Grace and peace to you today, my friends.

(Yesterday on the blog: Once Again Honestly Assessing Our Decision to Public School Our Kids)
Seeking and Following God’s Guidance
Vance Christie: “Recently while seeking God’s direction about quite a significant ministry decision in my own life, I was encouraged by going back and reviewing some of the specific details of how the Lord led George Muller into his great orphan ministry.” That turned out to be a good idea.
Entrusting My Treasure
Jennifer McPhail explains how she came to entrust her treasure to the Lord and his purposes.
Honour & respect are culturally bound
“Honouring one another is most definitely a biblical concept.” But, as Stephen explains here, it’s also a concept that needs to be worked out according to context and culture. (I especially enjoyed his discussion of the difference between American and British/Canadian forms of giving honor.)
This Journal Fought Beside Me
I appreciate Grace sharing this account of throwing away a journal—a particularly significant journal.
Newsletters aren’t news anymore. But they’re not going away.
Here’s an interesting take on the rise (and perhaps settling) of the email newsletter. “The Substack frenzy seems like a thing of the past. But lots of publishers are still leaning into newsletters. ‘They’re a great minimally viable product.’”
The Filthy Will Still Be Filthy
“Sin is filth. It is soul pollution. It makes us vile in the eyes of God, and no matter how much pride we take in our sin now, we will one day even be offensive in our own eyes. As sinners, we may do everything we can to maintain our delusion that we are honorable, but every one of us has fallen short of God’s glory. We cannot roll in the mire without eventually being repulsed by our condition.”
Flashback: Who Gave You The Right?
The sanctified instinct of the Christian heart should not be to discourage but to encourage, not to further demoralize other people but to give them strength, to give them heart, to give them courage.

May you know God’s sweetest blessings this weekend.

I want to extend my gratitude to TMAI for sponsoring the blog this week. I encourage you to get your free devotional today!
There is a very substantial list of Kindle deals today.
(Yesterday on the blog: Devotionals I Recommend for a New Year)
The Fellowship of the Ring is the Most Important Movie of My Lifetime
Samuel James explains what The Fellowship of the Ring meant to him and to an entire generation.
The Night Song (feat. Colin Buchanan)
I love this new song from CityAlight. “In the darkness God will keep me / He will stay and never sleep / In the darkness God is brighter / Though the night is long and deep.”
Consider the Birds
This is a hobby I wanted to get into and maybe someday still will. “Being a birdwatcher is actually a lot like being a Christian. You get the same reactions from people: ‘Oh okay, well, whatever makes you happy …’ and they think you just hang out with old people all the time.”
Omnirationality and Divine Providence
This is just about a must-read.
How ‘Progressive’ Can a Christian Get?
Someone asked John Piper just how progressive a person can get before we can no longer consider him a Christian. It’s a great question and Piper answers it well.
Driscoll, Schaeffer, and Packer on the Size of Your Church and the Idolatry of Your Heart
Sometimes you just have to say, “wow.”
Flashback: Do Not Be Surprised if the World Hates You
My friend, the more you love and honor God, the more you expose the evil of those who do not. The more you expose the evil of those who dishonor God, the more they’ll hate you.

The day of judgment will show that one of the greatest links in drawing some souls to God, has been the intercessory prayer of friends. —J.C. Ryle

It is no small feat to build a strong marriage. It is no easy thing to maintain a strong marriage through years of trials and temptations, through decades of sinning and being sinned against. It is not something any of us can take for granted and it is for this reason that there are so many resources available to help marriages start well and continue well.

New to store shelves is Bob Lepine’s Build a Stronger Marriage: The Path to Oneness, one of the inaugural books in a new series from New Growth Press titled “Ask the Christian Counselor.” (Other volumes include Anxious About Decisions; Angry with God; I Have a Psychiatric Diagnosis; and I Want To Escape.) The purpose of the book is to point couples to the most common “pressure points” in marriage and to address them from the Bible—to identify potential issues in a marriage and help a husband and wife solve them, thus strengthening their marriage.
The format is simple: The book is comprised of 17 brief chapters and each has a few pages of teaching followed by an assignment the couple is meant to complete together. Always a husband and wife are to consider their own issues or flaws ahead of the other person’s. After all, “the only person you can change is you. So instead of reading this book and hoping it will fix what is wrong with your mate, read it asking God to show you what needs to be addressed in your own life.” The chapters flow from the meaning and purpose of marriage, to examining past examples of marriage and events in life that may have contributed to marital difficulties, to matters related to conflict and forgiveness, to “best practices” that can strengthen and even restore a marriage. It’s a simple, effective format.
Though this book can be completed by a couple alone, many will benefit from involving someone else—perhaps a pastor or elder or perhaps another couple who has been married for a little longer and can serve as mentors. This is especially true of those whose marriages are in a serious state and who may need something more significant than a minor tune-up. (Do note that the book is titled Build a Stronger Marriage, not Save an Unraveling Marriage, so when the situation is dire, it would probably be best to pursue more formal counseling.)
Build a Stronger Marriage is an excellent little book and one I’m convinced will make a different in many marriages. I’d recommend pastors keep a few handy that they can give away to couples who are looking for just a little help. I’d recommend older couples keep a few handy and invite younger couples to join them in going through it together. And I’d recommend it to couples who may wish to join with a few others and strengthen their marriages together. In any case, it should serve its purpose well.
(Those who appreciate Lepine’s book may also want to look at his earlier work on marriage Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage that Honors God.)

Buy from Amazon