I’m grateful to Christian Focus for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their excellent Track series of books for young people.

Today’s Kindle deals include a number of classics.
(Yesterday on the blog: Retractions)
A Friend Just Lost an Unbelieving Loved One to Death: What Do I Say, Think, and Do?
This article has some good things to say about offering help and comfort to someone who has lot an unbelieving loved one.
The Light of Christ in a World of Darkness
Alistair Begg: “The Christmas message ought to be hopeful. But if it is to be hopeful, it must be more than sentimental. Hope turns on the fulcrum of truth. If we would hold on to hope as we look into the darkness of the coming year, then our own purposes for our lives will do us little good. We can make nothing true by believing it, and we can make nothing right by wanting it.”
Practical Advice for Christian Parents of a Child Identifying as Transgender
Denny Burk shares a letter he has written to help parents whose daughter has decided she may be transgender—a tragically common occurrence these days.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
You’ll probably enjoy these zany photos from nature.
Seven Principles of Finance for the Believer
Jim Elliff: “This outline provides the diligent believer with some key principles preparing him/her for radical, other-worldly financial behavior. Alone, or if married, with your spouse, take some time for reading the Scripture texts and thinking through the obedient thing to do in each area. Then write out what you find. There is only one thing for you to do after this meditation … obey!”
What Has Been Most Helpful in Your Marriage?
This is good and wise counsel.
Flashback: When God Doesn’t Zap Away Our Sin
God does not zap away our sin, but gives us a new hatred for it and a new desire to do the hard work of battling it. He does not sovereignly remove it in a moment, but extends grace so we can battle it for a lifetime.

The struggle to shepherd willingly happens every time ministry becomes difficult. So we have to see people as Jesus sees them. —Jared Wilson

Does a story have to be true to serve as an illustration? I don’t think so! And neither did Spurgeon, apparently. I found this illustration in a volume of his sermon notes and rather enjoyed it. (A note in the text says that he drew the illustration from John Spencer.)

The Jewish rabbis report (how truly is uncertain) that when Joseph, in the times of plenty, had gathered much corn in Egypt, he threw the chaff into the river Nile, that so, flowing to the neighboring cities and nations more remote, they might know what abundance was laid up, not for themselves alone, but for others also.
So God, in his abundant goodness, to make us know what glory there is in Heaven, has thrown some husks to us here in this world, that so, tasting the sweetness thereof, we might aspire to his bounty that is above, and draw out this happy conclusion to the great comfort of our precious souls—that if a little earthly glory do so much amaze us, what will the heavenly do? If there be such glory in God’s footstool, what is there in his throne? If he give us so much in the land of our pilgrimage, what will he not give us in our own country? If he bestows so much on his enemies, what will he not give to his friends?

A skillful poet once imagined Adam’s first evening in the Garden of Eden. He described the scene as Adam began to notice that the sun was sinking toward the horizon, that the shadows were growing long, that the light was getting dim. The first day was becoming the first night and Adam didn’t know what to expect—he had only ever known daylight. The poet imagined that as evening turned to dusk and as dusk faded into twilight, Adam might have assumed that darkness would pull a black veil across all the wonders of creation.

But Adam should not have been concerned. Here is what the poet says:

Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew,Bathed in the rays of the great setting Flame,Hesperus [Venus] with the Host of Heaven came,And lo! Creation widened on Man’s view.

When the light faded and the skies went dark, Adam learned that darkness did not actually conceal his view of creation but revealed it all the more because it unveiled the beauty of the night sky. The same sun that had opened Adam’s eyes to the flowers and trees, the birds and fish, had blinded his eyes to the stars and planets, the galaxies and constellations. It had to be dark for Adam to truly see.
Jesus once said something that sounds every bit as counter-intuitive: “Blessed are those who mourn.” He pronounced divine favor upon those whose souls have been saddened, God’s own approval upon those whose hearts have been broken. The path to joy does not avoid sorrow, according to Jesus, but leads directly through it. But not just any sorrow will do. Joy comes to those who experience a particular kind of sorrow—a deep remorse over their depraved hearts and defiled hands.
Such broken-hearted people stand in stark contrast to those who surround them. Each of us will some day be laid to rest in a cemetery, each of our lives encapsulated in the little dash that sits between the date of our birth and the date of our death. And so many are content to spend that brief threescore and ten mocking God and pursuing carnal pleasure, rejoicing in the things he hates and abhorring the things he loves. Nero sparked a fire that would consume his city, then laughed and played as he watched it all burn. And just so, the people of the kingdom of this world have set their lives ablaze and now watch with delight as they are consumed by it. “Eat, drink, and be merry, laugh and pursue every pleasure, for tomorrow we die.”
The blessings of this world are upon the mockers and laughers. “Blessed are those who are happy and who enjoy nothing but pleasure; blessed are those who are unfettered to pursue every desire of their hearts; blessed are those who are most authentically themselves and answer to no one else; blessed are those who laugh from the cradle to the grave.” Such is the benediction of the kingdom of this world.
But the blessing of the kingdom of heaven is upon those who have been deeply saddened. Blessed are those who mourn their sin, for they shall be comforted. Content are those who are aggrieved by their iniquity, for they shall be consoled. Happy are those who are sad that they are evil-doers, for their tears shall be dried. Joyful are those who are downcast over their rebellion, for they shall be raised up. The favor of God is upon those whose eyes are awash with tears, whose lives have been shattered, whose hearts have been broken—broken by their sin and sinfulness.
Just like the sun needed to set and the light needed to fade before Adam could see the glories of the heavens opened up before him, those who want to know spiritual light must first know spiritual darkness. To know the hand of comfort we need to know the pain of sorrow. To know the bright light of God’s blessing we must first know the dark shadow of our own depravity. For it is only when we admit who we truly are that God reveals what he truly loves to do, only when we admit ourselves to be lost that reveals himself as the one who saves.

Inspired by In Green Pastures by J.R. Miller