The Whole Christian Life Every Sunday
It’s unfortunate but realistic to assume that many people come to church on Sunday having given little thought to their faith the previous week.
In this brief service, we have the whole Christian life neatly summed up. And as we progress through such a service, we trust that the downcast are lifted up and encouraged, that the apathetic are stirred and challenged, that the weary are fed and revived. We trust that they can take what they have experienced... Continue Reading
The Bible’s Strange Reasons for Generosity: Show them God!
Give Because Jesus Gave
God withholds nothing from us. As we are conformed into his image, we grow in our Triune God-echoing generosity. When we give, we display the very character of Christ to the world. We, ambassadors of this strangely generous King, display his category-defying generosity in our own generosity. Why do we give? The first hit... Continue Reading
Nothing But the Truth
One of the ways that the worldly system “takes us captive” is by marginalizing truth or eliminating it altogether.
As followers of Jesus Christ, may we cling to the truth, proclaim the truth, and defend the truth. May we stand with the men and women throughout redemptive history who were willing to lay their lives down for the great cause of truth. May the cry of our hearts be, “nothing but the truth!” ... Continue Reading
Desiring Our Savior’s Likeness
Seeking Fresh Blessings in Brotherly Love
If you go and read Paul’s letters to Thessalonica (and other places) there is more spoken about the way their mutual love for him had encouraged him than any other thing they had done. For the Apostle there was always a desire to be physically present with the men and women of the local church.... Continue Reading
Holy Grudges Lead to Fruitful Christians
You do know how to meditate on God’s word. And I can say that with certainty because I’m sure you know how to hold a grudge.
Your deep insights and revelations come from spending minutes, that turn into hours, that turn into days, that turn into weeks. It’s once the truth of Scripture has been so branded on your heart that you finally begin to draw out the deep meanings of the text. This is why, very practically speaking, I encourage... Continue Reading
Come to the Feast
The sovereign, holy, all-powerful Ruler of the universe invites lowly, finite, severely flawed creatures into his presence.
Communing with God is like eating with someone around your table in your dining room. In that kind of setting, you can let your guard down; there’s no need for pretense. Dining with someone is an opportunity for you to listen to them, to get to know them, to enjoy their company. It is an... Continue Reading
Your Money Will Trick You
Jesus’s command to “watch out and be on guard against all greed.”
Our money lies to us, constantly. Whenever we see our accumulation of assets or the increasing dollars in our account, Mammon whispers: I am your security. I am your hope. I make the good life possible. Meanwhile, Jesus is shouting, “It’s a lie! One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). ... Continue Reading
Deo Volente: God Willing
Our plans should be written in pencil, ready to be revised or retracted according to the will of God.
To make plans in pen without regard to the sovereignty and supremacy of God is to usurp the glory that belongs only to God. James drives this home when he says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (Jas. 4:17). By this pronouncement, James... Continue Reading
Stuck Between the World and God
How I Almost Died in Indecision
The Christian God is God, and he will not sit idly by within a pantheon of other gods and pleasures. He entertains no rivals. Friendship with the world is adultery and enmity against him (James 4:4). This text, and this reality, God used to shake me awake and bring me to Jesus. Dear reader, is your... Continue Reading
Shaking off Spiritual Lethargy
When and how are we stirred up to spiritual activity?
Faith finds a supply in God’s fulness for it, and therefore faith sends us to the fountain, to draw out of the wells of salvation. Nothing can be so sweet and refreshing as for such a soul to pour out itself every day in him, to talk with him face to face. Faith engages the... Continue Reading
When Does “The End” Begin?
We are not waiting on the last days, we are living in them.
My only hope is that you see the time frame references the New Testament is speaking about, and realize that much of what we consider “end of history events” are actually “end-time events” that have already occured in the past. I also hope that when you see a phrase like “last days” in Hebrews, that... Continue Reading
As Often as You Can, Read the Psalms in Order
Meditating on Psalm 50 before Psalm 51, we are adequately prepared to confess our need and receive, again, God’s grace.
If you’re reading the psalms consecutively, after being confronted with the inescapable fact of your sin in Psalm 50, you turn the page, and your heart is prepared to pray Psalm 51—David’s famous psalm of repentance. In praying Psalm 51, you realize you bring nothing to the table but your sin, dependence, and need. After being... Continue Reading
Fathers (and Mothers), Do Not Provoke Your Children!
Do not beat down, but raise up.
These two words are key: discipline and instruction. Between them they offer words of training and correction, words of admonition and rebuke, words that express both the positive and the negative sides of leadership. You need to correct your children, sometimes with a look, sometimes with a word, sometimes with a timeout, and sometimes with a spank. That... Continue Reading
The Work of God’s Grace
The amazing truth about grace is that God doesn’t leave us to ourselves to work out our own salvation.
Have you grumbled against God lately or questioned why He’s doing something in your life? Dear believer, by God’s grace, let us replace grumbling with gratitude and questioning with a quiet trust in our heavenly Father, who is working in us, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Then we... Continue Reading
Chosen to Proclaim | 1 Peter 2:9
Our primary identity is no longer our homeland nor our ethnicity; it is our being in Christ.
We proclaim Christ because He called us out of darkness into marvelous light. Speaking of Christ should not be a chore because we are giving the good news to those who are still in darkness. If you have been brought by Christ out of darkness, you are then a new person with a new identity,... Continue Reading
Highways to Hell and the Pathway to Life: The Abortion Religion and Its Defeat
As the LORD calls us to choose life He calls us to believe, have faith, and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation so that we might have everlasting life through Him.
The religion of death is awake and active. If it could, it would even swallow up the Christian. But our God is more powerful and provides the remedy to such folly. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ. It is, was, and always will be the power of God unto... Continue Reading
One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church
The deepest and most significant unity of the Church is its spiritual unity.
The union of believers is grounded in the mystical union of Christ and His Church. The Bible speaks of a twoway transaction that occurs when a person is regenerated. Every converted person becomes “in Christ” at the same time Christ enters into the believer. If I am in Christ and you are in Christ, and... Continue Reading
When Belief is Agony
Above all, do not attempt to go it alone. When your own thoughts are a trap, you need others, ideally professionals; you cannot think your way out of this.
In the midst of the worst of this, I don’t think I doubted the truth of the scriptures, either. That was part of the problem: scary passages felt like chains binding me, guns pointed at my head. But it meant also that I could hang on to the passages of unequivocal grace. “God shows his... Continue Reading
One Woman in the Right Mightier than Four Hundred Men in the Wrong
Abigail is the Conqueress
Abigail, to save her husband and his property, hastens to the foot of the hill. She is armed, not with sword or spear, but with her own beauty and self-sacrifice, and when David sees her kneeling at the base of the craig, he cries: “Halt! Halt!” and the caverns echo it: “Halt! Halt!” There... Continue Reading
The Powerful Return of Christ
God demonstrates His power to us throughout history.
The power of God on display throughout all history, in all of creation, will be seen by all on that great day of judgment! Dear Christian, the power of God may not be known exhaustively but it is surely revealed by God sufficiently. When the door is shut no more may enter. The power of... Continue Reading
Julian Dobbs, The Based Bishop
"Be vigilant… Be watchful, that is, stand firm in your faith, be strong, be courageous. And let all that you do be done in love."
“Love seeks the highest welfare of the people we are called to serve. Love seeks that welfare, love serves that welfare, love sacrifices for that welfare. And that seeking, serving, and sacrificing are three essential foundations of love. It was of course, to this same Corinthian Church that Paul wrote his great hymn of love... Continue Reading
Robert P. George: There is No “Middle Way” in Dobbs
In this First Things piece, Princeton professor Robert P. George neatly summarizes why no middle path exists between overturning Roe and invalidating the Mississippi law.
“Claeys and Girgis establish that a Dobbs “middle ground” would be no such thing. It would have to reject every part of Casey’s and Roe’s legal tests, and no part of it could rest on either precedent. The Court can either invalidate Mississippi’s law under Casey and Roe, or consign them to the ash heap of history.” In the aftermath... Continue Reading
In Christ, We Have Direct Access to God
Jesus Is Greater than All Human Priests
Jesus alone is the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5), who “always lives to make intercession” for us (Heb. 7:25). Now, all who come to Christ by faith can approach God with confidence because they do so through the Son’s merit alone. Therefore, it is consistent for the Bible to compel us to... Continue Reading
The Bruised Reed
A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic
Sibbes wrote this book for “bruised reeds,” for heartbroken, distressed, and discouraged Christians. He shows from God’s word that Christ will neither break them nor quench them; instead, he cherishes them. Sibbes beckons the hurting and weary Christian to look to Christ for comfort and strength, knowing that since he has finished his work for us, he... Continue Reading
Is It Arrogant to Say Jesus Is the Only Way?
The New Testament reiterates over and over through the lips of Christ or through the writings of the Apostles that Jesus is the one and only Redeemer of mankind.
It’s the New Testament that says, “There is no other name under heaven through which men may be saved, except that of Christ.” It’s the New Testament that says, “To whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life.” It’s God who says, “This is My only begotten son.” And again, and... Continue Reading
Foreword by Rosaria Butterfield to “The New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality”
The newly released “The New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality” is a timely and pastoral guide to liberate many who are held captive by sexual sin.
No one is exempt from original sin and its consequence. Neither good nor malicious intentions can rewrite God’s call for men and women. Scripture is clear that we are responsible for our inborn as well as our actual sins (Psalm 5:5, Romans 1:18, Deuteronomy 27:15, Hebrews 9:27). Taking responsibility for our own sin is hard... Continue Reading
The Glorious Return of Christ
The heavens declare the glory of God but the heavens are not God. Jesus Christ is the brightness of God’s glory for Jesus Christ is God!
At the great day of the Lord’s return all misunderstanding will be removed, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. At that day the angels who cease not day and night to cry, “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory,”... Continue Reading
The Nod and the Pause: Where the War Begins
The power we give temptation is mainly in the first welcome, not the second.
A temptation is in fact a temptation because there is desire latent within you. When lust awakens in the easy chair, with one eye open he peeks over the window ledge on to the street where temptation sends its knowing glance. At this moment and not any later, declare in your mind, “I am dead... Continue Reading
A Most Harmful Medicine
“The poison of subjectivism” is a fatal superstition that slowly erodes and destroys a civilization; it’s a disease that can end our species and damn our souls.
The new education merely conditions. Having removed all objective value and consideration from reality, they are “free” to shape and mold future generations into whatever they want. Having seized the reins of social conditioning, they will condition for their own purposes (wherever those happen to come from) and with little or no regard for the... Continue Reading
Pick Your Battles Carefully Knowing God’s Will
How often do we seek God first before rushing off on a course of action?
Far too often we just rush out and do things as Christians without bothering to spend time with God first, seeking to determine what is on his mind and heart for us. That is not how believers should operate. At the very least, we need to take a rather broad biblical principle such as this... Continue Reading
