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Are You a Contender?

by Rebecca Stark, author of The Good Portion: God

Recently, a Canadian mother saved her young son from a cougar that attacked him in her family’s backyard. She pried open the cougar’s jaws with her bare hands as he tried to drag the boy away. A few years ago I read a news story about another British Columbia woman who saved her son from a cougar using a kitchen towel. These two mothers courageously risked their own lives to protect their boys. 

If you google the phrase “mom saves child from cougar,” you’ll find stories of other heroic mamas. One mother used a camping cooler, and another a water bottle to rescue their children from an attacking cougar. One brave mom managed to save her child but died from her own injuries. 

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Faith Like Redwoods

Our family took a drive up the coast of California one summer.  Out of all the beautiful scenery we saw, the most amazing was the Redwood Forests, home to the biggest trees in the world.

A redwood tree is quite a sight.  The first giant we saw was a famous tree whose girth was wide enough to drive a truck through.  As you can imagine, it was huge.  But driving through a single tree doesn’t compare to the experience of driving into the redwood forests.  Hundreds of towering trees with enormous, deep red trunks surrounded by beds of lush ferns created spectacular scenes that made us feel we had entered into a magical fairyland.  We explored in and through the trees, enjoying the quietness, interrupted occasionally by the melodic click of an insect or frog.  We marveled at how great and beautiful our God is.  He spoke these majestic redwoods into being, along with the hawks that nest in their branches and the chipmunks that run at their feet.  The beauty and wonder of the forests must pale in comparison to him.

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Retiring with Heavenly Treasure

I’m proud of my father. He’s the definition of a self-made man. His parents were hardworking but not highly educated (neither had been to college). His father worked on an assembly line; his mother in an office. Dad didn’t do so well in high school but wanted to succeed, so against his counselor’s recommendation, he went to the local community college. He worked as a clerk in a record store (for Millennials that means music store) to pay his fees. Soon he was doing the job of an accountant and graduated from the state college with a business degree. He ambitiously worked to move up the ladder. If he wasn’t being promoted fast enough in his current company, he would move to a better position in a new one. Eventually, he became a financial vice president and then started his own company. He ran that expanding company for 20 years and is now retired.

That was my dad’s end-goal all along—a comfortable retirement. He kept his eye on the ball, working hard, regularly putting money away and making wise investments. He taught us the key to having a good amount of money at retirement is starting to save when you’re young and continuing that practice over years. My dad reached his goal. He and my mom have a nice house, travel when they want and are generous to family and friends. They live the American dream.

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4 Marks of a Potential Bible Study Leader

There were tears in many eyes as Barbara, always an encourager, told us how much we had meant to her. It was our group’s last meeting of the year, and Barbara was moving away.

Read the rest of this article here.

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Christmas is Coming!

The first Christmas was announced with great joy. Emmanuel was coming into the world!

We were created for this joy—the joy of knowing God and experiencing his presence. Why not give your mother, daughter, sister or friend a Christmas gift that increases that joy?

The Good Portion: Scripture will cause you to see the treasure that is God’s word and to savor its sweetness.

The Good Portion: God will open your eyes to God’s glory and lead you to rejoice in his goodness.

Curl up with a good book this Christmas and give a gift that keeps on giving joy.

 

For U.S. orders click on the above links. For international orders: TGP: Scripture, TGP: God.

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Not All Women’s Bible Studies Are Created Equal

Linda and Connie didn’t come to church but were regular attenders at women’s Bible study. They did their workbook homework, never missed a week, and were big fans of our video teacher. When we switched to a more intensive, inductive study one fall, they weren’t happy, though they continued to attend.

But then something happened. Linda and Connie started delighting in God’s Word. As they studied the passage for the week, they began to spend hours each day looking up every cross-reference in their study Bibles.

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The True Story

There’s controversy swirling over Disney stories again. After reading Snow White, actress Kristen Bell asks her daughters, “Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? Because you cannot kiss someone if they’re sleeping!”

Consent is a hot topic these days. Freshmen on college campuses attend classes and discussions where counselors stress the necessity of consent but then have to define what it means. A “yes” is not a “yes” if the woman is too drunk to make rational decisions. (Of course, there’s very little discussion on the danger of getting drunk in the first place. And there’s no warning that if your decision-making capability is severely impaired by alcohol, it’s likely to be the same for the man you’re with.)

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Six Ways to Increase Your Delight

Love… joy… delight: do these come to mind when you picture the Bible? I love my husband. I delight in my children. I often rejoice in my relationships with others. But do I feel passionately about God’s word?

Psalm 119 overflows with words of passion. The psalmist’s love and joy jump off the page to inspire our hearts. “I find my delight in your commandments which I love, ” (vs. 47) says the psalmist to his God. He goes on to declare, “Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart” (vs. 111). What treasure causes such expressions of pleasure?

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Women and the Local Church

At the TGC Women’s Conference, 9Marks hosted a panel on Women and the Local Church. The panel sought to biblically define church and describe what a healthy church looks like. Then they answered questions from the audience about how women who are faithful members in their local church can work to build up the body of Christ.

Listen here and rejoice in the church, God’s gift to us:

Women and the Local Church

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Sneak Peek Interview of Rebecca on The Good Portion: God

Sneak Peek Interview: Rebecca Stark

Rebecca writes: “Most of all, I want each reader to catch a glimpse of God’s glory. I pray she sees his beauty as she explores who he is and what he has done. And as she reads, I hope her heart begins to sing his praises.”

Read the rest of the interview here.