I have just a few good reads to share this week:
God is SO Good! “It is a vice—not a virtue—to add to Scripture’s rules our own ascetic prohibitions: “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch,” and “Do not marry” (Colossians 2:21; 1 Timothy 4:3). Such rules may appear to be ‘super holy,’ but they are an offense to God, substituting legalism for the simplicity of the gospel. They deny the very pleasures God created us to enjoy.”
We Are Standing on Holy Ground. “It’s so sweet to walk into a church and know that God’s people are gathered for worship. Of course He is near. A holy moment. But isn’t it a holy moment, too, when you are sitting in a doctor’s office, holding hands with your faithful wife, enduring the bad news with faith? As believers we tread on holy ground in every school building, nursing home, leafy forest floor, and in every possible scenario we could dream up. Isn’t it just so thrilling to know that when we praise Him He is near, and when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, there too, there especially, He is wrapping us up in His presence. Carrying us. Seeing us through. Never leaving, never forsaking.”
Who Can Understand Sin? Deep Mercy for our Dark Insanity, HT to Challies. “As Christians, we have all looked at ourselves and felt sorrow over sin. But have we ever deeply considered why we do it in the first place? Why do we sin?”
God Will Give Us More Than We Can Handle—But Not More Than He Can, , HT to Challies. “The sufferer may object, head shaking and hands up. But you insist, ‘Look, seriously, the Bible promises God won’t ever give you more in life than you can handle.’ There it is—conventional wisdom masquerading as biblical truth. You’ve promised what the Bible never does.”
Our Skewed View of Wealth, HT to Challies. “These case studies show how money is a litmus test of our true character and our spiritual life. If this is true of all people in all ages, doesn’t it have a special application to us who live in a time and nation of unparalleled affluence where the ‘poverty level’ exceeds the average standard of living of nearly every other society in human history, past or present?” This was especially poignant to me since I just read a novel discussing wealth, All My Secrets by Lynn Austin.
Bad Therapy, HT to Challies. “To become a lover of pleasure is to prioritise ‘feel good’ throughout life. We want to feel good, and we want others to feel good too. This is the ethic. We abandon a moral view of reality in which there is a good and right way, outside ourselves, to which we should train ourselves and our children to live up to. All that matters is feeling okay. This is therapy culture.” This has devastating effects on child discipline, as the author shows.
When You’re at Your Wit’s End. “When he was at his wits’ end, he was not at his faith’s end.”
“The end result of all Bible study is worship,
and the end result of all worship is service to the God we love.”
–Warren Wiersbe, With the Word
Stray Thoughts 