By way of FYI, I’ve been posting some short-form articles on Instagram. If you are on IG, you may enjoy them. So far I’ve got Don’t Be Reckless With Others Count Precious, You Just Can’t Have It All, and, most recently, Lessons on Parenting Little Ones. These are condensed forms of longer articles.
Some great books are coming out in the months ahead and Westminster Books already has some of their top picks on sale.
I added a couple of new Kindle deals yesterday and will press on in the search today.

Stephanie Armstrong tells how to persevere even in those tough winter seasons (whether literal or figurative). “Some seasons in life can feel like a harsh winter. Maybe you’ve invested in a relationship only to be rejected without explanation. Perhaps the financial provision that once flowed freely suddenly dried up. Or maybe you’re facing life without a loved one this year and can’t imagine a day without the ache of loss.”

Anne Kennedy explains how polyamory is now being lauded as a legitimate lifestyle choice (and why that’s so ridiculous). “If we have discovered anything in the past few years, it should be how quickly the thirst for knowledge goes sideways. It’s like everyone is Eve, chomping on every apple, even the ones that wormy and disgusting.”

Give me the John 10:10 Project over David Attenborough any day.

This is a fascinating look at the shame of a prodigal daughter and the goodness of God (in a culture that is not our own).

You may not agree with everything in this article, but I think it will provoke some thought. The author wants us to remember that while marriage will end, Christian brotherhood and sisterhood will remain forever. He thinks this should impact the matters we focus on and the ways we speak in the life of the church.

This is a good little saying to keep in mind, isn’t it? “Seek God’s face before you seek his hand.” Sarah Walton explains it.

How much am I to give? Enough that it matters. Enough that I am sacrificing some comforts and some experiences I would otherwise enjoy. 

Take away from the minds of men the fear of hell, and there are a great many of them who would very soon turn this world into a hell.
—De Witt Talmage

Grace and peace to you on this fine day.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Soundtrack of Heaven)

I think this is well worth considering. “When we pine for what we consider to be the relatively cut and dry, clear-thinking days in which we grew up, or for certain holiness-minded epochs of church history we read about, we might be revealing that our evaluation of the present is less Scripturally studied than we think, and that our understanding of the past suffers the same lack of Scriptural perspective.”

I appreciate Stephie’s perspective on missions here, and the way she tells of God’s unexpected work.

“One of the reasons Christians run away is because they begin to think they are unique. Not special (though of course that does happen), but often people begin to think they are more broken than other people. Satan whispers, ‘no one will understand,’ and you begin to believe it. I’m writing today to remind you, you are not the only one.”

Dave explains and illustrates the danger that can come when we spend too much time and effort [wrongly] interpreting our circumstances.

The Bible instructs us to pray “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” Mitch takes a look at that kind of prayer and what we’re actually asking for.

We all sin and make mistakes. But “what do you do when your sin brings about irreversible consequences? What happens when there are effects from a sinful choice that you have to live with for a time?” These are the questions James answers.

Here we have five responsibilities that come to us by virtue of aging—the responsibilities of maturity, involvement, example, mentoring, and watchfulness. Embracing these responsibilities helps diminish the sorrows that come to all who live in this world.

Christian men and women are to be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord.
—Alexander McLaren

Today’s blog is sponsored by the D3 Youth Conference, March 8-9, 2024 at Boyce College in Louisville, KY.
Some words become so familiar they risk losing their meaning. For Christians, the term “disciple” carries just such a risk. We read about Jesus calling forth disciples in the pages of the Gospels. We recognize the command to “make disciples of every nation” in the Great Commission. We sign up for discipleship programming at our churches. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of being a disciple of Jesus?
Early in the Gospel accounts (Mk. 2:18), we see a recognition that Jesus’s disciples live differently from the disciples of other teachers or schools. The disciples of John the Baptist ask Jesus why his followers don’t fast like those of John or the Pharisees. Jesus’s response clarifies that his disciples live differently because his coming represents an inbreaking of a new sort of kingdom. Whereas the disciples of other groups primarily reflect the teaching of a great master or school, Jesus’s disciples reflect his relationship to the Father and share in his power for ministry.
A right relationship with Jesus grounds our life lived as his disciple.Share
Everyone is a disciple of someone to some degree. Whether you follow the latest new age teacher, model your life after a guru on the manosphere, or just consider yourself a devoted Swiftie, we are all pupils of some sort of life teaching. And in a day when content has become so accessible, we can be influenced by more teachers than any generation in history. Considering our current reality, the question “What is a disciple” has never been more important to answer faithfully. 
When Jesus gathered his disciples in Mark 3:13, he “called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.” First and foremost, Jesus’s disciples are summoned to be with him. The empowerment for ministry that will come to the disciples flows from the relationship the disciples have with Jesus. Such will be the same for us. A right relationship with Jesus grounds our life lived as his disciple.
During the upcoming D3 Youth Conference, your student will learn what it means to be a disciple, and in turn, understand their role in making disciples of others. Join us March 8-9 on the campus of Boyce College in Louisville to explore topics such as these:

How Do I Follow Jesus in a Digital Age?

How Spiritual Disciplines Motivate Our Hearts Toward Holiness

The Missional Heart of a Disciple

Space is limited so secure your student’s registration today!
REGISTER NOW FOR D3

I once heard of a ship that was crossing the Atlantic from Europe to South America, and as it neared the end of its crossing, it escaped a close call that would have sent it to the depths and would have taken the lives of many of its passengers.
After departing Dover, the ship had cruised for many days without incident and without mishap. In fact, the crossing had been so smooth and so unremarkable that the crew began to grow lax in their duties. As the ship drew close to the South American coast, the man on lookout nodded off, and as he slept his ship began to approach a particularly rocky and ruinous spot.
But as it happened, there was a cricket aboard that ship. Until that point in the journey, no one had noticed its presence, but as the ship drew close to land, the cricket somehow smelled it or sensed it, and set up a shrill call. The lookout awoke, understood that land was quickly approaching, and stopped the vessel before it blundered into the rocks and was lost.
In this case, something as insignificant as the chirping of a cricket saved many lives. And I sometimes wonder what you and I may accomplish with what seems to be the simplest and least significant of sounds. I wonder what heaven will someday reveal—what we will hear in the soundtrack of heaven.
Maybe the scratching of a pen on a notecard will prove to be the means God used to encourage one of his downcast people and strengthen them for another day of love and service.
Maybe the tapping of a keyboard that sounds the writing of an article or email will be shown to have introduced a skeptic to the gospel and won a sinner to salvation.
Maybe the clank of a spoon stirring a pot will eventually be seen to have been used to feed one of God’s “angels unaware”—to have displayed a distinctly Christian commitment to love and hospitality.
God is the master of transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary, the mundane to the miraculous.Share
Maybe it’s the click of knitting needles as they create a sweater to clothe one who is cold, the crunch of footsteps in the snow as they approach a home for a time of prayer, the sound of a sob as one Christian weeps with another, sharing a heavy burden and so fulfilling the law of Christ. Maybe it’s even the sound of a bell ringing from a church steeple and calling people to turn to Christ that day, that hour, that minute.
God is the master of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the miraculous. God is the master of accepting little and multiplying it to much. God is the master of taking our little contributions and making them the great means through which he blesses his people and brings glory to his name. And I am convinced we will one day learn that the soundtrack of heaven is made up of the simplest of sounds that God has joined together into the most stirring of symphonies.

Good morning. The Lord be with you and bless you today.
Today’s Kindle deals include quite a long and impressive list of titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: When Fruit Does Not Spring Up)

This is a strong article from Brianna Lambert. “The dirt trail curved through the tall grass in front of us. My husband and three kids scampered ahead towards the entrance of the canopy of trees. As I padded behind them, my eyes caught a streak of red amidst the stalks of green off the trail. Poking up between the grass, two beautiful red flowers flashed their petals in the August sun.”

Kevin asks a really important question here: Do you assume motives? “In recent days, it seems as if several conversations have come down to the issue of assuming motives. Possibly you have been on one side of this or the other, where in a particular situation, one person guesses the other person’s motives. Often this leaves one or both parties frustrated, especially if the motive guessed is the furthest motive from reality.”

John Beeson explains why he’s a better pastor for you than a lot of other people. I agree with him!

“At a casual glance, it appears that today’s progressivism is largely driven by older generations. Grey-haired protestors glue themselves to motorways, and tubby vicars with hearing aids revel in all the ways a man can pretend to be a woman. This poses an immediate challenge to a young person with a conservative bent. His instinct, indeed his principle, is to listen to and respect his elders; but many of those elders despise all that he holds dear.”

Ryan helpfully distinguishes here between the Lord’s Supper and a potluck. That may sound a little trite, but I think it’s a helpful way to consider the two.

“All of us have different experiences of church. We can get frustrated with other people or tired from our service. We can feel as if no-one speaks to us or overwhelmed that there are too many people to speak to. We can notice all the problems with our local church on some days and rejoice at God’s goodness to our local church on others.”

It is when we are not being tempted, it is when we are standing strong in the Lord’s grace, that we ought to consider the times we will be weak and tempted and eager to sin. 

One of the chief purposes of trial and affliction, is to make us send for our Savior.
—Theodore Cuyler

God’s plan and God’s expectation is that those who are saved will bear fruit. And not only will they bear fruit, but they will bear fruit quickly, consistently, and abundantly. Fruitfulness is evidence of both salvation and sanctification. This was the conviction of Robert Macdonald, who ministered in Scotland in the mid-1800s.

In the religion of the Colossians there was more than mere conviction, or emotional excitement, or visible profession; there was, over and above all this, varied and substantial fruit. Speaking to them of the word of the truth of the gospel, the apostle said, “which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.” The fruit so commended were those graces of the Spirit which adorn the Christian character, and of which all must more or less be possessed who would really be the Lord’s.
Fruit is the Lord’s expectation, and it is a grievous sin to disappoint it: “These three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none.” Fruit, too, is the test of discipleship: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” To remain barren and unfruitful, therefore, decisively falsifies our profession. Moreover, when abundant, fruit is specially honouring to the Lord; for it is expressly written, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit.” From these and similar statements it is clear that when fruit does not spring up in the life, the word has never truly gone down into the heart. This is ever a perilous condition, for though the Lord may bear long with the fruitless, he will not bear always.
With regard to the Colossians, it is an interesting fact that they were not only richly fruitful, but the word produced fruit in them from the first day they heard it. Like the Bereans, they received the word with all readiness of mind, and speedily brought forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
We cannot be too soon the Lord’s, and live to high and holy purpose.

Drawn from From Day to Day: Helpful Words for the Christian Life.

My gratitude goes to Open the Bible for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their excellent courses—a “video-based training platform designed to equip you with a solid biblical foundation and practical, actionable guidance for serving the Lord over the long haul.”
Today’s Kindle deals include a few notable titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Big Problem You Didn’t Know You Had)

Chopo Mwanza considers the life and ministry of John the Baptist and asks whether we display his kind of humility.

“Though it all ended well, it was frightening to witness. As is helpful and necessary after an unsettling event, I continued to process what I had seen in the days that followed. This young lifeguard—she couldn’t have been older than twenty—headed into danger in order to rescue someone out of it. This moved me. On that day, she courageously embodied her title: she guarded life—an actual life!”

“False teachers will always be with us. Peter points out how they have hidden among God’s people since Old Testament days. In fact, it all began in the garden of Eden with the first false teacher, the serpent—Satan himself—who twisted God’s words, leading to death.” Jonathan Gibson identifies four characteristic traits to watch out for.

And on a somewhat similar note, Jacob Crouch warns about the devil’s normal schemes. “If the only devil we are looking out for is the red horned master of Hell, then we will be caught off guard when his schemes seem normal. Let’s be honest: No one is falling for the devil’s outrageous schemes. If the devil stood up in your church and shouted, ‘Let’s all follow a false god!’ very few (any?) would respond. But the devil is smarter than that. He doesn’t look to shock and awe, he boils the frog. You know what I mean? He puts you in pretty comfortable water and then slowly turns up the heat.”

“It’s not really ‘trust’ when life is going easy, is it? When life is a walk in the park, we aren’t really trusting God. Yes, we might be trusting him with regard to salvation, but for all other things we tend to run on autopilot, don’t we? (Not that that’s right!) But even so, to say, ‘It’s so much easier to trust when life is going well’ is like saying, ‘It’s so much easier to climb when you are standing on the ground’!”

That’s actually quite an interesting question to consider: are the Psalms maximally or minimally Messianic? I’d probably land a bit closer to Spurgeon than some others, but am very willing to be persuaded otherwise!

The most difficult time to lead is when you have forfeited the respect of those who are meant to follow you, when your confidence, and theirs, is shattered. But this is also the most important time to lead.

Our spiritual disciplines don’t just benefit us. We don’t follow Jesus in isolation. Our growth and our perseverance also encourage growth and perseverance in our brothers and sisters in Christ.
—Glenna Marshall

I still remember, and may never forget, the first time I stopped to consider envy. I was reading a book by Os Guinness and was blindsided by a section on that particular sin. I immediately understood that it was prominent in my life and immediately began to take steps to address it. The process took some time and the sin still lingers, but its power has been broken and its grip diminished. I am still prone to occasional bouts of envy, but, by grace, I have learned to identify it and counter it.

Envy

Because I know I am prone to the sin of envy, I find value in pausing to consider it from time to time. Most recently this took the form of Mike Fabarez’s new book Envy: A Big Problem You Didn’t Know You Had. That one little word envy, he says, “represents an injurious threat to your sanctification. It has probably already racked up a multitude of hits in your life. And much of the pain it has caused has been lamented and grieved. But I find we all too often fail to connect the dots.” It is, after all, a sin that has a way of flying under the radar. We identify its consequences and lament them, but rarely identify the sin, admit its presence, and put it to death.
Every book on envy makes it clear that envy is a particularly insidious sin. They all make it clear that it has long been considered among the worst when it comes to the evil it works within our hearts and lives. They all make it clear that Christians of bygone eras were far more concerned about it than we are today and far more dedicated to dealing with it. It’s for good reason that it appears on the list of the “seven deadly sins” and that it is the father of many other transgressions.
Fabarez’s purpose is to provide some biblically guided exposure to this sin—to show where it may exist in our lives, how it may be manifesting itself, and where it may be reaping evil consequences. For it is only when we are familiar with the sin that we can identify it and put it to death.
What is envy? Envy is begrudging another person their joy or success. It is being resentful and frustrated at what another person has received, has earned, or has been blessed with. It is not merely wanting what another person has, but wanting that other person not to have it. It is feeling low, diminished, and hard done by when another person receives some good. And it always expresses itself in other forms of sin—hatred, gossip, ingratitude, and even murder.
Fabarez begins his book by showing where and how envy exists in the Bible, beginning in the opening pages of the Old Testament and continuing well into the New. He considers how it exacts a heavy internal cost to those who allow it to put down deep roots, then how it exacts a relational cost and even a societal cost. It turns out that much of the sin that mars the church and much of the sin that causes conflict in the world can be traced back to envy.
Having shown the ugly consequences of the sin, Fabarez provides instruction on countering it. He calls Christians to diligently examine themselves to see if and how this sin is present in their lives. Then he calls them to combat the sin with love and rejoicing—to love other people and to rejoice in their happiness, joys, and successes.
This is a short book, but one that packs a punch. It is a helpful examination of a particularly deceptive and odious sin and it offers a biblical solution to it. Those who read Envy may just find themselves grappling with a big problem they didn’t know they had. Even better, those who read it will be equipped to repent of that problem and to put to death that sin.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 
Westminster Books has a sale on the third volume of Jonathan Gibson’s devotional trilogy that follows the liturgical calendar.
There is yet again a small collection of Kindle deals for you.

This is very troubling. Hopefully you have one of your four monthly articles from World to read it. “Pornhub is coming for our children and our men.  A recent undercover investigation reveals the nation’s largest pornography distributor welcomes pre-teens and attempts to sway straight men toward LGBTQ pornography through gradual integration of unorthodox material.”

Ashley Kim asks some thought-provoking questions about ChatGPT and the potential cost of committing ourselves to use it. “I want to address Christians who have a casual relationship with ChatGPT―Christians like you, perhaps, who might not have any grand ambitions beyond maximizing the efficiency of drafting emails or curating search results. No big deal, right?”

T.M. Suffield looks at Revelation’s strange description of the New Jerusalem (e.g. the fact that it’s said to be a giant cube) and digs into its beautiful symbolism.

Shane Rosenthal offers a perfect answer to a big question. “What do you think every Christian should place at the very top of their list? What biblical idea should be considered the thing of first importance?”

I can’t deny that I’ve become skeptical that anyone successfully lives by such principles for long. Still, I appreciate what Seth Troutt says in this article and what he prescribes. “For Christians to thrive in the modern era, there are two spiritual disciplines we must adopt: Digital Detox (fasting from screens) and Intentional Ignorance (fasting from information).”
Burial vs Cremation
A couple of days ago, TGC published an article by Justin Dillehay that made the case that, while the Bible does not forbid cremation, burial better represents the Christian view of death and resurrection. See “Cremation or Burial: Does Our Choice Matter?” Stephen Kneale countered this with his perspective that the Bible offers us freedom on the matter. See “Cremation or burial: why I’m not convinced it matters nearly as much as some think.” This is a helpful pair of articles when considering an issue we all need to face.

… though we know perfection is impossible, don’t we all sometimes still grow frustrated at the sheer messiness of Christian individuals and Christian churches? Don’t we all sometimes face the temptation to pack up and move on when our fellow believers act like the sinners they are?

Alas! for those who while trying to prove that Jonah was never swallowed of a whale, themselves get swallowed of the whale of unbelief, which digests but never ejects its victims.
—De Witt Talmage