Psalms for My Day: A Child's Devotional

I love the book of Psalms, don’t you? They give voice to the groanings of my heart. They remind me of who God is and what he has done. They help me sing his praise in all of life’s circumstances.

I'm excited about a new children's book by Carine MacKenzie, Psalms for My Day: A Child’s Praise Devotional, published with Christian Focus Publications, which published my own book on the Psalms of Lament: A Heart Set Free. It's a devotional book for children, covering thirty-one psalms. What makes this book especially unique is that each psalm is in a new translation by scholar Alec Motyer, where he went back to the original Hebrew and translated it to what the words really mean. So while the psalms may sound a bit different than what we are used to reading, we get a greater sense of what the author meant.

For each psalm, there is an accompanying devotional which helps children learn more about who God is in his character. Psalms for My Day includes various genres of psalms including praise psalms, thanksgiving psalms, Messianic psalms, and laments. This devotional is Christ-centered, pointing children to the salvation that is theirs in Christ.

I loved the devotional on Psalm 13, a lament where David cried out to God, “how long will you hide your face from me?”

“When we feel down and sad—whether it is about the sin in our own heart or problems cause by others—the best thing we can do is pray to the Lord for help…Thinking about what God has done through Jesus Christ, his Son, will lift our spirits. He showed us such mercy by dying for us while we were sinners. When we think about him and his salvation, then we will want to sing about God’s kindness, rather than complain that he has forgotten us.” (p. 17)

Psalms for My Day: A Child’s Praise Devotional is a God-exalting devotional for children, filled with beautiful illustrations, and glorious truth. It is recommended for children ages 4-11.

Note: I received this book for free from Christian Focus Publications in exchange for my honest review. This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

Favorite Books on Christian Doctrine

I still remember my first encounter with theology.

I was twelve. At that time, my family attended a church with few kids my age. Most Sunday mornings, I found myself the only student in my Sunday school class. My teacher was the pastor’s wife and she poured into me. She discipled me through God’s word, teaching me basics of the Christian faith. It was there that I first learned the Doctrines of Grace. I quickly developed a hunger to learn more. My Sunday school class then turned into a question and answer time as I came each Sunday with questions about the Bible and my teacher helped me search God’s word for the answers.

Since then, I’ve loved to study theology—be it systematic, biblical, or expository. Over the years I’ve accumulated a number of books that help me understand different theological terms and concepts. While the Bible itself is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and while Scripture is sufficient to teach me all I need to know about salvation and what God requires of me, there are many helpful and useful secondary sources written by godly faithful people. These resources have enriched my faith and broadened my understanding of the gospel.

Some books I open to find a quick definition to a theological term. Others I might consult to get an overall summary of a particular teaching. There are others I go to on a regular basis to help me grow in my understanding of a particular doctrine of the faith. And while there are some books I might go to that focus on one subject, such as ecclesiology or Christology, there are a number of books I use that contain good summaries of Christian doctrines.

For those who are looking for resources for their own studies, here are some of my favorites:

Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs: This book by J.I. Packer covers nearly a hundred different theological truths. Each chapter is just a few pages long and succinctly summarizes theology in an easy to understand way. Examples include: the Trinity, Original Sin, Justification, the sacraments, and more.

The Westminster Confession of Faith: For Study Classes: I am a member of a confessional church and what that means is that our church holds to historical confessions and creeds of the church. The main confession our pastors and elders have to subscribe to is the Westminster Confession. It is a summary of the main teachings of the Bible. It summarizes what the Bible teaches about God, the work of Christ, the church, and more. I often refer to the confession and the accompanying catechism both when studying Scripture and in writing about Scripture.

Institutes of the Christian Religion: John Calvin's Institutes is a favorite resource of mine. Sometimes, I just read it devotionally. It's an excellent tool for going deeper in understanding theology. It's also helpful for understanding Reformed Protestantism and how it differs from Catholicism.

Essential Truths of the Christian Faith: This is a classic I have used for years. I first read it in college and found Sproul's writing easy to understand. I've even read it to my children in our morning devotions. In 2-3 pages, Sproul explains theological terms and teachings. Every Christian should own this book.

Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology: This is another great book that explains the foundations of Christian teaching. I had to read it for a college class many years ago and have consulted it many times since.

Systematic Theology: This is a classic work on systematic theology. It is not an easy read, but it is still an important and useful work. When I want to understand a theological term in more depth, I consult Berkhof.

As Christians, we need to know what we believe and why. There are many helpful resources that unpack the Bible’s teachings. What are some of your favorites?

Note: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. To learn more, click here.

40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life: An Interview with Leland Ryken

I grew up singing hymns in worship each Sunday. Even today, when I sing a hymn in church, I can almost hear the echo of the old pipe organ from my childhood church. (The same organ the other kids and I would later try and play hide and seek behind after church.)

I’ve found that when I learn the stories behind the hymns I sing, I love them even more. When I take the time to understand the words, phrases, and the metaphors used, the hymn impacts my heart in a richer way. It draws me into greater devotion to my Lord and Savior.

That’s why I’m excited to share an interview I recently did with Lelan Ryken on his new book: 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life: A Closer Look at Their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning:

Christina: How did you come to write the book?

Leland Ryken: Allow me to take you behind the scenes in a writer's life. I was casting about for my next writing project and sent a really enticing list of six possible topics to P&R, which was totally unimpressed by my list. As an afterthought, I sent the proposal for what I refer to as my beloved "hymns book." P&R pounced on the topic and threw themselves into the project in a totally endearing way. I have not had a more favorite publishing venture among my nearly sixty books.

Christina: What do you mean when you say that a hymn is a poem before it is a hymn?

Leland Ryken: Every hymn begins as a written text. This text has the properties of a poem. It is written in lines that end with rhyming words. It consists of images and metaphors, and it possesses verbal beauty beyond ordinary prose discourse.  In short, it is a poem such as I teach in my literature courses. This written text becomes a hymn only after it is paired with music. This is always a second step, beyond the initial poetic one.

Christina: Why should we read hymns as poems in addition to singing them?

Leland Ryken: When we sing a hymn, we are hurried along. We do not take time to ponder the words and unpack the images and metaphors. The result is that we experience only a fraction of the meanings and beauty that are actually there. I would compare this to the Shakespeare plays that I teach as literature. How much of what is actually in the text do I experience when I see it performed in a theater? I would say twenty-five percent. In both cases, the optimal experience is first to master the text as a work of literature, and then sing the hymn or watch a performance of the play.

Christina: Each of the hymns in your anthology is accompanied by a 500-word unit of commentary; what is the nature of that commentary?

Leland Ryken: This book follows the same format as the book I published just before it. That book (entitled The Soul in Paraphrase) was also an anthology of individual devotional poems by the "greats" accompanied by 500-word explications. An explication is a systematic literary analysis or close reading of a text. It gives an overview of the content and structure of the poem, and then identifies and interprets the meanings of the poetic texture (the images and individual figures of speech). Within the allotted space, an explication recreates the ideal reading experience of a text. An explicator is a tour guide through a poem.

Christina: What did you discover about your chosen hymn writers as a group?

Leland Ryken: I discovered that virtually none of the authors were professional literary people. They were ordinary Christians. I found no evidence that they pored over their manuscripts and painstakingly revised them; I got the impression rather that inspiration fell like a benediction on the process of composition. A large number of the authors were ministers. Hymn writers are a prolific lot, and most of them wrote hundreds and even thousands of hymns. Many of the hymns came out of experiences or lives of great suffering.

Christina: Were there common metaphors used in older hymns that we don’t use as often today?

Leland Ryken: I would say that the images and metaphors in the great hymns are timeless. If they seem unfamiliar to people today, that is because people lack contact with great poetry, including hymns.

Christina: Were there surprises for you as you did the research for this book?

Leland Ryken: Everything that I said earlier about the hymn writers as a group was a surprise to me. Additionally, my discipline of literary studies pays lip service to the literary tradition of hymns, but we do not teach hymns in our literature courses. I was surprised to see how well the great hymns hold up as poetry. Finally, many of the hymns express such lofty and seemingly impossible ideals of spiritual attainment that we find it hard to take the sentiments seriously, but if we know enough about the biographical circumstances of the author's life, it turns out that they expressed the truth about the author's convictions and feelings in regard to God's goodness. We are too quick to pass off the sentiments as exaggerations. Instead of being cynical, we should aspire toward the ideal that the hymns set before us.

Christina: How do you envision readers using this anthology of hymnic poems?

Leland Ryken: My book is like other literary anthologies of devotional poetry. There is no shortage of literary technique to admire in the hymns, so readers can use the book of literary enjoyment. The accompanying explications will seem like a return to the high school or college classroom. But the poems are devotional in content and are accompanied by a related Scripture passage, so they can as well be read for devotional purposes.

Christina: What do you think the church loses when it stops reading and singing hymns?

Leland Ryken: It loses the beauty of holiness. It loses exaltation and largeness of vision. It leaves a great treasure chest unopened. It loses continuity with the spiritual richness of the past. While composing answers to this written interview, I have been listening to hymns that took me back to my childhood spiritual experiences in Pella, Iowa; people who sing only contemporary songs that are here today and gone tomorrow have no hymnic past to which to return. Someday they will be left with empty gas tanks, metaphorically speaking.

To learn more about this book, visit P&R Publishing.

This post contains affiliate links. To learn more, click here.

Book Review: Holy Sexuality

How do evangelical Christians view sexuality in light of what we hear in the culture around us? What does the Bible say about sexuality? How do believers respond to those who struggle with same sex attraction? All these questions and more author Christopher Yuan addresses in his latest book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story.

Holy Sexuality is a follow up to Yuan’s memoir, co-authored with his mother, titled Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God, a Broken Mother’s Search for Hope. It tells the story of Yuan’s journey to faith and how he found his identity in Christ alone. At the end of this memoir, he referred to the concept of holy sexuality. This idea is what he unpacks in his latest book.

Holy Sexuality begins by developing a Biblical framework of human sexuality as seen through the lens of the Bible’s big story: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. Beginning with Creation, Yaun explores how we were made in God’s image: “when we make anything else the core of our being—especially our sexuality—it’s not only a distortion of the imago Dei but also an affront to our Creator” (p.17). He then discusses original sin and the impact the fall had on all mankind. Because of the fall, we are all born into sin and are enslaved to it. “For each of us, sin affects all our faculties: actions, words, thoughts, and desires—including our sexual desires” (p.30). These two foundational truths, creation and the fall, are central to our understanding of humanity and human sexuality. Yuan then explores the need we all have for redemption in Christ. We all need to be born again. “Sin is the great problem; Jesus is the great solution” (p. 38).

What this means is, we all need Jesus. “It doesn’t matter whether you think you were born an alcoholic; you must be born again. It doesn’t matter whether you think you were born a liar; you must be born again. It doesn’t matter whether you think you were born a porn addict; you must be born again. It doesn’t matter whether you think you were born with any other sexual sin struggle; you must be born again” (p.41). Once we are born again, we are new creations. Christ transforms us from the inside out. We spend the rest of our lives putting sin to death and living out the reality of our new life in Christ, all the while looking forward to the day when we’ll shed our sin once and for all.

Using this framework, Yuan then develops the concept of holy sexuality. God’s vision for sexuality consists of two paths: chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage. This means sexual purity for those who are unmarried and faithfulness to one’s spouse for those who are married. Yuan argues that in Christian circles we often hold up marriage as the ultimate goal. Rather, Yuan points to Scripture to teach us that the Bible affirms singleness. In fact, the Bible teaches that both singleness and marriage are equally good and advantageous. He reminds us that we will all be single in eternity. Yuan urges the church to welcome, value, and love singles as brothers and sisters in Christ.

While the bulk of the book helps us to think Biblically about sexuality, the latter part of the book provides practical application, specifically for our interactions with others. One chapter provides helpful tips on what to say and what not say to atheist gay friends. Yuan points out words, phrases, and concepts that do not help the conversation, and actually hinder it. When talking about sexuality with a Christian friend or loved one who shares about an attraction with someone of the same sex, Yuan offers helpful suggestions on how to respond, how to be a friend, and how to walk alongside them. The book ends with a chapter on discipleship. “If sex, desire, and relationships are shaped by God’s grand story and God’s grand story is shaped by Christ, then this means that sex, desire, and relationships—our whole sexuality—must be shaped by Christ as well. All my sexual behaviors, erotic desires, romantic feelings, sentimental relationships, and even all my platonic friendships must be conformed to Jesus Christ and nothing else” (p.195).

Holy Sexuality is a book every Christian should read. Christopher Yuan is a helpful guide into a topic that is not talked about enough in the church. His writing is clear, concise, and thoroughly Biblical. It will challenge readers to set aside misconceptions and false teaching and instead dig deep into God’s word. It will equip readers to understand their own sexuality in light of God’s big story and how to help others understand that story as well.

Note: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for my review. The thoughts and opinions are my own.

Review of A Colorful Past

I recently met with a friend for coffee and during the course of our conversation, I mentioned a few facts about church history. She responded, “Where did you learn that?”

I said, “I took a class in high school.”

Incredulous, she asked, “Where did you go to high school?”

I had the opportunity to attend a Christian school that taught church history. I then learned more when I went to college. But most believers know little about the history of church. They might know some history of the individual church they attend on Sunday mornings, but few know the roots of that church, its connection to other churches, and the denomination it may be connected to. Fewer still understand how we got all the denominations we have today, why we believe what we believe, and who sacrificed so we could live out those beliefs.

As believers, it’s important that we know how we got to where we are today. It’s also important that we teach our children the history of the church. Some readers may remember my post at Redeemed Reader a few years ago where I shared some favorite resources for teaching children church history. Today, I want to share about a new resource, A Colorful Past.

This coloring book is a useful tool to help children learn about church history. Beginning in the first century with the Apostle Paul and ending in the 20th century with J. Gresham Machen, the author, William Boekestein, takes children on a tour of history. Each page includes a picture to color and highlights one person from church history and in a paragraph, summarizes what that person did in their time to spread the gospel and stand for the truth of God’s word. Examples of people included are: Tertullian, Augustine, St. Patrick, Anselm, Lady Jane Grey, John Calvin, John Owen, and C.H. Spurgeon.

If you study church history, you quickly learn that God’s people were not perfect. Some were deeply flawed. Some were weak. Some did not always follow a life of godliness. The author acknowledges this and points out some of their flaws in the book. As he wrote in the introduction, he wants children to see how God preserves his church despite his people’s weaknesses and failures. Indeed, as we learn and study church history, we realize what a miracle it is that it has survived—a testimony of God’s grace! He will keep and preserve his Bride until he comes for her at the Last Day.

This coloring book would be a useful tool to introduce children to the history of the church. It would also be useful in conjunction with other resources and biographies. For those who have a timeline of history taped to their walls, the coloring sheets would be a great addition because they include the century when the person lived. I highly recommend this resource to parents who want to help their children see God’s faithfulness to his church throughout the centuries.

Book Review and Giveaway: Mom, Dad...What's Sex?

I'll never forget that day at work when I was told I would lead counseling groups on sex education at the alternative school where I was a counselor.

"Why me?" I thought.

The truth? Because no one else wanted to do it. 

Fast forward a number of years to life as a mom with two boys. I thought having gone through the experience of talking about all things uncomfortable in the past would prepare me to talk about sexuality with my own children. Wrong. It's just as uncomfortable. Perhaps even more so. I guess that's why we have developed all these code words and phrases to refer to such discussions. You know phrases such as: "the birds and the bees," "the facts of life," and "the talk." 

But the truth is, it's so important. If there's one thing I learned from that experience as a counselor is how important it is that our children hear the truth about sexuality from us, their parents, and not from their friends or the culture around them. 

That's why I am so excited about Jessica Thompson's new book she wrote alongside her brother, Joel Fitzpatrick. It's titled, Mom, Dad…What’s Sex?:Giving Your Kids a Gospel-Centered View of Sex and Our Culture

First off, you should know, this is not a how-to book. It's not filled with example conversations and check-lists of what to say and not to say. There isn't even an age by age description of what's appropriate for children to learn at different ages and stages. Rather, this book is anchored in the grand story of redemption and helps parents give their children the big picture story of how we were created to love and be loved, what happened to sex and sexuality as a result of the fall, and what Jesus did to redeem and restore what was lost.

Part one of the book tells the Biblical story of sex and sexual identity. Sex was God's idea. It was his gift to us. Chapter one looks at sex and sexual identity in terms of what took place at creation. Next, the authors look at what happened in the fall when Adam and Eve sinned. God's good design for sex was broken as a result of sin. The authors take an honest look at the brokenness of sex and go through some of Scripture's hard stories including that of Tamar and Rahab. But they don't just tell the hard stories, they point to how God redeems such stories: both Rahab and Tamar are in the genealogy of Christ. The author's also speak to the parents reading the book who might bear shame for sexual sins in their past or brokenness over sins done against them with the hope of the gospel.  

"We are truly satisfied only when our hearts are first satisfied in Christ's love for us. Sex is meant to bring pleasure, but only the love of Christ brings identity. When we forget about the love of Christ or when we look to sex to define who we are, we will end up distorting it. We will use it in ways that it was not meant to be used." (p.64)

Part two addresses sexuality in our culture, with particular focus on friendship among teens, the influence of social media, and pornography. The way teens view friendship with others shapes their view of sex. The authors encourage parents to help their children see marriage as friendship and ultimately, how Christ is their perfect friend. Social media also shapes our children's view of themselves and sexuality. The authors encourage parents to remind their children of who they are in Christ, "Every time they go to social media to find their worth, every time they read the comments to be affirmed, you can remind them that through Jesus they have already received the most important comments they will ever read or hear. They are God's children. Adopted. Loved. Cared for. Gorgeous in his sight!" (p. 134) They also address the problem of pornography in our culture and encourage parents to have open conversations about it, teaching them of the dangers, as well as reminding them that all people are image bearers to be respected and not used for our pleasure.

Part 3 encourages parents to saturate all conversations with the gospel of grace. We need to teach our children about sexuality through the lens of the gospel. If we have children who have been tempted or fallen into sexual sin, we need to walk through it with them, in the hope of the gospel and with restoration as the goal. 

Each chapter contains a word to moms from Jessica Thompson and a word to dads from Joel Fitzpatrick. There are also talking points at the end of each chapter of topics we need to talk about with our children. 

"You and I both know how strong sexual desires are, and we need something even stronger to control us. Knowing the right thing to do doesn't stop us from doing the wrong thing. The only way to change our appetites or our desires is to totally and completely fall in love with Jesus and be totally and completely awestruck by his love for us." (p. 186) 

Mom, Dad…What’s Sex?:Giving Your Kids a Gospel-Centered View of Sex and Our Culture is a gospel-centered book which focuses on sexuality in terms of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. It is a book for sinners—which is all of us. It reminds parents of their hope, help, and satisfaction in Christ so they can then speak that hope to the hearts of their children.

I'm doing a giveaway over on my Facebook page. Leave a comment on the post about this book and you'll be entered. US residents only. 

Note: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for this review. The thoughts and opinions are my own. In addition, I am a member of the Amazon Affiliates program and links to books in this post are connected to my affiliates account with Amazon.com.