Tim Challies of challies.com, a fabulous blog that I read regularly (and a fellow Canadian!) posted his top 10 most popular entries since he's been blogging. All of them are interesting, lots of them being book reviews. I found this one particularly moving, as he shares the poem of a woman whose marriage has been ravaged by her husband's addiction to pornography. The devastation that pornography has brought to our society is so very sad.

Read it here.

This is my niece, leila. Isn't she the cutest thing ever??

sinners in relationship with sinners

"the only way two sinners can forge a relationship of respect, appreciation, and peace is when they are relying on God's grace and are committed to give grace to one another..."

An awesome article by Paul Tripp about the painful harvest of unforgiveness in relationships.

We had so much fun carving pumpkins with our community group last week! Here's some proof of the craftiness...

One of the many reasons I love Charles Spurgeon...his solid teachings on the sovereignty of God.

"I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, 'You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.' My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

3 biblical reasons to exercise

My family and friends who know me best know that I'm an avid exerciser. My solitary run, pick up basketball with friends or lifting circuit at the gym is something that I really look forward to each day. The exercise endorphins got a hold of me in high school and even more in college, and they haven't let go of me since. Now I can't stop myself from remembering how good it feels to get active, so that the laziest moods can be won over by the familiar feeling of post-workout satisfaction and energy. Exercise has also been shown to decrease feelings of depression and heighten energy. As I continue studying in the field of mental health, I've seen that one of the first interventions for people who are depressed is simply getting them more active each day.

Here are three biblical reasons for exercise from David Parrish on The Resurgence:

1. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that our body is God's temple where his Spirit dwells (1 Cor 6:19)

2. Our bodies are members of Christ and should not be abused (1 Cor 6:15)

3. Our body is not our own, it is God's. How dare we desecrate it on purpose? (1 Cor 6:19-20)

What a lot of people forget is that exercise can be simply walking for 30 minutes a day while chatting with a friend, playing with their dog or taking a post-dinner bike ride. The important thing is to get moving as a starting point.

The flip side of needing more exercise is where I can easily fall if I'm not careful, making exercise an idol that I hold in a clenched fist, unwilling to let go if I can't do it when I want to and how often I want to. My heart can so quickly fall into a legalistic idolatry with exercise where I set rules for myself that must be satisfied or I become upset or guilty. This idolatry is something that I must continually war against, remembering that my body is Christ's temple, not for my own good, but for the glory of the Father. There are times when I will have to sacrifice my own wants so that I can worship God with my time, my energy, my relationships with others, my heart. At these moments, I have to remember 1 Timothy 4:8. "Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."