Easter will soon be upon us, and I know that many Christians will take the opportunity to specially reflect on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are extremely well-resourced when it comes to books on the subject and I thought I’d list a few recommendations here. In each case I’ve linked to the appropriate page on Westminster Books, though you’ll certainly find most of them at other stores as well.

I will begin with some devotional works (most of which are meant to be read over the 30 or 40 days leading up to Easter), then provide some full-length books.

As for full-length books, here are some options:

There are many others besides, but this is at least a partial list of books that will bless you!

Grace and peace to you, my friends.

Westminster Books has lots of good material on sale: Christianity Explored, Hope Explored, and so on.
(Yesterday on the blog: When God Unfolds His Will in Pieces)
Our Free Salvation Sets Us Free to Love
“Mormons and JWs are typically kind, pleasant, and respectful, but their evangelism is driven by their need to fulfill specific requirements. They may love those they’re talking with, but their goal in evangelizing is to save themselves.” That’s a key point.
Why is Evangelism Hard?
Stephen McAlpine raises some good points here. “Every so often on good evangelical websites that I read I come across an article that asks the question (before answering it in three points), as to why we find evangelism so hard.” But there’s often a problem with such articles.
No More Trash Talking (Video)
I appreciate this word from Todd Friel.
The Overlooked Virtue of Gentleness
“This is a virtue which combines humility and approachability, mildness and kindness in their proper sphere and expression. It is not quick to damn or to strike, not unrighteously forbidding or foreboding, but attractive and welcoming. Similar notions include the ideas of patience and mercy.”
How Do I Handle My Disordered Desires?
John Piper provides some examples of disordered desires and instruction on how to respond to them.
What does it mean to fear the Lord?
Dr. Michael Allen provides a brief answer here.
Flashback: The Character of the Christian: Generous
It is the Christian’s duty and delight to hold loosely to wealth and to give generously to the Lord’s work. Any problem with money is not the fault of the money itself but with the sneaky, sinful human heart.

As we reflect on the character of God, the work of Christ, and the promises of the gospel, God will increase our desire to know him more and thus pursue him more through prayer. —John Onwuchekwa

Before the tabernacle was assembled upon the plains, Moses received a vision of it upon the mountain. Before he directed the first weaving, the first stitching, the first forging, he had been given a detailed image of the completed whole. God led him in a comprehensive walkthrough and delivered to him a thorough set of instructions.

It’s for this reason that there are chapters in the book of Exodus that run in parallel. In chapter 26 God provides instruction: “You shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them.” Ten chapters later we read this description: ”All the craftsmen among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains. They were made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked.” Again, “You shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole.” And so, a short time later, “he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains one to the other with clasps. So the tabernacle was a single whole.”
Thus it went from the tabernacle to the altar to the table to the lampstand to the Ark of the Covenant. Moses had received clear and exhaustive instructions from God and to be obedient he simply had to do exactly as he had been directed. God’s will was clear and it fell to Moses to execute it.
We may wish that God provided this kind of direction today. Especially when we come to life’s trials and difficulties, its questions and uncertainties, we may wish that God would describe what it means to be obedient from start to finish, from beginning to end. We may wish that he would give us a vision of the whole before we set out and that he would give us a thorough set of directions before we take the first step. We learn quickly, though, that this is not God’s way.
It’s not that God has no plan for our lives or that he is making things up as he goes. It’s not that he is adeptly responding to circumstances and directing first this way and then that. It’s not that he neglected to create a clear blueprint in his mind or that he lacks the power to execute it all in its minutest details. No, the truth is that God has every bit as much of a design for our lives as he did for his tabernacle. Our days are as clearly and precisely laid out in his mind as was his place of worship. If it was important to God to tell exactly how many rings must fasten each curtain, then certainly no detail of our lives is too small, no moment too trivial, no decision too insignificant to be meaningless or to fall outside of his plan.
But when it comes to our lives, God chooses to unfold his will in bits, in steps, in phases. He chooses to unfold his will in real-time and not in advance. He chooses to unfold his will in such a way that we need to exercise faith—faith that all we experience is within his providence, faith that the way will become clear as we go, and faith that when we look back upon it all, we will praise him for his wisdom. We proceed through life with a page of directions that includes just the next step or two, not with a booklet of instructions that displays the completed whole.
But even with this being the case, we lack nothing that is necessary to live faithfully and well. Where God gave Moses a blueprint, he gives us many promises. Where God gave Moses a detailed plan, he gives us many sweet assurances. Perhaps the best of them is this: “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” As we live with him and for him, he keeps back nothing we need to live in the way that pleases and honors him. And if God keeps back from us no good thing, then it must be equally true that he dispenses to us no ultimately bad thing. His providence does not fall into the two categories of good and bad, but just the one category of good. Everything is ultimately good because everything proceeds from his wisdom and falls within his plan.
Thus, whether our path leads through green pastures or dark valleys, we can be certain that God is withholding no good thing. Whether our path leads through depths of pain or heights or joy, we can have confidence that God is dispensing no evil thing. Whether our path leads in just one direction or forks into many possibilities, we can be sure that the God who told exactly how many rings must fasten each curtain is the very same God who will dispense the wisdom we need to discern whether it’s best to stay or return, to accept or decline, to press on or turn back. No matter where God leads, we can have the highest assurance that through it all he is making us more like Christ and bringing glory to his name. For the Lord is our sun and shield and he bestows to his beloved nothing but favor and honor.

May the Lord bless you and keep you today.

Logos users, you’ll want to grab the free R.C. Sproul commentary that’s on offer this month (as well as some of the other discounted resources). I’m sure you’ll also want to have your say in this year’s March Matchups.
There are some “odds and ends” Kindle deals today.
A Word on Gender and Sex
Jonathan Master: “It was once commonly understood that ‘gender’ was a socially constructed extension of the deeper and more stable reality of biological sex. Nowadays, ‘gender’ is treated as something independent of biological sex, and indeed something more fundamental and important than biological sex.”
Putin, the West, and the Myth of Progress
Trevin Wax: “In the befuddled responses to the invasion of Ukraine as well as the soaring rhetoric of Western leaders who believe freedom will prevail, we see on display the eschatology of the Enlightenment: the idea that the world, since the Age of Reason, has been moving along an upward trajectory of human development, both technological and moral, with better and freer days ahead.” (See also: 10 Seminaries from Post-Soviet States Issue a Joint Statement.)
Why People Don’t Leave Social Media
“To leave social media is not akin to uninstalling a game from your phone you find yourself wasting a lot of time on. It is closer to moving out of town and not visiting that set of friends anymore. It feels like loss, especially when the friends probably aren’t the problem, it’s the location you meet them in. Even imposing limits sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face—it feels like becoming a social pariah for nebulous abstract goods (like hope, and sleep).”
Brighter Days Await God’s People
In times of sorrow and warfare we need to be reminded that brighter days are ahead.
How to Disagree with Your Best Friend
Lara d’Entremont tells about a precious friendship.
Are You Having a Good Day?
“I’ll bet you’ve been asked this question or a question like it in the past week. Have you ever wondered how to answer? It seems a bit superficial for a believer to base their evaluation of a day just on how circumstances have worked out so far, right?”
Flashback: What Tolkien Did So Well, What We Do So Poorly
One of the great strengths of Tolkien’s work is its grounding in history. One of the great weaknesses of the contemporary church is its detachment from its own history. Few of today’s Christians have a clear sense of how the church came to be.

Not one of us has any trouble in accepting this doctrine of God’s sovereignty as long as things go to our liking. We are perfectly satisfied to let God have His way as long as He does not cross us. —Theodore Cuyler

May the God of love and peace be with you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include a collection of systematic theologies.
(Yesterday on the blog: Was It A Waking Dream?)
Death, Miracles, and Tears: The Loss of a Baby
This is a heart-rending story from Cameroon. “About three years ago I took a girl in our village named Mami to get an ultrasound. At the clinic I met her boyfriend named Koo who was visibly concerned about her pregnancy. So much so that he made a deal with God: if his baby survived, he would dedicate his life to the Lord.”
In what ways are sinners both active and passive in their salvation?
Michael Reeves explains in this video from a Ligonier conference.
Eternal Surprise
Familiarity breeds contempt, they say. It can also breed apathy, as this article shows.
The Weightiness of Words
“In a world of spin and marketing, self-promotion and self-pity, Facebook comment sections and Twitter mobs, we are drowning in a typhoon of words poorly used, carelessly cast, angrily angled. When words are many, transgression is certainly not lacking (Prov. 10:19).”
What is “Progressive” Christianity?
“One of the benefits of studying church history is that you realize that Solomon was right: ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ (Eccl 1:9).” Michael Kruger shows that progressive Christianity isn’t actually an entirely new thing.
God’s Wonderful Protection
“I love coming across little comments in the bible that are mentioned seemingly in passing, but have huge implications.” This is a neat example of just one of them.
Flashback: Which Christian Best Portrays Christ?
…we have no right to pass judgment on another man’s character when his portrait of Christ differs from our own in its emphasis. Rather, we must understand that as Christ has gifted us all differently, he has burdened us all differently. He is seen as much in that other person as in us.

All through the Bible, God is working to bring people like us to know and enjoy him through Jesus, and to delight in him forever in a completely fixed-up universe. —Gary Millar

I wasn’t quite asleep but I also wasn’t quite awake. It wasn’t quite real, but it also doesn’t seem right to call it fake. Like a story that had already been written or like a tale that had already been told, it flashed into my mind in the briefest of moments.

In what must have been some kind of a waking dream, I saw myself lying in bed when an angelic envoy roused me with a message. And as surely as Mary knew, as surely as Joseph knew, as surely as Zechariah knew, in my dream I knew—I knew the messenger was reliable and his message authentic. “God sent me to tell you that Christ will return in exactly one hour.” My heart rose. My mind reeled. My feet raced. Leaping from bed, I ran downstairs, grabbed my coat and keys, and sprinted out the door. I knew exactly where I needed to be.
One scene faded into the next, and I saw myself arriving at Glen Oaks Cemetery. There is no place on earth I like to go less but need to go more. There is no place on earth where I feel greater hope or deeper sorrow. Yet this was just where I knew I ought to be. Flinging the car door open, I leapt into the predawn darkness. Up and down the rows of graves I began to run, shouting out the glad tidings. “It’s time! It’s time,” I cried! “It’s time to rise!” I ran up one row and down the next, up one row and down the next, my feet pounding over the uneven turf.
I watched myself pause briefly by the grave of a young man whose parents had written just three short words on his gravestone. They are words Aslan had once whispered to Lucy when she was overwhelmed with fears and uncertainty: “Courage, dear heart.” And those words have often given strength and courage to me as I’ve passed by that granite monument. “Michael,” I cried “it’s time! It’s time to rise! Just a few more minutes and it’s time!”
I took off running once more, but paused almost immediately, this time by a nearby grave where, just a few short weeks ago, a family had gathered to sing sweet hymns of comfort in both English and Hindi. “It’s time, my Christian sister,” I said in a shout! “It’s time to rise!”
I saw myself run on and on, up and down the silent rows, crying out the news. I stopped again, this time by a plot where another young man is buried, a young man whose parents once approached Aileen and me to encourage us, to console us, to pray down heaven’s comfort upon us. “It’s time” I shouted! “It’s time! Just a few more moments and you will rise! Your body and soul will be joined together and you’ll rise! It’s time!”
The eastern horizon was beginning to glow with the first light of day. The earliest rays of the sun were threatening to break through the clouds hanging low over Lake Ontario. The clock had ticked down to just one minute and now my feet carried me to the spot in that cemetery that has become most familiar.
With my face glowing golden with the sunrise, I paused where I’ve paused so often. On the edge of that patch of grass that has been tended by my hand and watered by my tears, I dropped to my knees. In a tone that was confident and unwavering I said, “It’s time, my boy! It’s time! Just one more minute and we’ll hear the cry of command. Just one more moment and we’ll hear the voice of the archangel. Just a few more seconds and we’ll hear the blast of the trumpet. It’s time, my boy. It’s time! It’s time to wake! It’s time to rise!” I began the final countdown: 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …
And then—and then I became aware again. I became aware that I was in my living room, not the cemetery. I became aware that it had been a dream, not reality. But I also became aware that my face was wet with tears and my heart rich with joy. For though it was only a waking dream, it was a dream grounded in the best of all promises, the surest of all hopes.

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

As yet another month draws to its close, perhaps it is an ideal time for us to remind ourselves that right now, at this very moment, God is reigning from his throne.

(Yesterday on the blog: Cheer Up, Men and Women of Unappreciated Services)
The widow’s might
Kim Henderson’s column in the new issue of WORLD magazine is both sad and sweet.
Eighteen
And in a different way, Kristin’s latest blog post is also sad and sweet. “I pull the China plates from the hutch, setting the table pretty. Our girl is turning eighteen and everyone is coming home to celebrate.”
The Only Way is Ordinary
“I’m suspicious that one reason older generations of Christians tended to be skeptical toward ambition—even calling it a sin on occasion—is that they were able to see something more clearly than we moderns can.” That’s an interesting opening for an article…
Birds of the Sun (Video)
“Every year, the Arctic tern—a bird weighing less than five ounces–completes one of the greatest journeys in the animal kingdom. In their constant search for daylight, moderate temperatures and small fish on which to feed, the terns literally follow the sun from the North Pole to Antarctica, and back again. Their migrations can extend more than 50,000 miles, and the biological systems that make this odyssey possible offer spectacular displays of intelligent design and purpose in the living world.”
Greek Word Order and Nuance
“There is meaning in Greek word order, but it is normally so nuanced that it can’t come out in translation.” It’s good for us to be reminded from time to time just how much goes into a good translation of the Bible.
What Did Jesus Teach about Prayer?
This article summarizes what Jesus taught about prayer.
Flashback: Little Words That Make All the Difference
“Now this is me, not the Bible.” You are making it clear that you’ve gone from an area of absolute biblical clarity to an area of wisdom and conscience. You are ensuring that both you and he acknowledge the difference.

God’s memory is mighty enough to hold all the events of the ages, but there is one thing that is sure to slip his memory, one thing he is sure to forget, and that is pardoned transgression. —De Witt Talmage

Many people feel unappreciated or underappreciated at times. Many feel as if they serve more than they are served, give more than they are given. And often that is exactly the case. De Witt Talmage once pondered this fact in a reflection on 1 Samuel 30:24, a passage quoted below. I hope you find it encouraging!

Cheer up, men and women of unappreciated services, you will get your reward, if not here, hereafter.
When Charles Wesley comes up to Judgment and the thousands of souls which were wafted into glory through his songs shall be enumerated, he will take his throne. Then John Wesley will come up to Judgment, and after his name has been mentioned in connection with the salvation of the millions of souls brought to God through the Methodism which he founded, he will take his throne. But between the two thrones of Charles Wesley and John Wesley there will be a throne higher than either on which shall sit Susannah Wesley, who with maternal consecration, in Epworth Rectory, Lincolnshire, England, started these two souls on their triumphant mission of sermon and song through all ages.
Oh, what a day that will be for many who rocked Christian cradles with weary feet, and out of a small income made the children comfortable for the winter!
What a day that will be for those to whom the world gave the cold shoulder and called them nobodies and begrudged them the last recognition, and who, weary and worn and sick, fainted by the Brook Besor!
Oh, that will be a mighty day, when the Son of David shall distribute the crowns, the thrones, the scepters, the dominions!
Then you and I will appreciate as never before the height, the breadth, the columned, the domed magnificence of my text, “The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” Hallelujah! Amen!
(Note: For sake of clarity I updated the Scripture text from KJV to NIV.)

Good morning! May you know God’s richest blessings in the weekend ahead.

(Yesterday on the blog: New and Notable Christian Books for February 2022)
This Dying Young Woman Has a Message for Us
“Meet Brooklyn; she is a young woman living out her final few days at home on hospice care. Though her outer self is wasting away, her inner self is being renewed day by day, and she is a bright and shining light for the rest of us. I encourage you to follow her Facebook page, Brooklyn’s Journey Home, and walk alongside her as she faces head-on, the last enemy death.”
Hard rocks of reality
Andrée Seu Peterson: “Ghent University (Belgium) professor Mattias Desmet describes a phenomenon he calls ‘mass formation psychosis’ that occurs in societies under certain specific conditions, in which ‘the individual disappears, and a collective becomes predominant.’ It doesn’t make a difference whether the individuals are very intelligent or not intelligent … ‘everybody becomes equally stupid.’”
After Disruption
“In our own context in the cosseted West, a pandemic has been a spark to the dry tinder of our casual approach to gathered worship, and our assumed unity in things other than the gospel. Rather than being a moment of superficial schism, we could ask God to use these experiences to bring about a new and fundamental vision of how we can build where we were once divided, dislocated, and locked out of the ways and worship we once enjoyed.”
Sexual Sin Is Not Inevitable
Randy Alcorn reminds us that, despite how it may feel in the moment of temptation, sexual sin is not inevitable.
What’s in Your Mind, Believer?
“Since the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the question has been asked endlessly: ‘What is the role of the law of God in light of the gospel?’” Sinclair Ferguson discusses how and why the Law has been rendered obsolete.
Everyone Needs to Change
Everyone needs to change–there are no exceptions.
Flashback: The Eternal Significance of a Single Little Word
If people will give account for even the careless words they speak, how much more the deliberate?

Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian. —A.W. Tozer

This week’s Free Stuff Fridays is sponsored by Zondervan, who also sponsored the blog this week.

They are giving away TEN 2-packs of Sean McGever’s NEWEST book, The Good News of Our Limits, so you can keep one and give one away.
Many of us are tired, stressed, and overworked. We think that following God will bring peace, but instead find ourselves anxious. We expect a life of joy, but end up feeling stressed, living under the heavy load of new expectations. It’s a spiritual and emotional rollercoaster.
We search for solutions using optimization techniques, attempting to fit more and more into our already full days. We try to craft efficiently maximized lives, but these methods always fail, not because they are ill-intentioned, but because they do not go far enough. They fail to understand how God made us–as people with inherent limitations–and they fail to accept that as good.
In The Good News of Our Limits, professor and longtime ministry leader Sean McGever reveals the wonderful news that we cannot do, be, or know all of the things that others expect of us–and that we often expect from ourselves. Nor should we. As it turns out, these expectations are not God’s expectations. The freeing truth is that God created us with limitations, and he did it for a reason. God is the only all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing person, and we are not. We can only know and do some things, and we can only be in one place at a time. And that is enough. Accepting this truth frees us to find greater peace and joy, and somewhat surprisingly, greater effectiveness in life.
The Good News of Our Limits helps readers answer questions like:

What are our God-given human limits?
How do I find peace when I can’t control the circumstances, tragedies, and difficulties that surround my life?
How do I choose what is best when my time, focus, and abilities are limited?
How many people can I realistically know personally?
What can I do to deepen key relationships when I feel relationally maxed-out?
How do I navigate all the information that comes my way each day?

Through personal stories and fascinating cultural insights, The Good News of Our Limits calls readers to embrace the blessedness of their limitations and adopt a few key practices to better balance their lives. Biblical and practical, it points to a better way forward for us all.
Go here to find out more about The Good News of Our Limits.
Enter Here
Again, there are ten packages to win. And all you need to do to enter the draw is to drop your name and email address in the form below.
Giveaway Rules: You may enter one time. As soon as the winners have been chosen, all names and addresses will be immediately and permanently erased. Winners will be notified by email. The giveaway closes Saturday at noon. If you are viewing this through email, click to visit my site and enter there.