word.” In other words, we need to carefully interpret it.
Stephen offers some level-headed thoughts here about Christmas, and about the fact that some Christians celebrate it while others do not.
“A common objection to unconditional election is that it’s unfair. Isn’t God unfair to choose to save only some humans not based on any human condition but solely on his sovereign good pleasure? Isn’t there injustice on God’s part that some people are not elect?” Andy Naselli answers the objection.
This article by Caleb Davis traces 9 ways that Christians can encourage one another.
Al shows that wise friendship is committed friendship. “Fast food is OK if you need a quick hit of sugar and fat, something to give you just enough energy to do what you need to do. But we all know it isn’t good for us, it doesn’t nourish us, it doesn’t build us up. Fast friendship is the same – it has no depth, provides no nourishment, and doesn’t give us life.”
If you are interested in some slightly more academic reading, you may want to take a look at the new issue of Themelios. It offers plenty of articles and book reviews.
What secures us in our trials is not the magnitude of our faith, but the power of the one in whom we have placed it. The smallest bit of faith in God is worth infinitely more than the greatest bit of faith in ourselves, or the strongest measure of faith in faith itself.
Loving your neighbor as yourself, when the category of neighbor includes everyone you meet, including your enemies, is a supernatural action, and it is an action that is the proof of our salvation.
—Alistair Begg -
The Angel of Patience
It never ceases to amaze me how precious truths can become dearer still when interpreted through the poet’s pen. Here is a wonderful bit of verse from John Greenleaf Whittier as he masterfully speaks of God’s comfort in our sorrows and losses.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,God’s meekest Angel gently comes;No power has he to banish pain,Or give us back our lost again;And yet in tenderest love, our dearAnd Heavenly Father sends him here.
There’s quiet in that Angel’s glance,There’s rest in his still countenance!He mocks no grief with idle cheer,Nor wounds with words the mourner’s ear;But ills and woes he may not cureHe kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of Patience! sent to calmOur feverish brows with cooling palm;To lay the storms of hope and fear,And reconcile life’s smile and tear;The throbs of wounded pride to still,And make our own our Father’s will.
O thou who mournest on thy way,With longings for the close of day;He walks with thee, that Angel kind,And gently whispers, “Be resignedBear up, bear on, the end shall tellThe dear Lord ordereth all things well!” -
Great God, Is Life Such an Uncertain Thing?
In the late 1800s, there were few American preachers who were better-known than De Witt Talmage (who spend most of his ministry at Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York). He was known as an orator and was perhaps second only to Henry Ward Beecher when it came to his ability to hold a crowd at rapt attention. Logos recently released a collection of 500 of his sermons and I’ve been enjoying reading my way through them. This excerpt, one of many in which he expresses concern for the souls of his listeners, recently caught my attention:
There are some who gave me a farewell shake of the hand when I went off two months ago who are not here today. Where are they? When in the closing service I opened my hymn-book and found the place, they opened their hymn-book and found the same place. I open my book today; they do not open theirs.
Great God, is life such an uncertain thing? If I bear a little too hard with my right foot on the earth, does it break through into the grave? Is this world which swings at the speed of thousands of miles an hour around about the sun going with tenfold more speed towards the judgment day? Oh, I am overborne with the thought, and in the confusion I cry to one and I cry to the other; “O time! O eternity! O the dead! O the judgment day! O Jesus! O God!”
But catching at the last apostrophe, I feel that I have something to hold on to; for “in God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms.” And exhausted with my failure to save myself, I throw my whole weight of body, mind, and soul on this Divine promise, as a weary child throws itself into the arms of its mother; as a wounded soldier throws himself on the hospital pillow; as a pursued man throws himself into the refuge: for “in God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
I can speak no more for the gladness. Oh for a flood of tears with which to express the joy of this eternal rescue!
Note: If you decide to dabble in Talmage’s sermons, I’d recommend beginning with volume 3 rather than 1 or 2. By my assessment, the collection begins with some of his weakest sermons and only later turns to some of the strongest.
