Another quote from Speaking the truth in Love by David Powlison:
The place of grace? Biblical counseling is the ministry of God’s grace to individuals, just as biblical preaching is the ministry of God’s grace to crowds. Grace is the only context in which to take any soul to task. (p48)
Closing words from chapter 3.
David Powlison on one of two types of people we counsel:
They are fundamentally closed to what the true God is all about. Perhaps they view God as “the errand boy to satisfy [their] wandering desires” as Bob Dylan sang. They might talk God-talk and be religiously active and have spiritual experiences…but they want something else out of it all. Or they might simply not care about God’s point of view. Most non-hearers crave thinking well of themselves. They get angry when God insists we glorify him instead of serving our lust for self-esteem. Such people don’t want to need Jesus. They want to be okay on their own. They want to be the hero of their own spiritual journey, not a small part in Jesus’ story.
From Speaking Truth In Love (p. 37). New Growth Press. Kindle Edition.
The Last Battle is the last book in the Chronicles of Naria and tells of the end of Narnia and the afterlife of Narnians. Some have said that it tells us something about the Eschatology of C.S. Lewis. With this in mind, I have written an analysis of the book in an attempt to examine how it aligns with Biblical references to eschatology and, if possible, assess Lewis’s own eschatological perspective.
How did Cherie, a busy mother memorize 32 chapters of the Bible? Is it possible for you to memorize scripture? Read through the methods Cherie used and see for yourself. It is possible. Don’t start with the goal of memorizing 32 chapters, but start with a goal of memorizing a chapter and work from there.
If you haven’t already read Cherie’s story, it is encouraging, and I encourage you to read it.
After my post about memorizing scripture in January, I received an email from a busy wife and mother named Cherie who told me she had been memorizing scripture and had now memorized 32 chapters in total, and was on her way to memorizing more.
Cherie was willing to share her story, so here it is. In this post she explains how she started and the benefits she has received from it. On Wednesday she shares her methods for memorizing scripture. If you are a busy mother, be encouraged that it is possible to learn the word of God well, in spite of your hectic schedule. Like anything worthwhile, it takes consistent effort, but it is possible.
If only the flesh would sit still so that we can slay it! In The enemy within, Kris Lungaard reminds us that it will fight all the way. He likens it to a wounded badger that will scratch and claw at us. He gives three specific ways that the flesh will fight back along with a provocative response to it.
There are some great quotes in the Screwtape letters. I posted a few on Wednesday, but I wanted to share one more.
The Screwtape letters are a series of letters written by a senior demon to a junior demon penned by Lewis and released in 1941. The senior demon is mentoring his young apprentice in the finer points of directing men to hell (and away from the “Light”). We see the subtlety of demonic thinking in his book, but we also see that Lewis was very aware of where certain thinking would end up going.
And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognised, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn’t been doing very well lately.
The distinction Screwtape is making here is critical. Read more »
C. S. Lewis’ 1938 Sci-Fi novel Out of the Silent Planet chronicles the voyage of three men, two of whom are partnering for their own reasons and a lone philologist on a walking tour who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and won’t be missed if he disappears. Weston and Devine drug Ransom (the philologist) and take him to the planet of Malacandra (which turns out to be Mars). Weston and Devine have been there before, and were asked them to bring back another person with them as (they believe) a sacrificial offering. Their belief that the Malacandrians are unsophisticated savages and that humanity represents the most highly advanced civilization in existence makes them willing to sacrifice Ransom for the greater benefit to come from Malacandra.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book chronologically in the Chronicles of Narnia (although it was the first book published). It traces the discovery of the magical world of Narnia by the Pevensies not long after the beginning of World War two.
The youngest, Lucy discovers a magical Wardrobe and hides in it during a game. She discovers that it is actually a gateway to another world. Eventually her brothers and sister also enter the “country in the wardrobe”[i] and discover that Narnia has been expecting them for many long years and that are destined to rule Narnia as kings and queens. Read more »
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