Christmas Links: Theology of Carols and more

It is December 21st. Four more days to Christmas. Are you ready?

Don’t Miss List: “Favorite” Heresies, Don’t Trust Your Heart, How to Reach the Suffering and More

This list has been a long time coming. Quite a bit of ground to cover, since I haven’t done this for awhile. I’ll start with the most timely subjects:

“This is the last spastic breath from the Religious Right before its overdue death” – Collin Hansen

I generally avoid political issues like the plague around here. I believe the gospel and the truth contained in God’s word matter more than politics ever could. However, this opinion piece by Collin Hansen of TGC speaks directly to Christians about the latest Trump scandal and, is, in my view an essential read. Read it even if you don’t love the headline (I didn’t like the headline) – a better one would have been from the end “Woe to the hypocrites.”

The passage I found most pertinent:

To the older evangelicals planning to vote for Trump: You can try to explain the difference in electing a president and hiring a 23-year-old college graduate to evangelize students. You can say we’re electing a commander in chief and not a Sunday school teacher. You can say that God often raises up pagan leaders to deliver his people from their enemies. But no one is fooled by your arguments.

They can see you will apparently excuse anything in a Republican nominee so long as the alternative is a manifestly unqualified Clinton. And they will conclude that they don’t really need to listen to you when it comes to “traditional, biblical ethics.”

Keep reading at The Washington Post

When Someone Claims God Will Make You Rich, or Happy …

The next time someone like Joel Osteen (author of Your Best Life Now) claims God just wants to make you happy, or healthy or rich and try to claim that is what the Bible promises, ask them why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:

“Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one — I am talking like a madman — with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger  from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

The Word: James 1:2-18 and related sermon series

 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,  being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

‘Ordinary Heroes’ of Hungary

This week WORLD published this story I wrote about the refugee and migrant crisis impacting all of Europe.

The Word: Psalm 34

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!

I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

The Word: 2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 

A Beautiful Reminder in Song

This would have been a better post for Music Monday, but here it is anyway.

The Word: Romans 5:1-11

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

How to Find God’s Will for Your Life God’s Way

The subject of God’s will and specifically how to know God’s will for your life is something that confuses many people. There’s also some really terrible teaching out there about how to find it, so when the interim pastor at my church preached on the subject a couple weeks ago and knocked it out of the park a clear and biblical explanation I knew I needed to share it. So with his permission I’ve constructed this post, cribbing from the notes I took that morning and the verse list he provided me with.