Tessa, by Melissa Wiltrout

Tessa: From Fear to Faith by Melissa Wiltrout
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I downloaded this to my Kindle a year ago, and yesterday I finally started to read it. Finished this morning. Stopped for 6 hours in the middle for some sleep!
Needless to say, the story gripped me tight. I praise God for it. Thank you, Melissa, for writing it, and getting it published. I pray that many others will read it, and find Jesus Christ the way Tessa, Walter, and Julie did. I John 1:1-10.

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Review: Government for the Christian (Samuel C. Smith)

Government for the Christian by Samuel Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have the actual paper version, and also a PDF version (easier on my eyes).

Even though this book is only 100 pages long, I had to read it slowly. I had to concentrate so as not to slip into just letting my eyes move over the pages. I had to actually _think_ while I was reading!

I was amazed at the quantity and quality of material covered in such a small number of pages. I was also very encouraged to read such a well constructed and well considered argument for the kind of government a Christian should try to help achieve, and how to live under the actual government we have. The book was published in 2015, but I find it even more important in 2020.

With the author's permission, you can read the book on my website at https://www.txbobsc.com/books/govt4xian/ The online version is easier to read (no conflicting background graphics), and has hover-popup's for all Bible references and footnotes.

 

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impossible situations = incredible opportunities

I like this quote from Charles Swindoll: "Because of Jesus, we can view life as a series of incredible opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." [The Greatest Life of All: Jesus, page 110.]

Love Thy Body

As part of the launch team for Love Thy Body, by Nancy Pearcey, I have been reading this new book for the last four weeks or so.

I learned a lot. It is challenging to read, stretching my mind. I feel like I have come upon the scene of a horrible catastrophe (earthquake, hurricane, plane crash, ...) and I want to dive in to rescue and restore as many as possible.

What do abortion, euthanasia, and transgenderism have in common? They all share a common worldview which declares the body to be relatively meaningless, exalting the mind, and separating being a person from being human.

This book goes deep into the mire of modern immorality to find the underlying assumptions, misconceptions, and outright lies that mute the consciences of many. The post-modern worldview demeans the body, declaring it meaningless, and in the names of "freedom" and "choice" drifts away into whatever the mind presently conceives.

Buy this book and study it to learn what is happening in our present world, and taught in our schools, from kindergarten to post-graduate; to begin to understand the danger and the challenge or it all; and to arm yourself with tools to help those who are suffering. Two quotations:

"Christians need to help people see that the secular view of human nature does not fit who people are. It does not match the real world. As a result, it is inevitably destructive, both personally and socially."

"Christians must also show compassion to those who are pressured by a 'pomosexual' [post-modern sexual] society to despise their own bodies and reject their biological identity. Loving God means loving those who bear his image in the world, helping to liberate people who are trapped by destructive and dehumanizing ideas."

Christ is All -- Henry Law, 1860

"We live in days, when countless fallacies assume the garb of truth: and fain we would expel them. But theologic error is a skilful adversary. It must be wisely met; and truest wisdom is intelligence of Christ. He is the weapon, before which Romaic frauds, and Neologic sophistries, and all obliquities of mind and life, fall low. In Him there is reply for every error's every wile. Christ truly seen is the mind's richest store. Christ well applied is falsehood's death-blow. He is God's wisdom in the highest. It is our highest wisdom to be versed in Him." 

Arch-Deacon Henry Law, "Christ is All", pages vi and vii

Noah Webster's description of the Bible

The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is 'good', and the best corrector of all that is 'evil', in human society; the 'best' book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the 'only book' that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity.

-- from the Preface to Noah Webster's 1833 limited revision of the King James Bible.

There's nothing to do...

How often I have heard or said, "There's nothing to do."  This bored plea for entertainment, excitement, etc., overlooks all those commands of God, things we are to DO.

All the entertaining and exciting escapes from loneliness and boredom which really work involve being with other people, interacting with them.  There are people all around us who are just as hungry as we are for some release from routine and ennui.  At first they may seem cold and distant, while they figure out what we are up to, who we are, how serious we are about being their friends.

"I know I should/could do this or that, but they are boring."  Some things must be done, boring or not.  We brush our teeth, comb our hair every day -- what could be more routine, more boring?  Yet we do them religiously.  We have many such responsibilities.  Other things we do could be more enjoyable if we think of them positively, creatively.  Still others, if we share them with someone else.  And others, we should not do at all, they steal our time and strength.

"I am tired of doing all these worthless things -- I want to do things which really count!"  Well, what would you say does really count?  Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!  Not quite -- if we accept God's value system, working with His Word, ministering with people are two very worthwhile things.  The Word is eternal, and so are people.  We have the opportunity to be involved in things of ETERNAL value!  "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.(Eph.2:10)

Encouraging, Giving, Showing mercy, Teaching, Comforting, Exhorting, Helping, Evangelizing -- and on and on and on.  Don't say you can't -- you already do these things to some degree -- and God has specially gifted each one of us in various different areas, so that we may all serve Him and others.  "Each one should use whatever spiritual gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."   (I Peter 4:10)
(rbsc 1976)

Our Daily Bread: How Food Proves God's Providence

by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D.

Sometimes the proof that God is our Creator comes in the form of a potato, or lingonberries, or cheese, or eggs, or a codfish. Each type of food is a witness to God’s providential care. The meals consumed over a human lifetime offer a huge quantity of proof, from a huge pantry of witnesses!

...more

My new favorite hymn

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great High Priest whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Saviour and my God!

(The musical setting for this was written by Vikki Cook in the 1990s. It has been recorded by many groups, and you can hear it here.)

(Lyrics written by Charitie Lees (Smith) Bancroft, when she was about 21 years old, in 1863 in Ireland. Good article about it here.)

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them: [It] "might be helpful is to reach a consensus between parents and their children as to what terms related to personal responsibility mean. Here are ten terms that come to mind for me:

1. Commitment: the level of dedicated action(s) you continue to take after your enthusiasm for an enterprise stops.
   
2. Accountability: taking full responsibility for your actions by owning up to the negative or failed results, taking action to make up for it to the person(s) you let down, and learning what you did wrong so that it doesn't occur again.
   
3. Maturity: how well you are able to resist an irresistible impulse and instead have and exercise judgment and do the reasonable thing. In the brain we refer to this as exercising one's executive function.
   
4. Honesty: this is simply telling the truth according to the facts as you understand them. You know honesty best, when you tell a lie. Pathological liars lie whenever they are trying to get their way and take advantage of a situation. Compulsive liars lie both when the are trying to get their way and when they are trying to get out of facing the consequences of their actions.
   
5. Forthrightness: this is coming forward and telling the truth and revealing untruths that you become aware of. It's believing and following Justice Louis Brandeis words: "Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant."
   
6. Character: what you do when you are frustrated, angry, annoyed, afraid and/or bored and nobody is watching and your chance of getting caught is close to nil.
   
7. Sacrifice: what you do unto others who will not (immediately) be able to pay you back by doing unto you.
   
8. Compassion: what you feel unto others who will not be able to do more than say, "Thank you."
   
9. Thinking ahead and planning: overcoming the aversion to anything that causes you to forego immediate gratification.
   
10. Listening: and then pausing to consider what you've heard before rejecting it, tuning out or competing with it (a skill every generation needs to learn)."