This week’s Free Stuff Friday is sponsored by Radius International.  They are giving away a conference package that includes: 2 tickets, a Radius pullover, and 4 books.

The winner will receive two free tickets to The Radius Conference being held June 28-29, 2023, at Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA. This event will be live in person or available as a live stream. John MacArthur, Costi Hinn, Ian Hamilton, Wayne Chen, Brooks Buser, Chad Vegas, and others from the Radius world will be live and in-person to teach on the Great Commission in today’s world.
The winner will receive a Radius International branded pullover. Size and gender option to be selected by the winner from available stock.
The winners will also receive four books that Radius International highly recommends:

No Shortcut to Success
A Manifesto for Modern Missions
By Matt Rhodes
Avoid “Get-Rich-Quick” Missions Strategies and Invest in Effective, Long-Term Ministry
Trendy new missions strategies are a dime a dozen, promising missionaries monumental results in record time. These strategies report explosive movements of people turning to Christ, but their claims are often dubious and they do little to ensure the health of believers or churches that remain. How can churches and missionaries address the urgent need to reach unreached people without falling for quick fixes?
In No Shortcut to Success, author and missionary Matt Rhodes implores Christians to stop chasing silver-bullet strategies and short-term missions, and instead embrace theologically robust and historically demonstrated methods of evangelism and discipleship—the same ones used by historic figures such as William Carey and Adoniram Judson. These great missionaries didn’t rush evangelism; they spent time studying Scripture, mastering foreign languages, and building long-term relationships. Rhodes explains that modern missionaries’ emphasis on minimal training and quick conversions can result in slipshod evangelism that harms the communities they intend to help. He also warns against underestimating the value of individual skill and effort—under the guise of “getting out of the Lord’s way”—and empowers Christians with practical, biblical steps to proactively engage unreached groups.

Missions By The Book
How Theology and Missions Walk Together
by Chad Vegas and Alex Kocman
Across the church, there is a rift between theology and missions. Bad theology produces bad missions, and bad missions fuels bad theology.
We wrongly think that we must choose between making a global impact and thinking deeply about the things of God. But the relationship between theology and missions is symbiotic—one cannot exist without the other. They walk hand-in-hand.

What Is the Mission of the Church?
Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission
by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
Christians today define mission more broadly and variably than ever before. Are we, as the body of Christ, headed in the same direction or are we on divergent missions?
Some argue that the mission of the Church is to confront injustice and alleviate suffering, doing more to express God’s love for the world. Others are concerned that the church is in danger of losing its God-centeredness and thereby emphasize the proclamation of the gospel. It appears as though misunderstanding of mission persists.
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert believe there is a lot that evangelicals can agree on if only we employ the right categories and build our theology of mission from the same biblical building blocks. Explaining key concepts like kingdom, gospel, and social justice, DeYoung and Gilbert help us to get on the same page―united by a common cause―and launch us forward into the true mission of the church.

John G Paton
Autobiography of the Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides
by John G. Paton
The autobiography of John G. Paton contains everything necessary to make it a missionary classic. Born into a Christian family near Dumfries in 1824, Paton’s early years were marked by a struggle against poverty. He was self-educated, and the training ground for his life’s work was the slums of Glasgow where he laboured with success as a city missionary. With ‘the wail of the perishing heathen in the South Seas’ continually sounding in his ears, he prepared himself to serve overseas and was ordained as a missionary to the New Hebrides in 1858. This gorup of thirty mountainous islands, so named by Captain Cook, with its unhealthy climate, was then inhabited by savages and cannibals. The first attempt to introduce Christianity to them resulted in John Williams and James Harris being clubbed to death of his wife and child within months of their arrival. Against the savagery and the superstition, despite the trials and the tragedies, Paton persevered and witnessed the triumph of the gospel in two of these South Sea islands. His life is almost without parallel in missionary annals and his account of it is moving and gripping.
TO ENTER
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time.  The winner will be notified by email. The giveaway closes on Sunday, March 26th, 2023 at midnight.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you’ve read how the Bible describes the habits, character, or disposition of a Christian and wondered, “Am I even a Christian?” I expect we all have from time-to-time. Alistair Begg considers the question in this little devotional on Luke 6:27 that is drawn from his book Truth for Life.

When you read the Bible and it describes Christianity, and then you look at yourself, do you ever wonder whether you’re a Christian at all? I know I do.
Neither our assurance as believers nor God’s love for us hinges on our ability to live out certain Christian principles; rather, both depend on what Christ has achieved for us on the cross. Even so, the Bible teaches us to look for evidences of our salvation in the present. If we truly are the Father’s children, we are bound to display a love for others that resembles Jesus’ love for us.
Jesus calls for us to love people in a way that is not related to their attractiveness, merit, or lovability. We know that this is exactly how God loves us—His love is not based on us cleaning up our act, deserving his attention, or demonstrating that we’re predisposed towards or useful to Him. None of these things contribute to God’s love for us. No—“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, emphasis added).
The greatest measure of our faith, then, is love—love that reflects the love that we have received in such abundance. We engage in agape love—unconditional, sacrificial love—because it is an expression of the character of God and all He’s done for us. We don’t exercise this kind of love for our enemies because we are blind to who they really are but because we have gazed at God’s love for us. Jesus says that when we see others as they are—in all of their ugliness and spitefulness, all of their cursing, all of their hatred, and all of their unwillingness to pay us what they owe us—we are to be realistic about all of it, and then love them. Seeing all of that enmity, says Jesus, I want you to love your enemies.
By nature, we are incapable of displaying such love. But consider the kind of difference we would make to our culture if we were prepared to live out, in both everyday and extraordinary ways, a Christlike love which seeks to do what’s best for those who have acted in enmity towards us. That would be revolutionary—without any question at all.

May the Lord be with you and bless you today.

Westminster Books has a special on a new book you may want to consider for the kids or grandkids.
The steady stream of Kindle deals continues today.
24 Lessons from 24 Years of Marriage
Jen reflects on 24 years of marriage by offering 24 lessons she has learned along the way.
Pastoring in a Pandemic: Of Grey Hair and Glory
This is an interesting take from Mark Jones. “Moving forward, even today, where the wounds have not fully healed, will only be possible if we can all try to admit we may have made mistakes, acted with self-righteousness at times, and failed to adequately appreciate that certain contexts were fraught with problems we cannot fully understand or appreciate. Love believes all things, and I’d like to believe that while my brothers who defied were acting in love, the same was also true of us who did not defy but did so out of love as well.”
Tuma Kitu Home
Writing from a Kenyan context, Kuza writes about the cultural obligation for children to provide for their parents and family. “Does scripture advise on how to approach this matter of family support? Is it in line with the principles set forth for the saint as an expression of practical love? Yes.”
The Trauma of Criticism
I appreciate this pastoral letter. “The truth is that all of us find criticism difficult. If you are anything like me your initial response to criticism is often pretty ungodly and I find it tempting to climb up on my defensive high horse. Tragically, criticism can be devastating and send us into a spiral of self pity.”
God Cares for the Odd Sparrow
“Sometimes I can read the Bible and miss something totally obvious. For example, have you ever noticed that Jesus tells of God’s care of the sparrows two different ways?”
Never Underestimate the Power of a Handwritten Note
“We live in a day and time where life is lived digitally more than ever before. We communicate primarily through apps, texts, and emails. Businesses increasingly send advertisements, bills, and communications via email than snail mail. Even birthday cards are now sent virtually. This means, a handwritten note is a rare gift.” Yes, rare and a gift.
Flashback: The Uninvited Lodger
God’s righteous anger toward his people is real, but lasts only as long as necessary; his favor toward his people is equally real, and never ends.

…if we fasten ourselves to Christ when life is a sinking ship, then we learn to treasure him as our anchor. We discover that our faithfulness is tethered to his, especially during the troubling seasons of life. —Glenna Marshall