If suffering for Christ is in God’s providential will for you, rest in His providential control of that suffering. After all, it is He who has made suffering for good better than committing evil. So, continue to do what is right (3:17) because neither your persecutors nor the suffering they inflict will have the last word.   Dear... Continue Reading

We can be assured that, if troubles were not beneficial to us, God would neither allow them nor send them. Everything God gives us and withholds from us must be part of his good things.   God wants to give us good things. Not only that, he promises good things to us and assures us... Continue Reading

The World loves it own and hates the real Gospel because it condemns all that are of the World and not of Christ. Paul is challenging all of us to not faint, not to sink into despondency not to become so dispirited and cowardly that we just quit.   ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν παρρησίαν καὶ... Continue Reading

Parents of prodigals need to drink from the wellspring of gospel grace since they often have a real or perceived sense of unspoken judgment from others that they are at least partially to blame for their child’s waywardness.   Whether you’re aware of it or not, there is silent pain and secret shame in your... Continue Reading

Holding politicians personally and collectively accountable has clear biblical foundations. Each and every politician and government employee “is God’s servant for your good, … an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13). What happens, then, if the politician does bad instead of good, or carries out wrath against someone who does... Continue Reading

Comfort comes when we align our will with the will of God. Peace flows when we bless him in our grief as we did in our joys. For his love is as constant, his character is as perfect, his actions are as irreproachable in the taking as they were in the giving.   It felt... Continue Reading

Christian hope is not a virtue that originates with us. We don’t muster it up. Hope in us begins with the solid, sure, unfailing promises of the never-lying God. Christian hope begins with God and what he says. Then, hope in us swells to receive and trust and look to what God says is coming... Continue Reading

Maybe you face intense pressures in your career. You ask yourself, “Should I even be doing this?” And you wonder, “Is it possible to be a Christian and pursue a secular calling in this world that is increasingly hostile to our faith? Can I stay or should I go?”   And Ahab called Obadiah, who... Continue Reading

The pride of place that cultural Christianity once enjoyed in America is increasingly sidelined by a new, woke progressivism which, though purporting to be neutral and science-based, is in fact a competing religious ideology. The more that it dominates our cultural and political institutions, the more it can misuse the coercive powers of the state... Continue Reading

Though the work is daunting, our home “graveyard” has many more workers who are going to keep doing the work faithfully. But our corner of Central Asia? There are towns and villages that we have visited that have no known believers. Places where we may have been the first to ever share the gospel of... Continue Reading