Category: Links

Links for the Weekend (2025-01-24)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Spiritual Battles in Your Bible Reading

In January, many Christians are starting read-through-the-Bible reading plans. In this short podcast episode (there’s a transcript!), John Piper explains three spiritual attacks to expect surrounding your Bible reading and then nine benefits of Bible reading.

Expect opposition. Satan hates the word of God and will disincline you, blind you, distract you, bore you. He will fight with all his might to keep this from happening. So pray and fight and ask God to make all four of those things that Satan tries to do to backfire, to blow up in his face as you become a stronger warrior against him — your heart inclined, your blindness removed, focus instead of distraction, excitement instead of boredom. So, expect opposition.

A Template of Praise from Psalm 103

James Johnston writes about the first few verses of Psalm 103 and how they can help us remember what God has done for us and praise him accordingly.

Fifth, God “satisfies you with good” (Ps. 103:5). Satisfied is how I feel after Thanksgiving; I don’t need anything else. God fulfills our deepest hunger and longings. He says, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10). He is not stingy and cheap with his people. “He would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (Ps. 81:16).

Rhymes

Our poem of the week is Rhymes, by JC Scharl in Ekstasis Magazine. This sonnet takes a lighter tone with a heavy topic; it works!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-01-17)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Why Don’t We Read The Bible More? Three Common Misunderstandings

Ava Ligh looks at the real reasons (not just the stated reasons) we don’t read the Bible. She clears up some misunderstandings about the purpose of Bible reading to help us on our way.

Most sermons and Bible teachings tend to approach Scripture through a medical paradigm. The text is seen as offering a diagnosis and remedy for a specific problem within the congregation, and the sermon concludes with various prescriptions or applications to address the symptoms of that problem. However, Jesus encourages us to engage with Scripture through an agricultural paradigm, where the Word of God is compared to a seed that must be received (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). 

Nearness is Enough

Kirsten Black writes about her experience in the hospital as one of her sons was dying. She honestly wrestles with the promise of God’s nearness and how or whether that’s a good thing in the midst of suffering.

So, what does the nearness of God look like amid our trials and our suffering? For years, I thought the nearness of God would mean that everything would be okay or, at the very least, feel okay. I hoped that his nearness would mean some sort of tangible presence, some sort of relief from pain. I hoped that it would act as a shield and protection around me, that it would stop the fiery arrows of the enemy from penetrating my heart. But that was not the nearness of God.

When

Our poem of the week is When, by Henry Lewis in Ekstasis Magazine. Brace yourselves—this one is about dying.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-01-10)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

You Can’t Life-Hack Your Way to Holiness

Trevin Wax has written about how our culture’s obsession with techniques and results may have affected our approach to growing in holiness.

We live in an era flooded with life hacks—new exercise regimens, cooking recipes, productivity shortcuts, and self-optimization strategies. The message is clear: Find the right technique and everything will change. We’re bombarded with marketing, which influences how we think, even in spiritual matters. This hyperfocus on techniques and disciplines often drives our conversations about spiritual formation. We’re drawn to it because of our consumer society and our hearts’ inclination toward self-justification. The desire for self-optimization warps into the belief we’re responsible for our spiritual growth.

Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions: What Makes Me Special?

This post is relevant for all parents, but it is also important for all Christians who might talk to young people. (Which is all of us, hopefully!) When children ask what makes them special, Sarah Walton has some suggestions for how to answer. (This is available as a video and a written article.)

Especially for kids going up into junior high and high school ages, as they’re being flooded with questions of identity, this message is increasingly important. It’s so important to begin this conversation early to help them see that their identity is fixed in Jesus Christ, not in anything that they do or can accomplish.

It will be so freeing for them if we can help them build from there because the reality is, sometimes the gifts we have can be taken. That happened to me. I was an athlete, and I lost it all through an injury. It completely changed the trajectory of my life.

Two Poems

Here are two great poems which have Christmas or New Year connections. Enjoy!

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Why Isn’t Hope a Fruit of the Spirit? If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-01-03)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

How Healthy Is Your Soul? Six Questions for a New Year

At Desiring God, Scott Hubbard provides some questions to help us take our spiritual temperature at the start of a new year.

So no, the purpose of these questions is not to condemn, but rather to expose any area where we have cooled insensibly, by degrees, by little and little. And therefore the purpose of these questions is to draw us nearer to the Lord who has warmth enough to melt our coldness, if only we bring ourselves close to him.

3 Illustrations That Help Us Understand What It Is to Be “in Christ”

I linked to several articles related to union with Christ last year. Here’s another one, with a link to a book that looks to be good.

Without an understanding of what it means to be in Christ, our view of the Christian life becomes blurry. The ideas will still be there, of course—we’ll know that we’re justified through the death of Christ alone, that we will one day join him in resurrection life, that in the meantime we’re to commit ourselves to walking in holiness, and that all this is to be understood and worked through in the context of a local church. The pieces will be in place, but they won’t fully cohere—they’ll seem like separate elements, each of which we admire in its own way but which, like Lego bricks poured out onto the table, are meant to fit together and make a whole. Union with Christ is the lens through which all these parts of the Christian life can be seen most sharply and beautifully.

Bible Reading Plans for 2025

Ligonier has rounded up more than 20 Bible reading plans for 2025. Check them out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-12-27)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Beauty & Brokenness

This author reflects on the beauty and brokenness in the world and writes about Christmas in this context.

There is so much that is beautiful. And there is so much that is broken. This is the case in the particularity of our own lives as well as at a global scale. Just today I have been a recipient of beauty: good food on my plate, the wind stirring up the waves at the beach, my wife. There has been brokenness too: the trail of litter along the street from the takeaway stores, neglected gardens, ugly things I can detect in my own heart.

What Did Mary Know? Maybe More Than You Know

This post looks at Mary and her famous song and deduces that she knew quite a lot of the word of God.

Poems of the Week

Not one or two but three poems this week, all by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell: The Body in Advent, Upon the Winter Solstice & Fourth Sunday of Advent Falling on the Same Day, and Solstice Poem.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-12-20)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Darkness Does Not Win

In the midst of a world that, at times, seems filled with personal pain and terrible tragedies, it is good to read Kevin DeYoung’s reminder that Jesus is the light of the world. The darkness will not win.

Why can we be confident that the darkness will not win? It’s not because of grandma’s cooking or a familiar Christmas movie. It’s not because dreams come true when we believe, no matter what we actually believe. Our confidence is rooted in history; our faith is based on fact. What we celebrate in this season is not the triumph of the human spirit or the importance of family or the power of positive thinking. We worship a baby boy born in a bloody mess in a manger in Bethlehem. 

Does God hate the sin but love the sinner?

Andrew Walker tackles this question in a wise and gentle way: does God hate the sin but love the sinner? Be sure to stick around for the end of the video, where Dr. Walker demonstrates how our answers to this question can introduce the gospel.

Deliver Us

We have a song instead of a poem this week: Deliver Us, by Andrew Peterson. This excellent song is taken from Peterson’s Christmas album, Behold the Lamb of God.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-12-13)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Recovering Christ at Christmastime

Here’s a brief but powerful reflection about Christ and Christmas from Sinclair Ferguson.

Perhaps the reason that He is not central to us at Christmastime is that He has been stolen from our lives long before Christmas. So the first issue to settle is really this: Is Jesus central in my life day by day during the rest of the year? If not, why would I imagine that He will suddenly become central to me on Christmas Day?

Can I Pray to the Holy Spirit?

This is an important question, and Fred Sanders gives a good (short) answer: can I pray to the Holy Spirit? (This is a video with a transcript.)

Advent Sunday: Christina Rossetti

Our poem of the week: Advent Sunday, by Christina Rossetti. This poem contemplates the second coming of Christ, one of the important practices of Advent.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-12-06)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

We Need Advent

T. M. Suffield writes about how the waiting of Advent is just the thing we need.

Advent can help us. This is a season of darkness, focused on the second coming of Jesus. It’s a time of waiting. It’s a time to really feel the tension of living in the Between, this suspended moment between what was and what will be. The Church are a people of the Between, a people of gloaming, of the time when it’s neither night nor day, the time between the times.

You’re Exactly As Holy As You Want To Be

This article from Tim Challies is a sobering reminder of our still-being-sanctified wills. We now have the ability to resist sin, but we often put up little fight. This should not only sober us, but our unity with Christ should give us hope.

Yet that’s only partially true. There’s another sense in which each of us is exactly as holy as we want to be. How is that the case? Because there is no one who can force us to sin and nothing that can force us to fail to do whatever is righteous in any given moment. There is no one who can keep us from deriving spiritual growth and benefit from any of the circumstances of our lives. No one, that is, except ourselves. If we ever wonder who is hindering our holiness, we don’t need to look any further than the closest mirror.

Six Questions Our Children Have that Demand Answers

Here’s a look at the sorts of questions our children ask as they mature. The author provides some advice on helpful answers we can supply.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-11-29)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

How Do I Raise Grateful Kids?

Sam Crabtree has some advice on raising grateful children.

So if our kids are born thankless, how can we raise kids to recognize with heartfelt gratitude that they are served by an endless conveyor belt of divinely supplied benefits including life, breath, and everything? How can we help them see that God is working all things together for the good of those who love him? How can we help them see that he is good all the time and that our pleasure in him is enlarged and deepened and gladdened when we consciously thank him? How can we raise grateful kids?

We Thank You, Lord

It might be good to read this one slowly. Andrea Sanborn gives thanks to the Lord and invites us to join her.

A Liturgy for Rest

This liturgy for rest is a prayer for weary, hurried Christians who need to slow down and visit with God.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Giving Detailed Thanks for Coffee. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-11-22)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Why Am I So Spiritually Dry?

Glenna Marshall writes about what God’s purposes might be in allowing our spiritually dry spells.

Anytime I find myself slogging through a spiritual dry spell, I am forced sit with my open Bible and admit my helplessness to the Lord. I know how to do the spiritual disciplines. I know how to check the to-do list of faithfulness. I know how to dig into God’s Word for answers, how to promise to pray for people—and follow up on it. I know how to lead Bible study and discipleship groups. I know how to walk the Christian walk that keeps my heart in line. But, without the Lord’s help, without His Spirit working in me, without His leadership, I can do nothing to bring about growth.

Good Night, My Son

Here’s a touching tribute by a father who lost a son too young, complete with some good lessons about faith in the midst of grief.

We still have our dark days and are grateful for the moments when light shines through the gloom. One thought that has proved therapeutic is that what happened to Mwansa was precisely what we were preparing him for. When he was a child in our home, we often pleaded with him to yield his life to Christ in order to prepare to meet his Maker. Well, he was prepared, and he went ahead of us to meet his Savior and his God.

Stars

Our poem of the week: Stars, by Rhys Laverty. This is a melodic poem about the heavens God has created.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.