God Sets the Terms and Conditions
God gives us what Christians have long referred to as “means of grace.”
By giving us these means, God shows that we really do have the privilege of relating to him, but he also shows that we cannot relate to him in whatever ways we may want or we may deem suitable. While we can genuinely be friends with God, he is the one who sets the terms... Continue Reading
What Do You Love More? The Law of God and Second Commandment Violations
Any earthly image we could ever make fails to convey the reality of who Christ was, is, and will forever be.
To attempt to capture the essence of the immortal, divine Christ in a mere physical image is to engage in the most extreme folly. Jesus was not like other men. He is the God-man! In Him, all of the fullness of God dwells in human form. To make an image of Him is to create... Continue Reading
Working Hard For and in the Lord
A Right Understanding of Why Men are to Labor Well in a Day of Evil
The real reason why men need to be in church is the same reason why all of us do. Our actions and attitudes about the calling of God to us in the work that we do, and understanding more deeply the glory of a life lived not for yourself, or for this present evil world,... Continue Reading
An Attractive Pen Portrait of David Livingstone
Livingstone’s Christian lifestyle could not be denied and made a strong positive impression on Stanley.
Stanley summarized his high estimation of the Doctor by stating in his book How I Found Livingstone: “My friendly reader, … God grant that if ever you take to traveling in Africa, you will get as noble and true a man for your companion as David Livingstone! For four months and four days I lived... Continue Reading
How God Uses Routine to Shape Us
Time is a particularly effective tool that God uses to teach us this wisdom.
The beauty of every Sunday stems from two thousand years of church history. It is a testimony to the faithfulness of God, the glory of His Son, and our eternal security in Him. As we embrace God’s design through repetition on a Sunday, we learn to fear Him. Every Lord’s Day, we worship in spirit... Continue Reading
Untouchable
John answers our sin with the advocacy of Christ.
Satan, the accuser, may prosecute our sin before the judgment seat of God, and we may cower because we know he is right. We have sinned. We do sin. But our risen Lord Jesus intercedes for us to say that our debt is real and ongoing, but He paid that debt in full. “It is... Continue Reading
God Designed You for Peace
True peace is available. It’s available because we serve a loving God.
As you consider the ways you search for peace in your life, remember that true peace is greater, deeper, and better than merely a quiet moment or two. Peace is the gift of God given to his children when they are brought back into right relationship with him and can, once again, live in his... Continue Reading
Wellbeing in the Wilderness (Numbers 6:22-27)
It may not feel like it, but we can experience God’s blessing even in the wilderness.
Can God change your circumstances? Sure. But you can experience the blessing of Numbers 6 even in the wilderness. You can know that God is providing for you and protecting you, that he is favorable toward you. You can experience a deep sense of wellbeing even in a wheelchair or wherever you are, because you are... Continue Reading
Don’t Wish Your Life Away
We must be careful that while we are looking forward to tomorrow, we don’t miss out on today.
Saying we want to enjoy today is great in theory, but it’s difficult when we see the struggles that ‘today’ brings. That’s when our eyes begin looking toward another day. Continually, we must recognize that even the struggles of today are being used by God to sanctify us and purify our faith through the fiery... Continue Reading
Missing the PAT (Point-After-Touchdown) on Sabbath Observance
Butker might have done well to consider the connection between ordered, Christ-centeredness and the Sabbath – which is, arguably, among the foremost ordering institutions in the Scripture.
Bishop Barron has produced a short, superb message entitled, “Loss of a Sabbath Consciousness.” In it, he notes the loss since about the 1960s of “a more religious rhythm” to American life, even in secular society – a trend, by the way, to which the National Football League has been a heavy, perhaps the heaviest,... Continue Reading
The Local Church Is Critical for Your Faith
Every Christian is called to have a spiritual home.
I believe a pastor needs to move on from the local church you served, so staying at our old church was not an option. But I came to realize that going to a variety of churches was not enough. You need to have your own church. You need to be part of a body of... Continue Reading
The Uniquely Christian Justification for Loving LGBT People
Though we might vigorously oppose false ideas, we should be kind to the people who hold them.
The shifting tide of culture is all it would take to change which groups people love. Christians, though, are not only justified in their love towards all people, but that justification will never change because it’s based on God’s eternal truth. There’s an important point I begin with when I teach on homosexuality and... Continue Reading
Authority: Who Needs It?
Book Review: The book is full of practical wisdom, I want to focus on four strengths and one small weakness.
Leeman’s book is full of practical wisdom. I won’t illustrate this point other than to say that he writes as an experienced pastor and father. He uses a lot of real-life illustrations to drive his points home. Many times, I found myself impressed by his ability to describe something I’ve experienced but never been able... Continue Reading
How to Pray for Open Hands
In order for us to mature spiritually, we need God to take control of our hands, our mouths, and even our hearts.
We are incapable of “opening our hands” to receive what God has promised to give for fear that we might lose what we think we have grasped. And so we pray with Jeremy Taylor that God would “open our hands for us. And [that he would] not only open [our] hand, but also open [our]... Continue Reading
The Lord (n) of lords (v)
He is the only Lord.
Jesus has true authority. He is the One who has all dominion and authority and majesty and might. He is the One who sees the nations as a drop in the bucket and commands the heavenly army. He is the One who has real glory. He is the Lord. So, don’t fear when you see men... Continue Reading
I’m Just Starting to Understand the Bible
It’s a joy, and no matter how much I discover, it feels like there’s so much more to explore.
Sometimes I read passages I’ve read hundreds of times before, and a new insight leaps off the page. I puzzle over passages, and find that the longer I look at them, the more they yield. I never finish looking at a passage and think, “Yep. Got that one down.” And then there are the relationships between... Continue Reading
The Altar & the Court | Exodus 27:1-19
The Israelite would return to his or her house praising Yahweh for accepting the blood of their animal in place of their own.
The blood of animals never covered any sinner’s sins. Instead, they pointed forward to the once for all sacrifice that Christ would make for us. Although they did not know His name, all the Israelites who sacrificed and believed by faith that Yahweh had forgiven their sins were truly placing their faith in Christ. In... Continue Reading
The Bible’s Family Trees
An Introduction to Genealogies
In Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6),... Continue Reading
Talking Back to Death
We can talk back to death because death itself has been defeated, and because of that we have nothing more to fear.
We can now face death with such confidence that we can even talk back to it as Luther did when his precious Magdalene died. As both John McClean and Martin Luther declared in their own way: “Death, you are defeated, for the Author of Life has risen again from the grave!” And that means that... Continue Reading
Sacramental Assistance
When joined to the Word of God, the sacraments strengthen our faith, further our sanctification, and assure us of the Lord’s unwavering faithfulness to us.
We are weak, sinful people who need all the assistance we can get in order to remember what the Lord has done for us. If we neglect the sacraments He has given His people and fail to understand the importance of the sacramental aspects of our faith, we are turning down precious helps that provide... Continue Reading
Biblical Male Leadership’s Aim is Love
Three aspects of the spiritual leadership charge Paul begins to give Timothy in chapter 1.
The calling of all Christiann men to lead our homes and churches is God’s good, perfect design; there is nothing about the prescribed leadership of men that even hints at oppression. To the contrary, it is a design rooted in the calling to love sacrificially and in the wisdom to know the three sources from which such self-giving love... Continue Reading
10 Things You Should Know about the Fruit of the Spirit
Patience is the active pursuit of hope (Rom. 8:25).
The world says, “Follow your heart” and “Be true to yourself,” but Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). According to Jesus, obedience means laying aside our love of comfort in order to pursue obedience. This is hard to do!... Continue Reading
I AM: Immutability
Unchanging and Unchangeable
God is immutable because time-space does not act upon God. God is not a mere participant in the cosmos, allowing events to form or shape Him. He is not passive: world history does not imprint itself on Him and change Him. This is what is meant by God’s impassibility. It is not that God has... Continue Reading
The Distortion of Vulnerability
Within the community of the church, we need not depend on the distorted vulnerability offered to us within the iron cage of modernity to act as a kind of social glue.
We must resist the disenchantment of the modern world, and instead maintain our grasp on the reality that we are deeply vulnerable – to the devil’s schemes, to the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil. And as we open our eyes to recognize this ‘classic’ vulnerability we will find that such... Continue Reading
Lion on the Loose
Satan “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).
Don’t listen to Satan’s deceptions, but hold onto the truth of God’s Word. Don’t even let Satan near you through what you watch, or what you dwell on in your thoughts, or where you visit on a weekend night. Don’t even let Satan near you, because then he’ll lunge. Have you ever met a... Continue Reading
God Not Only Created the World, He (Still) Holds It Together
New book explores God’s intimate and active role in sustaining His creation.
In a Christian worldview, the creation is more miraculous than mechanical, more enchanted than we often realize. Of course, the world is orderly and works according to identifiable and predictable laws. And yet, as Paul wrote to the Colossians, it is graciously and lovingly held together just as it was brought into being, by the very... Continue Reading
All of Ecclesiastes Is Wisdom to Receive
Reflecting on How the End of the Book Endorses What Preceded It
In Ecclesiastes 12:8–14, the book is coming to an end, and in this epilogue we find a strong endorsement of the book’s content. In 12:9, the writer calls the Preacher “wise” and someone who “taught the people knowledge.” So the content between the prologue and epilogue came from a wise person who taught wisdom. This... Continue Reading
Extraordinary Purposes in Ordinary Work
Realities of Daily Work and Our Lives as Christians
By faith we depend on Jesus to walk with us. We rely on his Spirit to guide us so that our relationship with Christ brings life to the wearisome, broken aspects of life. We can participate in God’s work wherever he has called us. Whatever our role—student, dishwasher, waitress, stay-at-home mom, working mom, office staff,... Continue Reading
Do Not Be Conformed to the World of Sports: Relearning How We Think about, Feel, and do Sports as Christians (Part 2)
Medical research specifies that football leads all sports in the rate of concussions along with the even greater concern of repeated sub-concussive hits.
Brains are central to cognitive and emotional intelligence, socialization, spiritual and moral formation, and to flourishing and finding personal fulfillment as responsible citizens in communities as fathers, brothers, mothers, and sisters in families, as disciples of Christ in churches and as “salt and light” in our vocations. Damaged brains can never be undone and can... Continue Reading
“Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches” — 7 Things the Book of Proverbs Teaches Us About Money
Wealth comes from the Lord.
If money cannot buy happiness, far less can it buy salvation and life. It is God’s righteousness, not wealth, that turns the key of heaven’s gates. “Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death … Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green... Continue Reading