Do you love the smell of an old book? Just finished a delightful rereading Out of the Silent Planet, Space Trilogy Series, the first C. S. Lewis fiction I read when I was a new teenage Christian in 1970 (The Problem of Pain was my first Lewis nonfiction). It’s the first of his space trilogy, and I’m about to read again Perelandra (alternative Brit title: Voyage to Venus).
With all the attention on the NBA playoffs, it seems a fitting time to tell a basketball story.
John Wooden, now 99 years old, was the first person to become a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player (class of 1961) and as a coach (class of 1973). Wooden’s UCLA teams won an incredible ten NCAA National Championships in a twelve year period. He coached national championship teams, and all-time NBA greats such as Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton.
John Wooden is a Christian. He says, “I have always tried to make it ...
I grew up without Christ and without the church. When I was in high school I attended a church for the wrong reason—to see a girl I'd met. But God can use even our wrong motives for his right purposes. (In fact, years later that girl became my wife!) At that church and in the youth group there, I heard the gospel for the first time.
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Our friend Amy Guerino recently wrote a thoughtful blogpost that really spoke to me. I asked her permission to share it with you here.
The Pressure to Accomplish Snuffs Out the Pleasure of Being God's ChildPeasant Woman Threading a Needle by Jules Breton
“To live in the past and future is easy. To live in the present is like threading a needle.”
~ Walker Percy in Lancelot
In his book Conformed to His Image Kenneth Boa explains, “For many people, life has become so filled with if-only of the future that today becomes an inconvenient obstacle in the path of reaching tomorrow…We have a natural tendency to invest our energies in goals and accomplishments we hope to achieve in the days ahead. The problem is that even when we are able to attain these ends, we are already thinking of the next one. Thus, by moving from one product to product, we are rarely alive to the realities of the present.”
I was recently asked the following question on Facebook:
"I had a woman come to my door today, wanting to share the gospel. Why is it that even though I know what I believe and why I believe it, that it is so hard to share with others? She was a Jehovah's Witness, and asked if she could come back to share a scripture again. I told her yes. I will be better prepared next time, but how do I become better prepared?"
In Letter 30 of Lord Foulgrin's Letters, I have one demon instructing another one how to keep a Christian from sharing the gospel...
What does it mean to be a Protestant? These are five of the major teachings of the reformers by which they distinguished their beliefs from those of the Roman Catholic church of their day.
I so emphatically agree with John piper's assessment of this that I'm quoting his whole blog on it. Do NOT interpret the name change as compromise, but only as good strategy.
I'm the author of over 40 books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries. I love Jesus, my wife Nanci, and our daughters, sons and five grandsons!
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