The troubled days in which we live can easily depress or pollute and we need to renew our focus on righteousness and God our righteous judge—this will bring help, hope, and comfort to God’s church.   By any fair reckoning, this last year has been abnormal – yet the current covid-19 crisis was eclipsed momentarily,... Continue Reading

“You’ve got to love the law” has a double meaning. You’ve got to love it—it is a command. But at the same time, “you’ve got to love it” because it is so good. Of course it is. It is a gift from your heavenly Father.   At a PGA Tour tournament in October 2015, Ben Crane disqualified... Continue Reading

The unprecedented speed at which the various vaccines were developed, reducing a process that often takes years to mere months, is an extraordinary accomplishment. Still, it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder if ethical and safety corners were cut to bring the vaccine to market so fast.   Recently, a Wisconsin pharmacist was arrested for attempting to... Continue Reading

How awesome it is to look out and up to God’s majestically created world and universe for a transcendent feeling that speaks to our own smallness. But we are also to look down and within ourselves and even to our mother’s womb and feel so intimately and intricately significant. For God made us, and wonderfully.... Continue Reading

In the midst of the confusion and chaos, recognize that you don’t need to know everything that is going on in the culture, nor can you control it.  Remember however, that God knows, sees, and hates all that is an affront to His holiness.   I doubt that many readers will have any difficulty accepting... Continue Reading

There have been—and continue to be—much harder experiences for Christians than anything we’ve seen yet. Those Christians thought and wrote about their circumstances, and we should seek their wisdom. We don’t need to start from scratch on these topics. We’re just not that special.   These are not unprecedented days. That’s important to say, because unprecedented has... Continue Reading

For Spurgeon, the atoning work of Jesus illuminated and enlivened his piety towards a faith marked by good works, and he emphasized the centrality of the cross in our union with Christ, union with one another, and our mission in this life.   Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892), the famed “prince of preachers,” navigated his life... Continue Reading

I can’t think of a greater book to turn to in troubling times than I Peter. This epistle was written to encourage believers who are being persecuted for their faith. In this book, Peter exhorts suffering saints to passionately pursue a life of holiness in light of the hope that we have in Christ (I... Continue Reading

It is indeed significant that our English word excruciating comes from the Latin excruciatus, “out of the cross.” That, and much more, is what our Savior endured for all those of us who have and will believe the Gospel.   37 Ὁ φιλῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος, καὶ ὁ φιλῶν... Continue Reading

The Washington-based development lender previously estimated that 60 million people would fall into extreme poverty because of COVID-19, but the new estimate puts the deterioration at 70 million to 100 million, and he said “that number could go higher” if the pandemic worsens or drags on.   WASHINGTON – The coronavirus pandemic may have driven... Continue Reading