The first day of a new month is always a great time to pause to remind yourself of this: Right now, at this very moment, God is reigning from his throne. All is well.
A new month always brings new Kindle deals and I’ll do my best to have an updated list in the early morning.
If you want to begin the new month with some reading, Westminster Books has you covered. They’re offering a deal on Defeating Evil and several other titles about that tricky issue of the existence of evil.
(Yesterday on the blog: New and Notable Christian Books for February 2024)

Trevin Wax looks at some interesting evidence that there may be some rumblings of revival among Gen Z. “Today, I wonder if we’re seeing the beginning of a revival among Gen Z, particularly those in college. As I survey the landscape, I see signs of hope and renewal that strike me as unexpected and remarkable.”

Here’s an explanation of why pastors may benefit from inviting specific people to evaluate their preaching.

Jacob lays out the challenge of Christian contentment. “We think that contentment is gained by adding to what we have. But the Christian seeks contentment, not by addition, but rather by subtraction.”

“Anger has been flaring up everywhere lately. It pervades modern life, ready to erupt any moment like popcorn five minutes deep in hot oil. And it is not just spilling out over world events or relational conflicts but also seemingly minor things. I see it in impatient drivers, eye-rolling store clerks, and people arguing online. Sometimes, when I see these behaviors, I realize I am looking in a mirror.”

“There was nothing unusual about the night. I was leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom they all currently share, Bible open in my hands. The lamp was turned off in their room to help them settle down and I was relying on the hallway light for my reading. The plan was simple as always. Read a little bit, discuss a little bit, sing a song or two together, pray, give kisses and hugs goodnight, and finally, navigate multiple attempts to get out of bed again for various and sundry reasons. It was a typical night, not the kind of time I would have predicted for the conviction of the Spirit to fall.”

I enjoyed this somewhat (but only somewhat) tongue-in-cheek guide for Americans who are traveling to the UK. “Magnanimous character that I am, I thought I’d help out our American friends—teach them a lesson or two about how things work outside the land of the free, and more specifically in the bog-ridden ‘tiny island across the sea’ that is Great Britain.”

When Americans were first battling to secure the right to abortion, many Christians offered a solemn warning: To devalue life in the womb is to devalue life everywhere… Never has this been so clearly seen as in the scandal of Kermit Gosnell.

The power of a temptation is in its falsehood. Every temptation is leveraged on a lie. Every time. Always. Without exception. Temptation is a sales pitch begging you to buy into a misperception of reality.
—John Kitchen

I have long observed that it is the rare individual who values completing a task as highly as beginning one. We are all good at setting out with great gusto, but so often, whether through poor planning or waning interest or even the vicissitudes of providence, we fail to complete what we’ve begun. If this is true of our minor plans and tasks, how much more the ones we thought might define our legacy on this earth. Thankfully this is not the case with the Lord, as this quote from F.B. Meyer so eloquently explains.

It is very seldom that man can look back on a finished lifework.
The chisel drops from the paralyzed hand ere the statue is complete; the chilling fingers refuse to guide the pen along another line, though the book is so nearly done; the statesman must leave his plans and far-reaching schemes to be completed by another, perhaps his rival.
But as from his cross Jesus Christ our Lord looked upon the work of redemption which he had undertaken, and in connection with which he had suffered even to the hiding of his Father’s face, he could not discover one stitch, or stone, or particle deficient.
For untold myriads for thee and me and all there was done that which never needed to be done again, but stood as an accomplished fact forevermore.

Abortion has always been an important cause to me. When I was very young my parents—and my mother in particular—were heavily involved in pro-life work in Toronto, so much so that the history of one of its pregnancy care centres (which, for a time, I had the joy of serving on the board of directors) reads like a history of my childhood. The names and the locations are still familiar after all these years.

Because abortion has been an important cause to me, I have read quite a number of books on the subject. Almost invariably, those books focus on the harm abortion does to an unborn child. And for good reason—abortion is the unjust and immoral killing of a human being. While society around us attempts to disguise abortion through a host of denials or euphemisms, the reality is plain to those with eyes to see.
But while the unborn child suffers the greatest harm, this is not the only harm that comes with abortion, and this is especially so when it is accepted and even celebrated across society. In their new book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis focus on the many and often less obvious ways that abortion brings harm. “While it’s essential to focus on the unborn child—whose death is the gravest harm of abortion—there’s much more that needs to be said, because abortion harms far more than the child in the womb. The case against abortion is far more comprehensive.”
Thus, in each of the book’s seven chapters, the authors highlight a different way in which abortion is harmful. In chapter one they make the familiar case that the foremost harm comes to the unborn child whose life is terminated. In chapter two they show that, contrary to the way abortion tends to be presented, it is not a boon to women that allows them to participate in society and the economy on par with men. It has not caused increased education or workplace success, and has not allowed women to thrive as women. To the contrary, it has compelled women to have to act more like men to increase their likelihood of success.
Chapter 3 makes the argument that abortion has “exacerbated inequality, perpetuating racial division and social stratification.” Anderson and DeSanctis expose the eugenic roots of the abortion-rights movement and show how abortion disproportionately affects non-white Americans and disproportionately takes the lives of girls and those with disabilities. Chapter 4 shows that the entire field of medicine has been harmed as doctors have used their technology and expertise to kill rather than to heal.
Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the rule of law and politics to show how both the legal process and the political process have been taken captive by the issue of abortion. Here they look at a number of Supreme Court rulings, the increasingly tumultuous vetting of Supreme Court Justices, and the Democratic Party’s increased insistence that there is no place within the party for those who are not pro-choice.
The final chapter turns to media to show how popular culture is increasingly showing abortions in a positive light and even how the abortion industry has consultants in Hollywood who attempt to work positive representations of abortion into movies and television. It also shows how the corporate world is taking clear sides on abortion and using their influence to promote the pro-choice cause while blocking anything that would promote the opposite. A brief conclusion calls each person to action—action that will help make abortion as unthinkable as it ought to be. Though none of us can do everything, certainly each of us can do something.
The authors of Tearing Us Apart make a fascinating, compelling, and heartbreaking case. While we all know that abortion brings ultimate harm to the unborn child, I’d suggest that few of us have thought as clearly about the many other forms of harm. But when we begin to understand this, it opens our eyes to see just how deeply and terribly society has been impacted by the presence, the acceptance, the celebration, and the near-sacramental obsession with abortion. “We all have a responsibility to ameliorate the harms of abortion—a task that starts by remembering the profound and inherent goodness of life, even in the face of suffering. It is our hope that this book will show those who haven’t made up their minds on this issue how abortion has hurt our country, and that it will equip pro-life readers with the truth so they can offer it courageously to others.” This is very much my hope as well.

Buy from Amazon