Comfort and Joy: How God Used the Loss of a Loved One to Save the Life of Another, HT to Challies. “Grief is painful, angry, messy, and real. But God does not abandon us in the midst of it. In fact, from soil soaked by tears, He can cultivate healing, goodness, and beauty—even if our broken hearts can’t see it right away.”

Christianity Is not Colonial: An Autobiographical Account, HT to Challies. “According to this ‘Christianity is colonial’ narrative, Christianity is the ‘white,’ ‘western’ religion which permitted all the above. Therefore, the Christian God is himself a racist colonialist who deserves, not to be worshiped, but to be denounced. This association of Christianity with colonialism is so out of step with reality as to be literally ridiculous.”

COVID’s Gift: The Gem We Should Now See We Were Missing. “If I asked you to make a list of the ten two-word phrases most common in the New Testament, the phrase ‘in Christ’ wouldn’t make it on most of our lists. Yet that phrase and its variants occur more times in the New Testament than the phrases ‘the cross,’ ‘eternal life,’ or even ‘Jesus Christ.'” The author posits that understanding our unity in Christ would reignite our love and understanding of the church. The best part of the article is under the heading “How are believers unified with Jesus?”

I’m Fine! “How are you today? No, I mean really, how are you today? I know you know the socially, western culturally correct response is that you are fine, however, that’s not what we’re about here, in this space.”

Purposes of Predictive Prophecy. “Certainly prophecy is intended to have a present impact on the believer’s faith and practice. No one should dispute that. But some posit that viewing eschatological prophecy as a detailed prediction of specific events short-circuits the ethical intention of such prophecy. I am positing that God tells us about the future because He actually wants us to know what is going to happen and expects us to believe that it is going to happen just as He says.”

We Need to Sing More Than Songs of Praise, HT to Challies. I agree, though I think singing does more than express emotion.

Sanctification and Sexual Purity: God’s Will for Your Life, HT to Challies. “There is a direct link between our holiness and our sexual purity. There’s a direct link between your body which is united to Christ and what you do with your body. And that my friends is not popular.”

Finally, I don’t know David and Ciara Dierking, but evidently many of my friends do, because I started seeing requests for prayer all over Facebook back in December when Ciara and her young son Colton became ill. Colton had COVID and strep, I believe, and two abscesses of infection in his neck. Once he had surgery to drain those, he was well on the road to recovery. Ciara had influenza B, group A strep, severe pneumonia, which sent her into toxic shock (sepsis). She nearly died. The medicine to treat the sepsis narrowed her blood vessels to the point that her extremities couldn’t get enough oxygen. She ended up having both arms and both legs amputated.

You can imagine how devastating that would be, especially for a young wife and mother. As I have prayed over and ached with this sweet family these last several months, there have been so many signs of God’s hand on them.

Ciara was rereading Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s book, Choosing Gratitude, when all of this happened. As her family put excerpts from the book that Ciara had underlined on their Facebook page, somehow Nancy learned of it and asked if she could interview Ciara and David. That episode will air November 11 and 12 on the Revive Our Hearts app or website or podcast. But as part of that interview, ROH made this video. I encourage you to watch, be encouraged, and pray for this family. They’ve all overcome many challenges, but still have many more ahead. I’m going to leave this here in place of my usual Saturday morning graphic.