I’m very thankful to Ligonier Ministries for sponsoring the blog this week. Be sure to stream their free Luther documentary and also to consider their 90-day devotional on the 5 solas (for a gift of any amount).

Today’s Kindle deals include some classics (and at least one newer work).
(Yesterday on the blog: 10 New and Notable Christian Books for October)
The Body Is Bigger Than You Think
I very much agree with Trevin here. “One of the best things that could happen to the rank-and-file churchgoing Christian is to get a better sense of the bigness of the Body of Christ. The Church is bigger than your church. The kingdom is bigger than your denomination. God’s people are all over the world, united by a shared love for Jesus and confession of his lordship.”
A Bruised Reed
I appreciate Aubrynn’s reflections on living as a Christian with OCD and scrupulosity. “The only thing the Lord requires is faith. He doesn’t quantify this faith; he doesn’t say ‘this much’ or ‘this strong.’ He just says faith. And faith is expressed even in the questions, in the struggle, in the wrestling. God does not treat us differently depending on our degree of faith. His eyes are not only on the raging fires, but on the faintly burning wicks. And he promises he will never quench them.”
Four ways to help your children love the church more
Many children who are raised in the church eventually drift away. Stephen considers how parents can help their kids love the church before that happens.
From Burden to Image Bearer: How God Changed My View of Children
At a time when so many young people seem uninterested in having children, articles like this become even more important.
Heart Matters
Kristin: “The condition of our heart matters. God is observing those chambers where motives are born, swell, and give way to actions. A healthy heart will be soft, tender, and malleable, eager to submit to the Lord, while a hardened heart is cold, rebellious, and bitter. It rages against God and becomes incensed when faced with truth.”
The Ministry of Public Bible Reading
I so appreciate this call to emphasize the public reading of Scripture. “It’s this devotion to ‘the public reading of Scripture’ that I want us to reflect on in this article. Where does the reading of Scripture rank in your church’s ‘lifeboat’ priorities? Is it seen as vitally important, or would it be thrown out of the boat before the music ministry or maybe the sermon?”
Flashback: Why Are You Friends with Your Friends?
Are you friends with your friends for the sake of your friends? Or are you friends with your friends for the sake of yourself? I suspect you don’t really know while you derive some clear benefit from the relationship.

Before we can stand before Satan, we must bow before God. Peter resisted the Lord and ended up submitting to Satan! —Warren Wiersbe

This week the blog is sponsored by Harvest USA.
Today, more than ever, parents need to take a proactive approach in preparing their children for a world bombarding them with false messages about sex, gender, and identity. If parents abdicate their God-given responsibility to equip and train their children with a biblical foundation for understanding sex and gender, the world is fully prepared to indoctrinate them in unbiblical ideologies that promote the self as god and individual experience as the supreme authority.
Raising Sexually Faithful Kids
Whether it’s pornography, LGBTQ+ ideologies, sexting, or hook-up apps, children are facing a torrent of temptations and dangers in matters of sexuality. This is why Harvest USA is offering a free online course for parents entitled Raising Sexually Faithful Kids. This eight-session course will help you understand what it looks like to proactively teach your children about God’s good gift of sexuality and how to guard that gift against temptations to misuse it in sinful ways. We also want to equip you to know how to respond to your children in love and truth when theystart to wrestle with sexual sins of various kinds. Raising Sexually Faithful Kids will help you understand your children not only at the level of their behavior but also by looking into the deeper issues of their hearts. You’ll learn how struggles with pornography, promiscuity, same-sex attraction, or gender distress may developand how the gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope for repentance, healing, and transformation. You’ll also be equipped for having not simply a one-off, awkward sex talk, but an ongoing dialogue with your children about God’s good design for sex with age-appropriate conversations during critical seasons. You’ll also receive vital information about ways to protect your family from the growing dangers technology presents. Raising sexually faithful kids requires a robust technology protection plan. Finally, you’ll learn how to engage in compassionate care and discipleship if you find your son has been looking at pornography or your daughter has been caught sexting.Your loving and truthful response to your child’s sin and struggles will show them the character of our good and loving heavenly Father.
Parenting Boys and Girls in a Gender-Confused World
Maybe you’ve already encountered how challenging it is to help your kids when peers, teachers, school guidance counselors, social media—perhaps even your familyphysician—promote ideas about our bodies, identity, personhood, or gender that don’t line up with biblical faith. Or maybe you have the painful experience of your child or their friends identifying as transgender, genderqueer, or something else celebrated by the evolving sexual and gender revolution. Parenting Boys and Girls in a Gender-Confused World is an eight-session, free online course from Harvest USA that will give you practical guidance as you seek to disciple sons and daughters about what it means to be a boy or girl created in love to bear God’s image. We wantto help you help them grow in understanding God’s design so they can think Biblically about gender and have the knowledge and courage to explain and defend the goodness of our Creator’s intent. And, of course, we want to guide you in how to offer compassionate discipleship if your child is struggling in this area. For free access to both courses, as well as many other resources on biblical sexuality, visitharvestusa.org or check out our courses at harvestusa.org/courses.

The grass at Glen Oaks Cemetery had already begun to fade from its bright summer green to its drab winter brown on the day we first visited. The November breeze blew cold upon us as we walked the rows of graves to choose the spot where we would bury our son. We eventually chose a plot near the end of a long row, beneath the shade of a young tree. A few days later we watched his coffin be lowered into the ground in that very spot. We heard the pastor, my dearest friend, say the dreaded words, “Dust to dust.” We stood together as a family, arms linked, tears flowing, hearts breaking.

And now we have come to the next November and I find myself standing in that very same spot reflecting on a year that has come and gone. I have heard some people refer to this as a “deathday,” a morbid parallel to “birthday.” I prefer to stick with the wordier and more formal “anniversary of his death.” And, indeed, today is the first anniversary of the day Nick went to heaven. A full year has passed since we received the news that he had collapsed, since we heard that he had been rushed to hospital, since the doctor called to say, “We did everything we could.” A full year has passed since Aileen and I looked each other in the eye and said, through sobs, “We can do this.” A full year has passed since a night so traumatic that most of it has disappeared from memory, or perhaps been buried in a place beyond remembering.
The last year has brought the deepest sorrows I’ve ever known. I have had to say farewell to my firstborn child, my only son, without having said a proper “goodbye.” I have witnessed the people I love most in all the world passing through their darkest valley. I have sat awake long into the night to soothe sorrows and dry tears. I have laid awake through the wee hours preaching truth to myself meant to counter waves of fear and anxiety. In the darkness of night I have awoken to the cries and sobs of hearts that have been so badly broken. I have learned to grieve, I have learned to weep, I have learned to lament.
But though the last year has been one of so many sorrows, it has also been one of so many blessings. As I look back on the most difficult of years, I also look back on the most blessed of years. As I ponder the year since my hardest day, I find my heart rising in praise to God. I find my eyes wet with tears, but my heart filled with gratitude.
I am grateful for the gift of a son. And though he was taken from me so soon, I wouldn’t trade those years for all the riches of all the worlds. Had I known I would have him for so short a time, I would still have considered it a blessing to know him, to love him, to raise him. I thank God for entrusting to me so fine a son, so godly a young man.
I am grateful for the gift of love. My family has been so well cared for this year—loved by family and friends, by neighbors and strangers, by those who know us best and those who barely know us at all. We have not for a moment been alone, not for a moment been deserted.
I am grateful for the gift of providence. God has often used “coincidences” to minister to us on our hardest days and in our most difficult moments. Chance encounters have proven to not be chance at all. God has sovereignly woven together a set of circumstances that have proven his love, his care, his presence.
I am grateful for the gift of heaven. Never has heaven been more real, more present, more precious, more close. This year has given me a whole new longing to be there—to be where Christ is, where Nick is—to be in that place where all fears are stilled, where all sorrows are soothed, where all tears are dried.
I am grateful for the gift of faith. God has given us faith to believe in his character and promises, to acknowledge his right to take as much as to give. Not one of us has turned on God. Not one of us has charged him with wrong. Not one of us has refused to bless his name. Our hearts have been shattered but, by his grace, our faith has held strong.
I am grateful for the gift of comfort. God has comforted us by his Spirit and his people, by word and by deed. Not once have we been without truths to rely on, gospel to cling to, shoulders to cry upon. God has made good on his every promise.
I am grateful for these gifts and so many others. I love God more than ever. He has proven worthy of my confidence, my affection, my deepest devotion. I honor him, I trust him, I bow the knee to him. 
A recent journey led me through the local countryside, and as I drove, I observed fields that until recently had been green and full. But now they were now stark and bare. The farmers had gathered their crops into their barns to supply them through the long winter to come. And in much that way, as I reflect on the year that was, I can see that the God of all grace had gathered great stores of goodness and mercy for us. And he then dispensed them at just the right time and in just the right ways. We have known his abundance. He has met our every need, he has spoken comfort to our every sorrow, he has ministered truth to our every fear. He has been most present when most needed. He has not left us. He has not forsaken us. He never would. He never will.
(I will take this opportunity to remind you of the Nick Challies Memorial Scholarship at Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—a scholarship in Nick’s honor meant to enable others to carry out the ministry that was so important to him—to minister the Word of God in Canada. The scholarship is now receiving funds from donors and distributing them to students. We would be honored if you would consider making a donation.)
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