May the Lord bless and keep you today.

The World Is Catechizing Us Whether We Realize It or Not
Kevin DeYoung: “It is worth remembering David Well’s famous definition: worldliness is whatever makes righteousness look strange and sin look normal. Here’s the reality facing every Christian in the West: the money, power, and prestige of the mainstream media, big time sports, big business, big tech, and almost all the institutions of education and entertainment are invested in making sin look normal.”
When it Feels Like Evil is Winning
“Some of us remember when the world’s suffering was relegated to one hour on the nightly news. We watched a sober-faced newscaster recount famines and wars and disasters in far-off places with sorrow in our hearts, and then we returned to a sink full of dishes or our algebra homework and the horror faded as the immediate pressed in.” But now, of course, we have the internet…
Don’t Numb Your Feelings
This is a timely word on feelings and emotions. “There is a danger to the subtle stoicism that some corners of Christendom are drawn toward. In this worldview, emotions are dangerous and hinder faith. This is false. Emotions are not our enemy. They’re a gift from God and purposed by him to be harnessed, not suppressed.”
How Can I Honor My Parents If I Don’t Respect Them?
I have known many who have had to ask the question John Piper takes on here.
Know Your Enemy — and Your Father
“Surrounded by enemies bent on our destruction, we need repeatedly to call to our Father God for help.  Without him, we’d invariably go down to defeat.  But when we humbly pray to him, he’ll hear and he’ll uphold and strengthen us by the power of his Holy Spirit.”
If Your Question Begins ‘how Much…’ It Is Probably The Wrong Question
Stephen Kneale: “Jesus calls the church the apple of his eye and his bride. There is no doubt that Jesus is saying, ‘I love you’. If we wouldn’t ask our wife, ‘and exactly how much affection, and how much evidence of me loving you, will suffice, y’know, to have done my duty?’ I’m not sure what makes any of us think that is an appropriate thing to say to the Lord.”
Want to Be an Elder? Start Eldering Now.
“Every elder is an elder before he is an elder. Every legitimate elder shows himself qualified in character and competence before being appointed to the office. This brief essay will focus on competence.” If you aren’t behaving like an elder, you shouldn’t expect to be made an elder!
Flashback: The Rise of Digital Technologies and the Decline of Reading
You can’t be surprised when bland books can’t hold their own against excellent videos or outstanding podcasts.

Can a man be at a fire and not be warm; or in the sunshine and not have light? Can your heart be in heaven, and not have comfort? —Richard Baxter

May the God of love and peace be with you on this fine day.

(Yesterday on the blog: No Unfinished Sculptures)
The Gifts of This Age Point Us to the Age Still to Come
Jared Wilson: “What Jesus is saying is that marriage is meant for this age to point us to the reality of that age. How does it do that? There are so many broken marriages, and always have been since the fall, but it was originally like that. And even the best marriages, even the ones that last until death do them part, are often fraught with conflict or hurts or just disappointments.”
He Would Have Come With Me
I enjoyed this story of how God changed one man’s heart.
Navigating Cross-Cultural Relationships
Chopo Mwanza provides an interesting example of a cross-culture difference and offers some good counsel on navigating cross-cultural relationships.
Open Door
“Over the years. In various cultures. Conversations over tea build friendships. And open doors. And our exchange moves from common everyday themes to the topic most essential. And dearest to my heart. Jesus.”
We Agree, Right?
Holly Mackle: “I’ve noticed a curious trend lately: in conversations with acquaintances or strangers I realize my conversation partner presumes I believe the same way they do on a given topic. Sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, whether the topic is politics, pandemic, or Pandora stations—it just keeps happening.”
In John 3:16, Does “The World” Refer To The Elect Or To Fallen Humanity? (Video)
Sinclair Ferguson answers well in this short video.
On Divisions and the Kingdom
“Are you growing in righteousness, and peace, and joy? All the things which we are absorbing, all the debates we are throwing ourselves into, all of our stances, all of our focus and attention on the things which divide, all of our talking points….are these bringing about righteousness and peace and joy? Maybe, then, they aren’t the stuff the kingdom is made of.”
Flashback: One Very Good Reason to Read Your Bible
The benefit of knowledge of God and intimacy with God extends to your family, to your neighbors, to your church. If you can’t or won’t do devotions for your own sake, won’t you do it for the sake of others?

Nothing is too great and nothing is too small to commit into the hands of the Lord. —A.W. Pink

This article is written by Dale Johnson and is sponsored by The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). Dale is the author of The Church as a Culture of Care  and Executive Director of ACBC. ACBC is hosting their Annual Conference O Church Arise: Reclaiming a Culture of Care this October in Charlotte, NC. (See below for a coupon code!)

Your church is God’s ordained center for care.
The post-fall world is filled with desperate and broken people, the very people God intends to care for through His church.
We see this pattern clearly in the early church. Sinners are confronted; sufferers are consoled. The power and presence of the Holy Spirit comforts and corrects God’s people. Believers are consistently reminded of the benefits of God’s Word and the fellowship of the saints to care for the weary, wounded, or wayward soul (2 Corinthians 1:3-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:18).
Within the fellowship of the church, ongoing discipleship draws men and women to walk more closely with Christ, and sacrificial kindness and grace can restore the suffering. The church is best positioned and equipped to bear the burden of soul care (Galatians 6:1-2).
Your church may not yet thrive in soul care, but all churches are called to be a culture of care.
I realize that churches are full of sinners, who can and do sin against each other. Far too many churches have a culture that has harbored or hidden the carnage of sin, instead of being a haven of restoration from sin’s destruction, failing to live out the charge of John 13:34-35.
But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the necessity of the church. Instead, we need to repent and return to the purposes and design God established in order to see true restoration.
We need to hear the call of Christ to restore the brokenhearted back to the fullness of life abundant in Christ, who restores the soul (Ephesians 4:11-16, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
Your church offers the only true answer for the care of souls.
God has not given any other institution the responsibility to minister to the problems of life (Hebrews 13:17, Colossians 1:28). The Bible presents a comprehensive approach to soul care where Jesus is at the center of restoration (2 Timothy 4:1-5, James 5:13-16).
So many of the troubles we face in life are vexations of the soul as we wrestle with the realities of our own mortality, purpose, meaning, and value. God has given his church the responsibility to steward souls by providing context for our human experiences and hope for true restoration in Christ. The Bible explains our human experiences better than any human wisdom.
May we be found faithful to love as Christ, shepherd as Christ, care as Christ, and mend the brokenhearted as Christ, to the praise of his glory.
Your church can grow together in the pursuit of care.
ACBC is committed to calling and equipping the church to grow as a culture of care.
One way we do that is through our Annual Conference. There’s still time to get signed up for this year’s conference in person or online. Use code CHALLIES to save 10%.
We’re also offering a deeply discounted group rate and additional resources for churches with a group of 10 or more who will watch the conference together. Check out the Group Watch option.

Many would agree that Michelangelo’s David is among the world’s greatest artistic achievements and a true masterpiece of sculpture. What few know is that Michelangelo was not the original artist. The commission had first gone to Agostino di Duccio, but he got only as far as roughing out the shape of the legs and body before his work ceased. Antonio Rossellino soon took it up, but only for a short time, before he, too, quit. The block then sat exposed to the elements for 26 years before Michelangelo finally accepted the challenge. In just over twenty-four months he had completed the task and the sculpture was installed outside Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. It has now been thrilling and inspiring audiences for more than 500 years.

In recent weeks Grace Fellowship Church has had the privilege of baptizing several new believers. Each one has given testimony to God’s work in his or her life. Each has described a life given over to sin, a life given over to illicit pleasures, a life given over to ultimate meaninglessness. Then each has described hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, accepting and believing that gospel, and seeing the Holy Spirit at work in putting sin to death and coming alive to righteousness.
And on a recent Sunday, as I heard another one tell of the good and gracious acts of God in his life, I was struck by the beauty of God’s work in transforming and completing what others began. When Michelangelo was given his commission, he knew that others had already labored on his block of marble, but was certain he could work around their flawed attempts and make good of them. He knew that previous artists had complained that the marble was too weak, too flawed, to liable to crumble to dust, but he was confident he could work with it. He knew the other artists had wanted to portray David in a classical pose but that he had something better in mind. In his mind’s eyes he saw the sculpture that had to be gently coaxed out of the raw marble and had every confidence he could complete the task.
And just so, God sees the beautiful person within the ones he calls to himself. He knows that the world has begun to shape that person in its image, but he is certain he can instil within him the values of the kingdom of God. He knows the flesh has been drawing that person toward every carnal pleasure, but he is confident he can draw him toward higher pleasures. He knows the devil has begun to shape him in the image of hell, but he is convinced can shape him in the image of heaven. He sees far beyond what the person is and sees what he could be, what he can be, and what he will be.
God promises to continue his work on that person—that magnificent piece of art—until it is complete, until it is exactly the masterpiece he has envisioned. As Toplady said, “The work which His goodness began, / the arm of His strength will complete. / His promise is yes and amen, / And never was forfeited yet.” The God who began his good work will most certainly bring it to completion, for there are no abandoned, unfinished, or incomplete carvings in his gallery.

Good morning. May grace and peace be with you today.

You will find a small list of Kindle deals today.
There is some big news in the family: my Abby got engaged! Her boyfriend fiancé Nathan asked her the big question yesterday. We are so very happy for them.
9 Things You Should Know About the Taliban
Joe Carter: “Twenty years ago, the United States overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan for harboring Osama bin Laden and providing training grounds for Al-Qaeda terrorists. This month, the Taliban has returned to power after U.S. military forces withdrew and the Afghan government collapsed. Here is what you should know about the brutal Islamist regime.”
Is the Church I’m Going To “A Cult”?
“So how can you tell if the church you are attending is ‘a cult’ or just a little bit different than the church next door?” This is a pretty good explanation.
Church Closed
Kevin Davis: “The truly frightening thing about this church is just how much of it is in all of us, in our churches, in the individuals who make up the churches, and in the leaders who lead them. We inspect others, not out of a love for God and neighbour, and not out of a love for those who are being duped by the false teachings. Not at all.”
Show, Don’t Just Tell
“It’s a key principle of educational philosophy: Show, don’t just tell. Communicating ideas is a good thing. But it’s even better if you can show your work, present persuasive argumentation, explain it clearly, and illustrate it vividly. The show-don’t-just-tell principle has many applications for teachers and leaders of all stripes.”
Unintended Consequences Of Failure Porn
This is worth considering. “It’s the irony that bugs me. We’re listening to a podcast critiquing celebrity culture within the church, and responding to it with all the glee of someone flicking through a celebrity gossip magazine. Apparently oblivious to the hypocrisy. A podcast criticising how the Mars Hill cult leveraged branding and technology to send their message globally is now using the very same technology and platforms, and gaining a cult following.”
I Make, I Carry, I Save
Idolatry, it turns out, comes in many forms…
The Deeper Beliefs Begin to Come Out
This is an interesting look at a culture’s deeper beliefs. “It can feel like the years of steady teaching and discipleship have failed to trickle down into the places of the soul where it really counts. Are the basic means of grace actually enough to transform these people? is a question I find myself wrestling with.”
Flashback: When It’s Time To Remember All the Stupid Things You’ve Said
When you hear how others have spoken idly of you, don’t over-react. A moment’s reflection will remind you that you’ve done the very same thing a million times over.

The world has been enriched more through the poverty of its saints than by the wealth of its millionaires. —F.B. Meyer

One key element of our worship at Grace Fellowship Church is a pastoral prayer, in which one of the elders prays for the church and on behalf of the church. Every now and again I like to share one of those prayers. This prayer was prayed last Sunday by Tristan, one of the elders.

O God, most high and glorious, who planned to bring salvation through Christ to unworthy sinners like us. We marvel that Christ Jesus so closely identifies and loves the church, that the church is called the body of Christ. Through him, you have united and equipped people from diverse backgrounds to carry out your purpose. We marvel that you use the imperfect church as a means and instrument to accomplish your good purposes.
We know that you are Almighty, so you don’t need our help. Yet, we praise you for displaying your power through feeble people. Our finite and faulty minds struggle to comprehend your infinite greatness. It’s true your thoughts are not our thoughts, and your ways are not our ways. So certainly, we need your help to know you.
We praise you for graciously revealing yourself to us in your Word and sending your Holy Spirit to empower us to understand with greater clarity your steadfast love. You have told us through your Word that “blessed are those who seek you with their whole heart”. Help us to do this today. Help every Christian here to continuously seek to know you better. As we do this, renew our minds with your Word. We want our minds to be filled with more of your Word and less of the world. That our minds would more closely reflect yours. That we might not sin against you.
O God, we want our lives to reflect our new identity in Christ. We want our lips to be a beacon of grace to others. We want to use our words to encourage and to build up others. We want to use our voices to worship and praise your Great name. We want to use our words to bless. We want our words to speak the truth.
We confess that this week, some of us used our lips to lie, gossip, and slander. Some of us used your great name in vain. Some of us used words to communicate wrath and bitterness. Some of us used our words for filthiness, foolish talk, and crude joking. We acknowledge that these grievous sins do not reflect the new life we have in Christ. Please forgive us. Help us to put these sins far from us. O God, transform us by renewing our minds. We don’t want to use our lips in the same way we did before we became Christians. We want our speech to be instruments of righteousness to your glory. O God, how much more would our church be marked by love if every Christian here used their speech only in ways that brought glory to you! How much more would our church be united if we every Christian worked hard by your grace to put bitter jealousy and selfish ambition far from them! Make this so we pray.
As we think about our church, we thank you for blessing our church with elders. Thank you for saving, equipping, and calling each elder to this role. Grant to each elder the spiritual wisdom needed to fulfill their duties. Grant to each elder joy in their work. Protect each elder from the schemes of the enemy. And give to each elder grace to fight the good fight of faith. And bless this church with more faithful and qualified men to serve in this role for your glory.
We also remember our dear sister [M], who has been in debilitating pain for four weeks. O God, heal her back and reduce her pain. We know that you are near to your people. We pray that she would know your nearness and comfort in this time. Call to her mind your Word that she has been storing in her heart over many years. We know that your grace is sufficient for your people in any season. So we pray that you would powerfully demonstrate your gracious power in [M’s] circumstance and in her home.
As we prepare to hear your Word preached, help us to focus and listen. O God, reprove us in the areas we need to be reproved, rebuke us in the areas we need to be rebuked, and encourage us in the areas we need to be encouraged. Do this all for your glory.
In the name of Jesus, Amen

As we begin a new day and head into a weekend, please know: Right now, at this very moment, God is reigning from his eternal throne.

There’s a great list of Kindle deals to look through today.
This is one of those occasional reminders that all the quote graphics I share from day-to-day are available to print or download for free in high definition at SquareQuotes.
(Yesterday on the blog: Three New Tools That Make a Huge Difference)
The Great Winnowing
“A lot of people aren’t coming back to church.  Let that sink in a minute. Real people—souls, names, faces, and life stories who you know and love—are most likely not going to return to regular church gatherings in a post-pandemic world.” This article suggests ways to pursue them.
Mom Guilt and the God Who Sees
Lauren Whitman: “Mom guilt. Moms today are well acquainted with the term. We use it as a kind of shorthand to express an all-too-common feeling we face in the everyday events of mothering. I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about mom guilt in preparation for my lecture at CCEF’s national conference this October.”
A Brief Word About Anxiety Medication
Paul Tautges shares some well-considered thoughts on anxiety medications. “We are always made up of body and soul . . . together . . . always. Regardless of what physical elements may contribute to our anxiety, every mental or emotional struggle we experience is also an opportunity to develop our faith. Our souls are always in need of the Spirit’s ministry of grace and truth through the Word.”
Does Christ Rule the Nations Now?
John Piper distinguishes between three different ways that God rules over this world.
Pulling Weeds While People Are Dying: How Do I Respond to the World’s Suffering?
This article grapples with the discordant nature of our lives of ease and other people’s suffering. “I pull out the weeds in my lawn and think about how absurd it is that I am pulling weeds while under the same sky, a young man tries to escape his country by hanging onto the wing of a plane.”
Weeping With Those Who Are Weeping
This dispatch from India comes at a time of great loss (and goes very well with the F.B. Meyer quote below). “These past few months have made this abundantly clear to all of us. From mid-April to mid-May 2021 there was hardly a day that went by without news of someone we knew who had lost a loved one. Those were tragic and exceedingly difficult days.”
Flashback: Faith Hacking: A Simple Method to Organize Your Prayers
Christians have created many patterns and systems to help them as they pray. One of my favorites is John Piper’s model of praying in concentric circles.

To bear sorrow with dry eyes and stolid heart may befit a Stoic, but not a Christian. —F.B. Meyer

Many years ago I discovered a set of tools and procedures that allowed me to be most productive. Since then, I have pretty much stuck with those same tools and with that same system, save for a few minor tweaks here and there. (See Do More Better)

In the past year, though, I have discovered a few new tools that have swiftly made a big difference to my life. These have not replaced any of my existing tools, but instead settled in alongside them. Knowing that some of my readers are interested in such things, I thought I’d share about them. The first two pertain to reading, retaining, and engaging with information while the third pertains to time management.
Roam Research
Roam Research is a note-taking tool that allows you to enter, organize, and then re-discover information. It is, I suppose, a tool for personal knowledge management. Some call it their “second brain.” It has proven truly life-changing for me and I keep it open at all times.
I have long used Evernote to store notes, receipts, and other important information, and it follows a standard hierarchical method of putting notes in notebooks and notebooks in notebook stacks. It’s perfectly suited to that purpose. But what it doesn’t do well is relate one piece of information to another. This is where Roam Research comes into its own. It uses a non-hierarchical method of relating notes to one another with its “bi-directional links” creating relationships between related pieces of knowledge.
Consider, for example, this note I took while reading Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self:

The brackets and hyperlinking of “Philip Rieff” show that I can click on his name. This will open a page displaying all the other references to Rieff across the entirety of my Roam database—both the links I have made deliberately by employing those brackets and others one that I may have missed. These links may have come from books or articles I’ve read, articles I’ve written, podcasts I’ve listened to, or just about any other source of information. The same is true of “psychological man” and “safe place,” and could be true of any other word I care to bracket. If I do click on “Philip Rieff” I can see that I have also run into him and bracketed his name in Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies and the multi-authored Myth and Meaning in Jordan Peterson, and can read the contexts in which his name appeared.

Additionally, I can see a “graph view” which shows the relationships between terms. So, for a term like “Critical Social Justice,” I can see which resources and terms it most relates to.

Roam Research also has a daily notes function which is extremely useful in its own way. To be honest, though, it’s all quite hard to explain, so instead of writing thousands of words, I’ll link to a couple of explanatory articles and then suggest that you check it out, especially if you work in areas where relationships between knowledge could be helpful. And then be sure to read about Readwise and how it interacts with Roam. (Introductions to Roam: 1, 2; as an alternative, you can look at the similar app Obsidian)
Roam Research is free for 31 days, then has a moderate subscription fee. “Scholarships” are available to researchers, people under 22, and people in financial distress.
Readwise
Readwise is an app designed to help you get the most out of your reading, and especially reading on the web or e-reader devices. Again, let me tell you how I use it so you can take that as a test case.
I read the great majority of my books on my Kindle. As I read, I highlight important passages. Readwise’s job is to collect those highlights and to do two things with them.
The first is to build a daily newsletter which is sent to me in the morning. This newsletter contains a selection of highlights from the books I have read in the past. It selects them randomly from all the books in my library, except the ones I have specifically unselected. I can weight some books as more important than others, or books I’ve read recently as more or less important than books I read a long time ago. These daily newsletters have been an extremely helpful mechanism for helping me re-encounter and retain the information from those books. I have Readwise send me 6 highlights per day and I take the time to read each one. It is 2-3 minutes well invested.

The second thing Readwise does is export all the highlights from my books into Roam Research. So what I highlight on my Kindle is automatically entered into Roam Research a few hours later. Here, for example, are some highlights from Theodore Cuyler’s How To Be a Pastor:

After the highlights get exported, I go through them briefly to bracket keywords (or add hashtags, which accomplishes the same thing). Each highlight includes the Kindle reference so I can easily navigate back to that spot in the book with a single click. If I read books the old-fashioned way, I can still add my highlights, but either have to type them in manually or use Readwise’s scanning function, which works middlingly well.
Readwise is free for 30 days, then has a modest subscription fee.
Tempo
The final resource is an email app called Tempo. Its unique feature is that it delivers email in batches based on a customizable schedule. So for those who, like me, struggle with email self-control and seem unable to stop themselves from checking it all day and every day, Tempo allows you to determine the times of day at which it will fetch your email. This has proven to be exactly what I needed to wrestle back control over my email habits.

I have Tempo setup to check email in the early morning, at noon, and at the end of the workday. That is all I need and it works absolutely perfectly. It has other features as well, including a wonderfully minimal workspace, but batching is its best one. Its iPhone app is in beta, but works very well. Android and Windows support is coming in the future.
Tempo is free for 30 days, then requires a subscription.

Grace and peace to you today, my friends.

There are just two Kindle deals this morning.
Logos users will find some good deals in the Back to School sale.
Afghanistan, the Pulpit, and the Myth of Progress
“If we’re to truly remember the world’s tragedies in our ministries, what we need to retrieve isn’t simply what our Christian forebears taught in their ministries. We need to also retrieve their sense of the world which lay behind their ministries – a sense that the world is unstable, violent, and harsh.”
Weakness May Be Your Greatest Strength
This is good and helpful: “It’s easy for us to see our strengths as assets. But most of us naturally consider our weaknesses as liabilities — deficiencies to minimize or cover up. But God, in his providence, gives us our weaknesses just as he gives us our strengths.”
Pain Will Not Have the Last Word
Sarah Walton says, “No one lives this life untouched. We all experience the brokenness and frailty of this world in one way or another. Whether we face daily disappointments, an aging body, a life-altering illness, abuse, broken relationships, or loss, the pain we experience becomes woven into the fabric of our lives. It changes us, sometimes leaving us with scars or a limp.”
“I’ll See You in Court!”
Jesse Johnson digs into the biblical prohibition about suing other Christians. “The business had workman’s comp insurance, but the insurance company was requiring that the injured worker’s personal insurance company file a claim in court in order to compel payment. The bottom line: in order to get covered, a believer (or his insurance company) would have to sue another believer (or his insurance company).”
Bethel, Jesus, and Dove Dung
Lionel Windsor shows just how awful some of the teaching is that’s emerging from Bethel. “Before I read the book, I was hoping to find something positive to be able to say. Anything. But I could find nothing. In short, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I found this book extremely disturbing (especially one part of it).”
How Difficult was the Book of Revelation’s Journey into the Canon?
Despite the uniqueness of the book of Revelation compared to the rest of the NT, its acceptance into the canon was not particularly tempestuous, as Michael Kruger shows here.
In the Quiet
Melissa reflects on the quiet in her home now that the kids have returned to school.
Flashback: Two Gifts You Give To Others in Your Sanctification
Your sanctification is a gift to others. Your continual growth in holiness is not something you emphasize merely for your own benefit or your own assurance, but something you pursue for the benefit of others.

God never made a soul so small that the whole world will satisfy it. —William Hendriksen

Good morning. May the Lord bless and keep you throughout this day.

There’s a small but still good list of Kindle deals today.
(Yesterday on the blog: We Are Never Without Beauty)
Do You Know Where You’re At?  
Sylvia Schroeder reflects on her father-in-law’s confusion. “‘I don’t know where we’re at,’ Phil’s dad used to say from the front seat of his handicapped van. In his later days my father-in-law, sweet and intelligent seemed to live in an anxious state of lost. He leaned far forward against the taut seatbelt, and peered with squinted eyes at the road ahead. The road he’d traveled many times had not changed. Then he turned toward his son, my husband at the wheel. ‘I have no idea where we’re at. Do you know where we’re at?’”
Where We Draw the Line
Alistair Begg: “For centuries in the West, and perhaps particularly in the United States, Christians have enjoyed being in the rooms where things happen. But now the wind of society is less at our backs and more in our faces. For the first time, perhaps, we need to learn how to live well in Babylon.”
Deepfakes and the Degradation of Truth
Jason Thacker looks at what I’m sure will soon prove to be an extremely important issue: deepfakes and the degradation of truth.
The Take Trap
Samuel James coins and explains a term: the take trap. “A take trap is a situation in which the perceived benefits of forming an opinion on something quickly and sharing that opinion outweigh both the learnedness of the opinion and even the heartfelt sense of the opinion’s importance.”
Unsatisfying Endings
“We’ve all experienced the disappointment—you come to the end of a good book, or you reach the conclusion of a great series, or you sit somewhat sorrowfully as the credits begin to roll. There is something inherently disappointing with endings. Okay, so there are occasions they are immensely satisfying—but more often than not that satisfaction does not last. When matters draw to a close, we are strangely left wanting. Why is that?”
A New and Quiet Type of Suffering
This article looks at transgenderism from an important perspective–the perspective of the parents.
Flashback: There Is No Better Life
God is glorified in your holiness, not in your sin. Do you grow in holiness so that God can be glorified? God is glorified in your selfless deeds, not your selfish ones. Do you love and serve others?

Before a sin, Satan tempts you to believe repentance will be easy. After a sin, Satan tempts you to believe repentance is impossible. —Garrett Kell