I don't want to "laud" my own links here, but I did want to call attention to an older post titled "Christmas Hope, Christmas Grief, Christmas Joy." Both of my parents, my grandmother, a college friend, and even our only family dog all died in December, though in different years. Every year, someone I know is facing a first Christmas without a loved one who passed away that year. Grief may cast a shadow over Christmas, but Christmas gives us hope and joy to carry on.
All We Have to Do Is Turn. "It's comforting that it's all we're asked to do, no matter how far we may have wandered from God. We're not called to find our own way back. We're not called to fix it all ourselves, which is reassuring as there is no way we could ever fix it by ourselves."
Is There a Place for Ambition in the Life of a Christian Woman? "I began to think carefully about ambition—my own aspirations as well as the place ambition might play in the life of a Christian woman, a servant of God. Was it wrong for me to long for more opportunities for service—wrong for me to long for a broader reach?"
I Need Sundays, HT to Challies. "Jesus loves his Church. It was His idea. The abuses and failures of the church do not negate the commands of Scripture to gather as a body of believers. We will not always get it right, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean that we can toss the proverbial baby out with the bath water. The commands of Scripture are still ultimately for our good, our growth, our sanctification. If one of God's very means of grace for our endurance in the Christian life is the church, then Christians will struggle to flourish in faith apart from it."
When Going Through the Motions Is the Best Way Forward. "I feel like I'm just going through the motions. Perhaps you've heard people say this about a relationship, their work or their spiritual lives. Perhaps you've even said it yourself. Chances are, it was presented as a negative. If you're going through the motions, something is wrong, right? Not necessarily."
Pain Needs Interpreting, HT to Challies. "Rather than just react to pain, the Bible calls us to act towards it. We're not to just be subject to our pain, blown about in every direction by it. Rather we're to respond to it, and subject it to the light of God's word."
It's So Easy, HT to Challies. "The world can be a hard place. We are all the walking wounded at times. The voices around us are not always kind, and many of us can find ourselves on the margins, overlooked. It is these times when even the smallest word of encouragement can turn our hearts from sadness to hope."
Stop Calling Them Names, HT to Challies. "[T]he Bible teaches us to directly confront theological error. It even has a category for using harsh speech with wolves who pervert a church's fidelity or lead people into eternal destruction (cf. Acts 13:8–11). But neither should Christians engage in the worldly practice of name-calling or employing theological slurs, especially when speaking of brothers and sisters in Christ."
This is really cool: a graphic showing where things in the Bible are mentioned in more than one place. The bottom line lists the chapters from Genesis to Revelation, with Psalm 119 in the middle. Though the Bible was written over hundreds of year by several authors, it's a coherent whole
Occasionally someone will ask me what the "HT" in some of my listings means. I used to see that abbreviation frequently, but not so much any more. It means "hat tip," meaning I saw that link at someone else's site that I want to acknowledge.
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