Links & Quotes

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Some good reading and watching from today…

“The worst form of ill association is ungodly marriage. I do not know anything that gives me more satisfaction than to see our brethren and sisters, who have walked in the faith of God, united in marriage—the husband and wife, both fearing and loving God. It is a delightful spectacle, and bids fair to be the means of building up the church with a generation which shall fear the Lord. But a very fruitful source of ruin to church members is that of a young man or a young woman choosing an ungodly partner in life. They never can expect God’s blessing upon it. They tell you sometimes they hope to be the means of their friend’s conversion. They have no right to hope such a thing; it so seldom occurs. The much more likely thing is that the ungodly one will drag the other down to his level, than that the godly one shall pull the other up.” —Charles Spurgeon

“If homosexuals are bullied, we need to protect them. If they’re unjustly discriminated against, we need to help them. If they’re treated with contempt, the person hurting them should be stopped. If a family member comes out as gay and then is belittled, harmed, or vilified, then the offending family needs to be corrected. If Christians ridicule people who identify as gay or lesbian, they need to admonished. If a church doesn’t welcome seekers of all stripes (including people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual), then it needs to change. But none of these circumstances are reasons to reinterpret Scripture to affirm homosexuality.” This is from a fascinating article: Bad Reasons To Adopt Pro-Gay Theology.

 

“Prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it.” —C.S. Lewis

“Resentment simply cannot dwell in a loving heart. Before resentfulness can enter, love must take its flight and bitterness take over.” —A.W. Tozer

“No nation ancient or modern has ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.” —John Peter Zenger (in 1735 after winning his case that established the precedent for our freedom of the press)

“Never leave growing till the life to come!” —Robert Browning

“Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology.” —B.B. Warfield

[VIDEO] John Maxwell has some great advice on conflict.

Did you know there is a right way to procrastinate? Yep! Check this out.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

Our First Amendment rights are under assault like never before! In Idaho the state government has told pastors to either perform same-sex “weddings” or go to jail.

“When men have to do with their estates, they are very careful; they fee a lawyer to go back over the title-deeds perhaps for two or three hundred years. In trade they will hurry hither and thither to attend to their commercial engagements; they would not launch into speculations, nor would they run great risks; but the soul, the poor soul, how men play with it as a toy, and despise it as if it were worthless earth. Two or three minutes in the morning when they first roll out of bed, two or three odd minutes in the evening, when they are nearly asleep—the fag-ends of the day given to their souls, and all the best part given to the body!” —Charles Spurgeon

“We’ve found that sleep may actually be a kind of elegant design solution to some of the brain’s most basic needs, a unique way that the brain meets the high demands and the narrow margins that set it apart from all the other organs of the body.” Read more about the rejuvenating power of sleep for the human brain.

“God will allow His servant to succeed when he has learned that success does not make him dearer to God nor more valuable in the total scheme of things.” —A.W. Tozer

[VIDEO] This story from Ken Davis is hilarious!

“Prayers aren’t graded according to style. If prayer depends on how I pray, I’m sunk. But if the power of prayer depends on the One who hears the prayer, then I have hope.” Read more thoughts on prayer from Max Lucado.

“Desire can’t be sated, because if it is, the longing disappears and then we’ve failed, because desire is the state we seek. We’ve expanded our desire for ever more human connection into a never-ceasing parade of physical and social desires as well. Amplified by marketers and enabled by commerce, we race down the endless road faster and faster, at greater and greater expense. The worst thing of all would be if we actually arrived at perfect, because if we did, we would extinguish the very thing that drives us. We want the wanting.” —Seth Godin

 

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“I have learned…that the Lord can fill the soul with Himself, when He takes away what seemed indispensable to our happiness on earth.” —Andrew Bonar

“In a day of endless distraction and diversion, there is no greater remedy for our clouded heads and hectic lives than the sober mind of Christ.” Read more in this post: Finding A Level Head In A Hectic World.

“Prayer really is simple. Resist the urge to complicate it. Don’t take pride in well-crafted prayers. Don’t apologize for incoherent prayers. No games. No cover-ups. Just be honest—honest to God. Climb into His lap. Tell Him everything that’s on your heart. Or tell Him nothing at all. Just lift your heart to heaven and declare, ‘Father … Daddy.’ Stress. Fear. Guilt. Grief. Demands on all sides. And all we can summon is a plaintive, ‘Oh, Father.’ If so, that’s enough. Your heavenly Father will wrap you in His arms!” —Max Lucado

Some super-cool pictures of the work that won the 2014 Nobel Prize for chemistry.

[INFOGRAPHIC] The size, spread and cost of Ebola.

I have been saying this was coming: Pastors in Houston have their sermons subpoenaed to make sure they are “correct.”

“The time for speaking seldom arrives, the time for being never departs.” —George MacDonald

“The Word of God ignores size and quantity and lays all its stress upon quality. Christ, more than any other man, was followed by the crowds, yet after giving them such help as they were able to receive, He quietly turned from them and deposited His enduring truths in the breasts of His chosen 12.” —A.W. Tozer

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

Stephen Miller reminds us that we don’t have to act differently when we pray: Be Yourself In Prayer.

Ken Davis is always hilarious. Check out The Confused Stage Of Life.

The American College of Pediatrics debunks the myth of “safe sex.”

Tim Dilena nails it: Why Worship Is Disappearing From Our Church Services.

“Christians have fallen into the habit of accepting the noisiest and most notorious among them as the best and the greatest. They too have learned to equate popularity with excellence, and in open defiance of the Sermon on the Mount they have given their approval not to the meek but to the self-assertive; not to the mourner but to the self-assured; not to the pure in heart who see God but to the publicity hunter who seeks headlines.” —A.W. Tozer

Parents and teachers, check out Tim Elmore’s post: How To Avoid Ruining A Kid’s Future.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Katrina Trinko says, “This isn’t okay”: States that voted against gay “marriage” now have it forced upon them.

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

A good laugh— Al and Lois go to a counselor after fifteen years of marriage. The counselor asks them what the problem is. Lois goes into a tirade, listing every problem they’ve ever had in their years of marriage. She goes on and on and on. Finally, the counselor gets up, embraces the surprised Lois, and kisses her passionately. Lois shuts up and sits quietly in a daze. The counselor turns to Al and says, “That is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do that?” Al thinks for a moment and replies, “Well, I can get her here Mondays and Wednesdays, but Fridays I play golf.”

“It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to the care of others, seriously to consider the four following things: First, that he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives entrusted to his care. Secondly, that all his skill, and knowledge, and energy as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for his glory, and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition. Thirdly, and not more beautifully than truly, let him reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean creature, for, in order that he may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten Son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it with his divine dignity, and far more than this, died to redeem it. And fourthly, that the doctor being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer.” —Dr. Thomas Sydenham, known as the father of English medicine

“It is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.” —C.S. Lewis

“Prayer is never an acceptable substitute for obedience. The sovereign Lord accepts no offering from His creatures that is not accompanied by obedience. To pray for revival while ignoring or actually flouting the plain precept laid down in the Scriptures is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble.” —A.W. Tozer

These articles aren’t just for coaches, but for anyone who works with youth: Jameis Winston & The Fine Art Of Enabling from Mark Atteberry, and The Secret To Hard Conversations With Today’s Athletes by Tim Elmore.

A great question: Where Do Others Fit In Your Schedule?

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

[VIDEO] John Maxwell has a good reminder about envy.

“Watch human nature; we are so built that if we do not get thrilled in the right way, we will get thrilled in the wrong. If we are without the thrill of communion with God, we will try to get thrilled by the devil, or by some concoction of human ingenuity.” —Oswald Chambers

“The study ‘provides the best evidence to date that fMRI can be used to identify consciousness in vegetative patients,’ says Russell Poldrack, a cognitive neuroscientist at Stanford University.” An amazing study that proves that vegetative patients are fully aware of their surroundings.

I am a big fan of The Overview Bible Project’s work. This is a great case study on Melchizedek.

Monergism has lots of free ebooks for you… go get ’em!

“The Gospel can be summed up by saying that it is the tremendous, tender, compassionate, gentle, extraordinary, explosive, revolutionary revelation of Christ’s love.” —Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from today…

“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God.” —John Piper

Mark Atteberry says, “One way to tell how you’re doing in the Christian life is to count your ‘except you’ moments.” Read more of his post entitled Except You.

Some interesting facts about stem cell research.

Augustine died on this day in 430 A.D. Here are 15 memorable quotes from the Bishop of Hippo.

The way Christians cared for the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor was counter-cultural in the ancient Roman world. Check out The Witness Of Christian Compassion.

Who really believes Lois Lerner’s IRS computer lost all her emails? Probably no one! Now we hear that her devices were intentionally wiped clean.

“One of the ways the Spirit helps us change is by teaching us that God is merciful with our inadequate notions of Him and is willing not only to commune with us, but also bless others in spite of our flawed conceptions. Paul reminds us, ‘for our knowledge is imperfect…but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. … For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood’ (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). So we may be relieved that our walk with God has been authentic and people have been blessed by our ministry even if we have had flawed ideas about God and His ways.” —John Piper

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

“James has in his mind a picture of people who use prayer to try to get from God something they desire more than God [James 4:2-4]. He calls these people—men and women—‘adulteresses.’ Why? Because in his mind God is like our Husband who is jealous to be our highest delight. If we then try to make prayer a means of getting from Him something we want more then we want Him, we are like a wife who asks her husband for money to visit another lover.” —John Piper

“The greatest outward troubles and calamities that we meet with…must needs appear very little things to the misery which we have deserved.” —Jonathan Edwards

“Our Enemy is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore.’ Ugh! Don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.” —C.S. Lewis, Screwtape writing to Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters. (In case you didn’t know, The Screwtape Letters are letters from an older demon [Screwtape] to his young apprentice demon [Wormwood]. So the “Enemy” in their correspondence is God.) 

Since I just reviewed Beyond IQ, I have been reading more about the workings of the human brain. This post—How To Rewire Your Brain For Greater Happiness—is interesting. Even though they are quoting scientific findings, everything they have “discovered” was already in the Bible!

Philip Nation has a great list of how God reveals Himself in every book of the Bible.

I love John Piper’s latest project called Look At The Book, which shows Piper teaching the Scripture. Check out this video—

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading from this weekend…

“Quebec just legalized euthanasia and requires every doctor to either euthanize legally qualified patients or cooperate in finding a doctor willing to provide a lethal injection. Victoria, Australia has a similar law requiring all doctors’ participation or complicity in abortion. Moreover, the American medical establishment already opposes conscience exemptions for abortion and the dispensing of contraception.” Read more in this scary post: Will Doctors Be Forced To Kill?

More scary medical news: Obamacare Driving Doctors Out Of Business. (So much for the claim “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”!)

So much for Islam being a “religion of peace”: ISIS Forcing Women To Undergo Genital Mutilation.

How would you like terrorists having a say in your internet activity? That is what will happen if ICANN is removed from US control.

“When we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for—then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.” —John Owen

“Doctrinal controversy is both essential and deadly. The attitude toward controversy in various groups of Christians depends largely on which of these two they feel most strongly. Is it essential? Or is it deadly? My plea is that we believe and feel both of these. Controversy is essential where precious truth is rejected or distorted. And controversy is deadly where disputation about truth destroys exultation in truth.” —John Piper

“There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends. But when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nothing, he flies into his Father’s arms, and how blessedly he is clasped there! So that, I say again, happy trouble that drives you to your Father! Blessed storm that wrecks you on the rock of ages!” —Charles Spurgeon

Links & Quotes

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Some good reading & watching from today…

[VIDEO] John Maxwell gives us a good reminder of what mercy is.

“There is, hidden or flaunted, a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them. It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’ But also what poor, warped fragments of humanity most mere men and mere women must be to make the implications of that arrogance plausible. Marriage heals this. Jointly the two become fully human. ‘In the image of God created He them.’ Thus, by a paradox, this carnival of sexuality leads us out beyond our sexes.” —C.S. Lewis

“The highest kind of liberality is, to redeem captives, to save them from the hands of their enemies, to snatch men from death, and, most of all, women from shame, to restore children to their parents, parents to their children, and to give back a citizen to his country.” —Ambrose

John Piper says, “We are supposed to let our light shine before others that they give glory to our Father. But in my experience shining with supernatural, divine light from another world is the very essence of non-regular.” Read the rest of his post: I Do Not Aspire To Be A “Regular Guy.”

It nauseates me when I think that my tax dollars are funding this sort of irresponsible, atrocious behavior at Planned Parenthood! Read more about the latest lawsuit against Planned Parenthood.

Praying for the peace of Israel in light of the newest Hamas attacks.

[INFOGRAPHIC] Research into the lifespans of biblical people in Did Adam Really Live 930 Years?