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A La Carte (December 29)

tuesday

After a couple of days of coming up empty-handed, I managed to track down some pretty good Kindle deals for today.

What God Tells Us to Remember

I thoroughly enjoyed this article that reminds us of those things God tells us to remember. “There used to be a saying on memes that went something like, ‘Don’t look back—you’re not going that way.’ However, though we shouldn’t live in the past, we benefit from considering it at times.”

Finish the Year Weak

Jared Wilson: “‘Finish the year strong.’ The clichéd exhortation is aimed at us all—the businessman trying to meet project deadlines and annual budget expectations, the student prepping for semester finals, the average Joes and Janes navigating holiday chaos with an eye toward some vague sense of individual improvement in the coming year.”

Can Our Prayers Change God’s Will? If Not, Why Pray?

I’ve often appreciated R.C. Sproul’s straightforward way of answering theological questions. That quality is on full display here as he answers a common question about prayer.

Before You Say Goodbye to 2020

“During this season, it might feel like drudgery to reflect on this unprecedented year, frightening, even. We’ve experienced hardship and struggles, seen hostility in people we never would have imagined, and known the startling pressure anxiety can wield on our minds. Looking back on this year is daunting; we don’t want to remember the dark moments, or the pain of navigating them.”

Expecting Less from Church

It can be freeing to expect a little less from church, as Ed Welch explains here.

Heaven: Rejoicing in Future Glory

The current issue of the 9Marks Journal is all about heaven. If you’re up for some slightly heavier reading, it’s free to read online or to download.

We Are Blind Without the Spirit

I think you’ll appreciate this reflection on the Holy Spirit.

Flashback: How To Make A New Year’s Resolution That Sticks

I have done a fair bit of reading on how to make resolutions work, and it turns out that though there are many reasons your resolutions may not work, the most common ones are easy enough to avoid. Here are some tips on making wise resolutions and on making them stick.

This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him.

—Elisabeth Elliot

  • Throw Out the Buoys

    Throw Out the Buoys!

    When I was young, my family owned a cottage on a lake. From a young age, I loved to head out in our little motorboat so I could explore that lake and the others that were connected to it. I could easily make a day out of slipping into little inlets to see where they…

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    A La Carte (January 29)

    A La Carte: Your phone habits / A guide for single women / JFK, conspiracy theories, and the Deep State / So what if you’re bored? / God’s a writer / Hard relationships / Kindle deals / and more.

  • 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…