This month marks 18 years since we started as a four-page monthly church newsletter in September, 1998. Much has remained the same – we aim to look at contemporary culture (movies, books, music, news) from a Christian worldview. We transitioned to a non-church specific blog in late 2013.
Thanks for making us part of your life. Please let us know how we can we better serve you.
Sermon on the Mount by Sinclair B. Ferguson
I recently enjoyed listening (for the second time) to Sinclair Ferguson’s excellent 12-part teaching series Sermon on the Mount. Ligonier describes the series as follows:
“In the face of scorn and disbelief, Jesus Christ announced His kingdom. In the face of hatred and death, He demonstrated its power. In this twelve-lecture series, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson explains how the Sermon on the Mount equips us to live a kingdom life in a fallen world. Dr. Ferguson highlights Christ’s exhortations to live counter-culturally, to examine the deeper implications of God’s law, and to rest in the knowledge of God as Father for the cure of all our anxieties.”
You can watch the first message “Life in the Kingdom” and find out how to order the DVD or CD here.
Every Season Prayers: Gospel-Centered Prayers for the Whole of Life by Scotty Smith. Baker Books. 336 pages. 2016.
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With his first book, 2001’s Objects of His Affection, I was gripped by the honesty, transparency and Gospel-centeredness of Scotty Smith. I told my pastor that my desire was to take a class at Covenant Seminary with Scotty. Much later, I was blessed to have not one, but two wonderful classes with Scotty that I described as small tastes of Heaven, and have since read with joy each of his books. His daily Heavenward prayers come into my email inbox and often times speak directly to something that my wife and I have been dealing with at the time. He has told me that he receives similar feedback from friends all around the world.
His first book of prayers, Everyday Prayers, has been a daily companion of mine since it was published in 2011. I’m so excited about this new volume of prayers, which will be a treasured part of my morning devotional reading.
This new sequel to Everyday Prayers, which had a prayer for each day of the year, is arranged topically, so readers can, as Scotty tells us, find a prayer applicable to a particular need, mood or issue. He states that he wrote most of these new prayers in response to comments asking him for prayers for a particular topic. He also received many suggestion for prayers of different forms, lengths and voices, including many from pastors and worship leaders for prayers of confession and family worship.
Scotty’s intent with this new book, as it was with Everyday Prayers, is to equip God’s people to pray, not to do their praying for them. To help with that, he has included exercises in the book that will enable the reader to develop their own voice in prayer as well as cultivate a listening heart.
It is with joy that I highly commend this new book of prayers to you. May it be a wonderful daily companion for years to come!