Weekly Once-Over (10.02.2014)

3 Ways To Be Mission This Halloween: My guess is that if Jesus lived in our neighborhood, everyone couldn’t wait to go to his house to see what he was going to hand out this year.  Everyone would be excited to go to Jesus’ Halloween party and couldn’t wait to invite him over to their party.   My only question I wonder is “Who would Jesus dress up as for Halloween?” Who knows…but you know it’d be a killer costume.

Why We Neglect Our Bibles: But that’s often not true. Many Christians find it difficult to get into a daily habit of Bible reading. So this week John Piper addressed four common causes of Bible neglect in the Christian life, like: “I don’t read my Bible because . . .

The 6 Ingredients of Jesus' Bitter Cup: Isaac Ambrose captured so well the meaning of the cup when he set out what he believed to be the 6 ingredients that made it so burdensome a sight to the soul of the sinless Son of God...

Six Reasons To Live More Simply: How can we live more simply? There are thousands of ways. We can buy used cars rather than new, modest houses rather than expensive ones. We don’t have to replace older furniture just for appearances. We can mend and wear clothes we already have, shop at thrift stores, give up recreational shopping and costly clothes and jewelry, cut down on expensive convenience foods, and choose less costly exercise and recreation. Some of us can carpool, use public transportation, or a bike instead of a car or second car. But these are things few of us will do unless we have clear and compelling reasons. Here are six:

The Cure For Shame: Maybe you feel your shame is too much for Jesus. That he's too pure to handle the kind of shame you've been carrying around for so long. Sinclair Ferguson puts it well: "In your shame, how could someone like you come to Jesus? Because he has come to your shame, to bring you to his joy...

Five Ways To Loose The Battle With Sin: The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. One of the ways such deceit manifests itself is through convincing us that we have battled a sin and put that sin to death when really we have done nothing of the sort. John Owen is a steady guide in the battle against sin, and in chapter 5 of his great work Overcoming Sin and Temptation he deals with misconceptions about what it means to put sin to death. Here are 5 ways to lose the battle against sin...