Blog
A History of Loneliness, Reflections on the Sexual Revolution, & Overcoming Decision Fatigue
Wisdom for Your Weekend: Your regular installment of what we've been reading (and watching) from around the web. We gather the best and leave out the rest.
In the Valley of Despair, Call to Mind God's Goodness
Like any good father, God allows his children to go through some pain, but he never enjoys it, and he only allows it because he knows that the pain will ultimately produce greater joy. We can trust that God is good because of what his Word reveals about his character. He saved the children of Israel from slavery when he didn’t have to. He sent Jesus to die for our sins when he didn’t have to. We see Jesus’ heart break over every lost sinner and every suffering soul.
God Hasn't Called You to Be Tired
For most of us, between work, family, kids, and just managing life, we’re tired. It doesn’t help that we have a culture that chronically overworks, even going so far as to teach overwork as a value. Every study out there, of course, shows that overwork is bad for us—for our families and our health. We Christians usually know that God doesn’t want us to overwork. And yet Christians don’t seem to be any less tired than everyone else in our frenetic culture.
Becoming a Question-Asker, the Failed Unity of the War on Terror, and Disaster Relief for Hurricane Florence
Wisdom for Your Weekend: Your regular installment of what we've been reading (and watching) from around the web. We gather the best and leave out the rest.
Radically Ordinary Hospitality
I’ve been reading an excellent new book recently by Rosaria Butterfield, called The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World. Rosaria has a gift for communication, which comes through in this book. But she also has a gift for discernment—recognizing the need of the hour for the American church. And one of the biggest needs of the hour now is a return to biblical hospitality.
What Good Things Are Keeping You from Essential Things?
What Martha was doing—serving and taking care of people—was not bad. She was even using her spiritual gifts. Jesus’s gentle rebuke of her was that she had let many good things keep her from the one essential thing. That’s almost always how distraction works. Like Martha, you trade something that you only get one shot at for a bunch of things that, in the scheme of life, aren’t that important.
Resources for Shame
As we at the Summit go through our "Smoke from a Fire" series, exploring the ways our emotions reveal our inner struggles, we want to share follow-up resources from our Pastor of Counseling, Brad Hambrick. This week's resources focus on the topic of shame.
Accountability for Sexual Abuse, Political Polarization, & Being a Christian on Social Media
Wisdom for Your Weekend: Your regular installment of what we've been reading (and watching) from around the web. We gather the best and leave out the rest.
Ten Lonely Seconds to Justify Your Existence
All of your work will be done for one of these two ends: as an offering to glorify God or as a way to justify yourself. And if your work is really just your 10 lonely seconds—or 70 lonely hours a week—to justify your whole existence, “rest” will be out of the question. You will never be able to rest because you will always be wondering, “Have I done enough? Am I significant enough? Do I matter now?”
Four Things God Promises When He Says, “I Will Protect You”
As you read through the amazing promises of Psalm 91, do you ever have doubts spring up? The psalm seems to be saying that if you trust God, nothing bad will happen to you, and your life will go smoothly. (Even to the point that you won’t stub your toe!) And, the opposite seems to be implied as well: If things aren’t going well, you must not be trusting God. That’s a troubling conclusion, isn’t it?
About J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear is the pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, NC and author of several books including Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches That Send.