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Sinner in the Hand of Angry Saints – “It is a great thing to rejoice in our standing as saints before the throne of God. It is a joyful thing to know that God’s peace with us is not dependent on nor grounded in our obedience to His law. It is, however, a bad thing to forget that though we are in Christ, sin has not yet been completely eradicated from our lives. It is a bad thing to forget that sin is a failure to do what God commands, or to do what He forbids. Let us, as He forgets our sin, forget its curse. But let us confess its presence. And let’s not, due to our truncated means of discourse, embrace a truncated theology.”

How Can We Tell When God is Really at Work – This post looks at four distinguishing marks that Jonathan Edwards identified that indicate God is working.

Weakness Is An Advantage – “God was breaking Elijah as a way of preparing to use him, and he is often at work in the same way in our lives. Someone we trust betrays us; or we lose our job; or we have a sudden decline in health. In all of this, God is at work—removing our idols, those areas of false trust, false joy, and false hope. Because if dependence is the objective, weakness is an advantage.” *(H/T)

The Wedding Vows 20 Years Later – I very much appreciated this heartfelt and honest look what wedding vows mean to one couple as they celebrate their 20th anniversary (and how it differs from when they first uttered those words.) (H/T)

Joy Cuts Through Everything – Dallas Willard defines joy as “a pervasive sense of well-being.” This video explains why.

Spend Your Day With Eternity in Mind – “Every day matters. Every hour matters. So spend it with eternity in mind.”

Doubting Your Doubts – “The answer to doubt is God. The answer to our questions about tithing, membership, gender roles, politics, sin, and any other aspect in life that gives us pause is God. The blight of our generation is that we believe we are god.”

How Jesus Exposed the Idol of Self-Glory – “Self-glory is revealed to be an idol in our heart when the Lord presents us with an opportunity to glorify him by speaking the truth about our convictions or our sins, yet we are unwilling to do it for fear of what someone else will think of us.”

I Hate/Love Being Busy – “We daily are rushing from this place to that, this appointment to that one, this activity to the next. We hurry, hurry, hurry until we finally drop at the end of a day and we lay down exhausted. While we might complain about the pace of our lives at a given moment, isn’t there that little piece of you that glories in your busyness? I know there is for me.”

Dallas Willard’s Granddaughter Eulogizes Him – This is old, but I still think it is worth viewing. It is very touching tribute for a grandfather that was obviously very loved.

The Big Question of Grief: Who Am I Now?  – I found this article put into words something that often isn’t considered in the midst of grief. Namely, when you have lost someone (or something), you become disoriented about what that means for who you are in light of this new reality (even for those who know that their grief is temporary in light of the Cross.) (H/T)

Is Your Child A Christian? – This is a question that every Christian parent probably wrestles with, and this article provides some helpful perspective to consider. (H/T)