May you know the Lord’s blessings as you honor and serve him this weekend.

I’m grateful to Baker Books for sponsoring the blog this week with news of a new book by Andrew Davis titled The Glory Now Revealed. Be sure to check it out!
Today’s Kindle deals include some newer and older works.
(Yesterday on the blog: Welcoming the Uncomfortable Work of God)
The Final T4G
Collin Hansen reflects on the forthcoming final T4G. “More than 15 years ago I crowded into the Galt House Hotel ballroom, just across I-64 from the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky, with 3,000 pastors and students. We gathered for the inaugural Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference without much idea of what we should expect. We got something we could never forget.”
Back to the Word
I’m with Andrée Seu Peterson: “I’m just about ready to give up the rational conversational approach to social intercourse and to start quoting straight Bible to people. The further we go, the more reason isn’t working anymore. In these sputtering last gasps of the Enlightenment, language itself is deconstructing before our eyes.”
James Bond Converts to Conservatism
As I read Samuel James’s analysis of the latest Bond film, I realized that I’ve never seen a Bond film. He looks at how Bond has changed over the years and what it may mean.
A Theology of Disappointment
“Oddly enough, disappointment can be an indicator you are seeing the world correctly. No one enjoys feeling disappointment. In itself, disappointment is akin to the sadness of loss, and ultimately we were not designed for it. But like all emotions, disappointment is a gauge of how a person perceives his life—what he believes about it and wants from it. When you’re living in a broken world, sometimes believing and wanting the right things means you’ll be disappointed.”
When Does Marriage Begin In God’s Eyes?
Femi Osunnyi provides an interesting answer to the question.
Jesus Spoke a Persian Word From the Cross
“One way to distinguish Central Asia as a region is to say that it is the part of the world dominated by Turkic or Persian-related languages. … These hundreds of millions of people are overwhelmingly Muslim – and they might be surprised to hear that Jesus spoke a word from their ancestral language while on the cross.”
Sin-Coddlers Are Not True Friends
Trevin Wax looks at older and newer definitions of “friend.” “True Christian friends understand the pervasiveness and pull of sin. They’re not shocked by your misstep. They don’t make you feel worse than you already feel. They don’t heap judgment and guilt upon you. But neither do they excuse or minimize your sin. They see something better in you. They know the work of Christ and trust the power of the Spirit. They call you away from sin because they’re calling you to holiness, to the Christlikeness that marks your destiny.”
Flashback: When Jesus Says Stay
He wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted to be close to Jesus. He wanted to live a life of radical obedience. But Jesus told him to stay, not to go. Do not follow me.

We must have cast our sins on Him before we can cast our cares. —F.B. Meyer

I had quite a number of opportunities this week to think and speak about death. And as I did so, I found myself drawn to these precious and poetic words from F.B. Meyer in which he reflects on the abolishment of death in the death of Christ. What hope we have in the gospel!

Death is abolished! The wasp struck its sting into the cross of the dying Lord, and lost it there, and is now stingless forever. The poison fang of the viper has been extracted, Goliath beheaded by his own sword. The teeth of the lion have been drawn. And for this reason the apostles always speak of a believer’s death as being but a sleep.
Death is not to be more dreaded than sleep, its twin. In all likelihood we shall be quite surprised when we have passed through the dark portal, that was so slight and easy an experience. We dread it now, because we do not really believe that Christ’s death has made it all so different. If we believed this, it would give us great confidence. But whether we believed or not, we shall find it so.
A step; a moment; a passage across the Bridge of Sighs; a transition from darkness to light; a birth — that is all. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. No moment of unconsciousness or oblivion! The veil rent, the shell broken, the iron gateway passed whilst the light and air of the eternal morning break on the emancipated spirit!

One of Charles Spurgeon’s more interesting projects was to write a volume of illustrations, all of which were borrowed from the writings of Thomas Manton. Essentially, he would quote a short illustration from Manton, then expand it into a kind of devotional. The result was called Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden. Here is one of them, beginning with Manton’s original quote and then continuing with Spurgeon’s reflection on it.

“The ship holds on her course, and makes for the desired port, whether they on board sit, lie or walk, eat or sleep.”
Thus time is at all times bearing us onward to the land where time shall be no more. There is never a pause in our progress toward eternity, whether we trifle or are in earnest. Even while we read these lines the great ship is still speeding onward at the same rapid and unvarying rate. We shall soon see the shore of eternity; far sooner than we think! It becomes us to be ready for the landing, and for the weighty business which will then engage us, namely, judgment at the hands of Christ.
If we could lie becalmed a while and make no movement toward eternity we could afford to sport; but if we look over the ship’s stern we may see by her shining wake how she is cutting through the waves. Past time urges us to diligence, for it has reported us in heaven; and future time calls us to earnestness, for it must be short, and may end this very day. And then!