Identity, Mission, Prayer, Spiritual Growth, Vocation
John Beeson
God's Special Calling on Your Life

My heart was still beating fast from the rush of adrenaline from speaking to the crowd of several hundred teens. I stepped off the stage on that hot May night and an older man put his hand on my shoulder. “God has a calling on your life, son. You are going to bring revival to your generation.” I was eighteen years old.

The words churned in my heart and mind for many years. Sometimes they were an encouragement. Sometimes they were a burden. They were always aspirational: how amazing would it be to be part of leading revival?

God's Special Calling on Your Life
Recommendations, Culture, Parenting, Wisdom
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The class divide over screen time: O. Alan Noble notes that children in lower class households spend twice as much time per day on screens. He explains the five reasons why he believes this is the cases. For instance, “The reality is that the less income you have, the less resources you have to care for your children. This includes having less income to spend on childcare, but also less emotional and mental bandwidth to care for your children because of the burdens poverty places upon you.”

  2. Life will not get easier: Stephen Witmer begins, “There’s a lie we all want to believe — even against all available evidence. It trades on our God-given capacity for hope. It tempts even those with impeccable theology.

This Week's Recommendations
Easter, Death, Identity, Suffering
John Beeson
Behold, the Suffering Servant

Isaiah’s prophetic word to Israel contains four Servant Songs. You are probably familiar with the fourth of these, which you may well have read during Holy Week as we considered Christ’s sacrifice for us. As Christians we hold onto the incongruent truths that Christ was exalted and despised. But we sometimes miss the seemingly paradox that the Servant Songs refer to Jesus and us. What is true of Christ is true of us.

Behold, the Suffering Servant
Death, Easter, Heaven
John Beeson
The Resurrection of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account

Happy Easter!

Today we consider the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What follows is a compilation of the eyewitness resurrection accounts of Jesus Christ as told by the authors of the gospels. They have been edited together to maintain the flow of the narrative and do not include Jesus’ multiple appearances following his resurrection. The accounts are framed by Paul’s extended reflection on the importance of the resurrection.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Resurrection of Jesus: An Eyewitness Account
Recommendations, Easter, Death, Heaven, Nature
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Eagles, fowl, and a Savior with wings: Kevin Burrell’s post makes my heart sing, “And a living, risen savior is still our covering today, to all those who by faith trust in his wings. In fact, we are clothed in his righteousness. He is oh-so willing to gather us under his wings.”

  2. Even to death: Jamaal Williams invites us to consider Jesus at the Mount of Olives, “Jesus models what it looks like to stumble into the presence of God—hurting but hopeful.”

This Week's Recommendations

Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       The Birth of a Daughter and the Birth of the Camera Phone: The story of how the camera phone was born.

2.       8 Major Changes in the Church in the Past 10 Years: Thom Rainer reflects on the most significant changes in the church in the past decade. It's a pretty encouraging list.

3.       A Hill to Die On: When is a hill worth dying on? Jonathan Van Maren reflects on whether hills are worth dying on. Douglas Wilson's quote is helpful and I'm still wrestling with it: "Whenever we get to that elusive and ever-receding “hill to die on,” we will discover, upon our arrival there, that it only looked like a hill to die on from a distance. Up close, when the possible dying is also up close, it kind of looks like every other hill. All of a sudden it looks like a hill to stay alive on, covered over with topsoil that looks suspiciously like common ground. So it turns out that surrendering hills is not the best way to train for defending the most important ones. Retreat is habit-forming."

4.       The Case for Free Range Kids: Lenore Skenazy makes a case for free range kids by sharing a story of the day she let her 9 year old find his way home in New York City.

5.       Thunderstruck: a collection of beautiful supercell thunderstorms.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Danny Macaskill's Wee Day Out: This is fantastic. Sweet, fun, and amazing. And the cinematography is great too!

2.       Need Volunteers? Your Church's Culture May Be the Issue: Almost every church needs volunteers. Here is the reason it may be our fault. 

3.       What’s True in the Global Warming Debate? It’s so hard to sort out truth in our politicized culture. Justin Taylor shares an example of how a thoughtful person tries to disentangle the global warming debate from the political tentacles.

4.       How to Ruin Your Teens for Life: Eleven ways to make sure your teen is not prepared for the future by Tricia Goyer.

5.       One Key Pursuit for Young Christians: Tim Challies on the importance of our early life and how differently God planned his Son's life than we would have: "But it fell to God—not you or me—to set the course for his life, and God planned it very differently. Jesus lived for around 33 years, but his entire public ministry fit into just the final three. He spent 90 percent of his life in obscurity and only 10 percent in the public eye. For every one year that was recorded, there were 10 that were not. God arranged the itinerary, and he chose to have Jesus spend 30 years in quiet preparation for his three years of public activity."

6.       Free EBook: The Gospel and Personal Evangelism: Crossway is offering one of my favorite books on evangelism for free. Check it out!

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Arizona's Monsoon Season Begins: Incredible footage of an incredible season here in Tucson. 

2.      How the Worst Moment in My Life was Also the Best: David Murray shares the story of Matthew Bryce and considers it in light of our salvation: "Just over a week ago, Matthew Bryce decided to go surfing off the Scottish coast. Within a few hours the tide and wind had blown him thirteen miles out to sea. He watched the sun set, knowing he would not survive the night."

3.      How Self-Forgetfulness Makes us Happier: Randy Alcorn on how self-forgetfulness makes us happier: " However, people who think a lot about Christ and His grace, the great doctrines of the faith, and how to love and serve others tend to be happy people. By redirecting attention from ourselves to God, we adopt a right perspective that brings happiness."

4.      What to do when singleness lasts longer than expected:  Marshall Segal shares, “Marriage is a good gift and a terrible god. Most of my grief in my teenage years and even into my twenties came from giving more of my heart to my future marriage than to God. It’s easy to anchor our hope and happiness in a wife or husband and to define our growth, maturity, and worth by our marital status. And when we worship love, romance, sex, or marriage—and not God—we welcome the pain and disappointment.”

5.      7 Things to Consider Before You Make a Political Post: Thanks to Tim Challies who pointed me to Scott Slayton’s sage advice.  

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     This is About That: That Great video on the true meaning of marriage by Andrew Wilson.

2.     What Does Evangelism Look Like in Your Day-to-Day Life? Phil Miglioratti with a call to show and tell the gospel as we go.

3.     12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You:  Excerpt from Tony Reinke’s new book.  

4.     Coptic Christians Do the Unimaginable: The incredible testimony of the forgiveness of the Egyptian Christians.

5.     Marriage Wounds: Melissa Edgington with a compelling reflection on marriage, scars and beauty: "But, a few days ago I looked down and realized that somehow in the course of my work, my ring had gotten knocked against my finger and had left a small cut there, hidden underneath the beautiful gold, a scar on the delicate-looking redhead’s fair flesh of my left hand. I was surprised to see it there, because in all of these years of dealing with babies and a mother’s work, I never remember my ring doing such a thing. But, there it was. A wound inflicted by the very symbol of never-ending love between a man and a woman."

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.     Misspellings by State: What word does each state struggle to spell? Rhode Islanders struggle with liar. Four struggles struggle with pneumonia. Louisiana and Arkansas struggle with animals: the chihuahua and the giraffe. New Hampshirites concern me with their need know how to spell "diarrhea” frequently (note to self: next time, bring immodium) Most hilarious is perhaps the south, not doing itself any favors, needing help with the very difficult words: "angel," "gray," and "nanny."

2.     The Pervasive Selfie: Phil Cooke shares, "Teen Vogue magazine reports the average millennial focuses about one hour of every week to selfies. (Shooting them, editing them, retouching them.) Writer Matt LaBash reports that, “In 2015, the social scientists at Luster Premium White, a teeth-whitening brand, calculated that at their current selfie rate, your average millennial will take up to 25,700 selfies in a lifetime. Considering that the average lifespan is only around 27,375 days, that amounts to taking nearly one selfie per day, no small feat when subtracting all the years that people are too young or too old to operate a camera phone.”...The advertising magazine Adweek, indicates: 74% of all photos on Snapchat are selfies."

3.     If only I had been saved by merit! Tim Challies exposes our hearts, "If I had earned my salvation, I could negotiate with God for more favor, for more privileges, for more benefits. I could hold up my list of accomplishments and demand fair compensation. I could compare what has been given to others and make the case for why I am deserving of all that God has given them and more besides." 

4.     Six Things You Need to Know About God's Wrath: Colin Smith tackles this difficult but important topic: “At the core of the human problem is that we are sinners under the judgment of God, and the divine wrath hangs over us unless and until it is taken away.”

5.     The Shift in America's Morality: Christianity Today reports on a recent Gallup poll about America's ever-shifting morality: "Of the 19 issues queried about, Americans have become more liberal on 13 of them (with 10 hitting record highs) and stayed consistent on 6—most notably abortion, which 43 percent of Americans and 34 percent of Protestants deem morally acceptable."

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Bob Newhart’s Six Minute Tutorial for Effective Counseling: This is an all-time family favorite, especially since my wife is a counselor. If you haven’t seen it, you’ve got to watch it. If you’ve already seen it, you can’t watch it too many times.

2.      More Than Mere Equality: Jonathan Leeman broaches the difficult topic of privilege, identity politics, and gospel peace. Leeman reflects the tension between justice and moral agency. On the one hand, “Biblical justice isn’t just a putting down of the oppressor. It is a lifting up of the oppressed and downtrodden.” On the other hand, "The bottom line here is: Identity politics, at its most careless, undermines moral agency."

3.      Disentangling Privilege: Andrew Wilson digs deeper into the topic of privilege and reflects on what he believes we should acknowledge is true about white privilege and what isn't.

4.      Check Your Privilege: Denny Burk also reflecting on Jonathan Leeman's piece says, "Obviously, these conclusions are squarely at odds with biblical teaching about guilt, justice, and reconciliation with God and with one another. And that is why we are going to have to give careful attention to the claims being made by proponents of identity politics."

5.      A Day in the Life of Americans: A mesmerizing infographic of how Americans spend their time during the day.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Cloud Inversion at the Grand Canyon: Breathtaking time lapse captures of wild cloud formations at the Grand Canyon.

2.       I Just Want Her to Be Happy: Leonard Sax speaks truth, " Today, I often hear American parents say, “I just want my child to be happy.” Unfortunately, when you let contemporary American kids do whatever makes them happy, the result is likely to be teenage girls who spend all their time on Instagram or Snapchat, and teenage boys whose favorite pastimes are video games and pornography... It is no use letting kids do whatever they desire unless you have first educated their desire. The first job of the parent is to educate the child’s desire... "

3.       What is Drawing People to Church? Gallup research surprisingly discovers the two biggest draws to church are biblical sermons and practical application in those sermons.

4.       The Type of Elder You Don’t Want: What is the most important attribute in an elder? Brian Dodd argues it is prayerfulness. 

5.       Embrace Your Purpose: Tim Challies with a similar reflection to my recent series “A Purposeful Life” " Men, this is your purpose: to bring glory to God by doing good for others. This means your life is not first about you. You’re not the point of your existence or the hero of your salvation. You were created by God and for God. You were saved to bring glory to God by doing good to others. This is your purpose." 

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Spring arrives at Central Park: perfectly orchestrated breathtaking short video.

2.       How to Raise Your Children as Best Friends: I was so grateful my sister was my best friend growing up and have been so blessed to watch our children grow up as each other's best friends. Jen Wilkin has a helpful reflection on how to cultivate that friendship.

3.       Living the Victorious Christian Life: Michael Bird on what victory in Christ looks like, "Remember, when Jesus hung upon that cross, he did not feel victorious, he felt abandoned, he felt betrayed, he experienced the full extent of human misery. And yet that is where we are told God has won his victory, his triumph, where he conquered the world, the flesh, and the devil."

4.       Schools Kill Creativity: this Ken Robinson TED talk has been watched over 45 million times and you should watch it too. I love his point that, because of our fear of being wrong, we grow out of creativity.

5.       Six Things You Need to Know About God's Wrath: Colin Smith tackles this difficult but important topic: “ At the core of the human problem is that we are sinners under the judgment of God, and the divine wrath hangs over us unless and until it is taken away.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Does Your Pastor Need Swag Seminary? Is your pastor out of style? Old? Outdated? Jon Crist takes his pastor to Swag Seminary. The results speak for themselves.

2.       What Learning Myths Do You Believe In? Illuminating quiz on learning myths. One helpful nugget: "Praising effort, rather than ability, is far more likely to motivate students to work hard and improve."

3.       When We Work and Rest: A mesmerizing infographic on how different industries work and rest during the day. 

4.       Things Your Wife Wishes You Knew: Courtney Reissig on what stay at moms want you to know.

5.       This American Life: Fermi’s Paradox: This American Life is always good. The last story on this episode asking the question “Are We Alone?” choked me up.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      Why Leaders Need to be Vulnerable: Patrick Lencioni with a great story of how to poorly ask for feedback and the benefits of real vulnerability. 

2.      Netflix’s Real Competitor: Tim Challies shares the haunting quote from the Netflix CEO that Amazon and HBO aren't their competition -- sleep is. “When you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. You really — we’re competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of time.”

3.      A Word of Encouragement About Your Labor: Michael Kruger takes on an often misunderstood verse and explains that, then empowered by the Spirit, our good works are not "filthy rags."

4.      Don’t Spiritualize Ministry Mediocrity: David Prince on how some churches explain away their lack of excellence: "To put it another way, one who says that their commitment to the primacy of preaching, leads them to have little regard for the music, parking, greeting, signage, aesthetics, friendliness, hands-on ministry, evangelism, outreach, care-giving, announcements, and so on, is simply theologizing their laziness and apathy." 

5.      Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too: Long but thought-provoking article by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, which weaves anecdotes of prodigiously productive workers with scientific studies on productivity and concludes that schedules that include shorter, focused hours with time of rest make the most productive schedules.

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