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A La Carte (December 27)

monday

I will be on a holiday blogging schedule this week, which means there will be only A La Carte posts. Normalcy will resume next week!

Today’s Kindle deals are headlined by some titles from Crossway.

(Yesterday on the blog: When I Get to the End of the Way)

What if I Don’t Want to Rejoice?

“Humans are natural rejoicers. Not only do we love rejoicing but we do so all the more with others. And yet, there are many times we simply do not want to rejoice. Though the Bible tells us to ‘rejoice in the Lord always,’ we find ourselves doing the exact opposite. How are we supposed to rejoice when life gets rough?”

Canada’s conversion therapy ban commits six secular sins

This is an interesting look at Canada’s Bill C-4 and the sins it commits. “Canada’s Bill C-4 bans ‘conversion therapy.’ But the bill is bad. How bad is the bill? It’s so bad that it, for lack of a better word, sins. It sins against democracy, freedom, truth, reason, and other goods. (Consider these secular sins that may or may not include sins against God.) Bill C-4 sins so badly that, if there were a fiery pit for bad bills, it should be thrown into it.”

The Evil of Earthly-Mindedness

“If one characteristic could describe the Puritan movement as a whole—apart from their personal piety—I believe it would be the Puritans’ ability to penetrate both heart and mind. Their knack for bringing conviction to the stubborn, hope to the hopeless, and relief to the weary and heavy-laden ought to serve as the gold standard for any who aspire to the ministry of the Word. Oh, that gospel minsters in the modern day would speak to the heart as the Puritans did in theirs!”

Love Undeserved & Unsought

This is a deeply personal article from Andrew Kerr.

Top Ten YouTubes of 2021

Here is one that is just for fun. Every year Denny Burk rounds up this top-ten YouTubes of the year that was.

There are no real unprecedented times

I’d tend to agree that we are a little bit too free to describe our times and circumstances as “unprecedented.”

Flashback: The Beautiful Ordinary

… all across the world, thousands of ordinary pastors will preach ordinary sermons to ordinary people, and through these sermons they will communicate the most powerful, extraordinary news of all.

The beginnings of mercy are encouragements to us to pray for the completing of it.

—Matthew Henry

  • Happy Lies

    Happy Lies

    I’m quite certain you have heard of the New Age movement. Though its popularity seems to have crested and begun to wane some time ago, it continues to wield a good bit of influence. But I wonder if you’ve heard of another similarly-named but quite different movement called New Thought.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (January 28)

    A La Carte: Parenting is hard / The wildness of orthodoxy / Rubbing shoulders throughout eternity / Glorifying ourselves / The middle of somewhere / Is Roman Catholic baptism valid? / Excellent Kindle deals / and more.

  • Who Am I?

    It is not simply that we as a culture have lost our knowledge of God, but that in so doing we have also lost sight of ourselves. “Who am I?” is the question of the age.

  • Church cemetery

    If I Could Change Anything about the Modern Church

    I have often been asked what I consider the greatest weakness of today’s church or what I would change about today’s church if I could. Such questions make for good discussion at a conference Q&A session but they are also pretty much impossible to answer in a compelling way. It’s not like any of us…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (January 27)

    A La Carte: To men delaying marriage / A mother unknown / Steve Lawson update / Three essential values for effective teamwork / God is good even when he doesn’t do what we want / Kindle deals.

  • Closet

    How To Learn To Pray

    Christians are well-resourced with tremendous books that teach the theology and the practice of prayer. Many churches and ministries offer powerful classes that teach why we must pray and how we must pray. We are truly blessed.