As we sit in empty rooms for virtual funeral services, we must look to our real hope that we have in Christ Jesus. In a strange providential season when friends, family, and our church body is kept at a distance—we must cling to the hope we have in Jesus Christ. We must remember the words... Continue Reading

Believers will never have to face God’s just sentence for their sins and spend eternity in hell separated from God. Think of someone in a courtroom who is guilty of a horrible crime and deserving of the severest punishment, but is instead declared innocent because someone else paid the penalty for them—and even made them... Continue Reading

To complain is to ask God why he’s not giving water in the desert and plead for him to provide; to grumble is to say there’s not water because God doesn’t care. The first seeks to obtain something. The other seeks only to destroy. In Philippians 2:14, Paul commands the people not to grumble but... Continue Reading

Why would God be so ready to hear our prayers, especially if we have been like Jonah, who had hardly been a paragon of faith? He answers that his prayer came “into your holy temple” (Jon. 2:7). The temple was the place where the atoning sacrifices were offered. To leap forward from Jonah to the... Continue Reading

Just as “suffering produces endurance” (Romans 5:3) and “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:3), so also affliction in this life, endured in faith, produces this incomparable, immeasurable weight of coming glory. Which means that in those moments when we are suffering — and so far as we can tell, as in those final... Continue Reading

2 Chronicles 20 begins with a daunting picture. Several nations, the Bible calls them a “vast multitude”, joined together to fight against Judah. King Jehoshaphat was afraid. Yet in that fear, he didn’t panic. He didn’t begin to strategize with the leaders of the land. He didn’t turn to the corrupt king of Israel for... Continue Reading

“Is not Christianity full of such things, as are not to be seen, but believed? You said, God made the world; who is God? And so forward, requiring answers to all these, and helping and cherishing the answerer, by making the questions very plain with comparisons, and making much even of a word of truth... Continue Reading

If someone were after you and you were running away from that predator for your life, we would both call that “fleeing” and would use much energy to do it. Running away from a threat is not passive. This is active. It would involve sweat, time, and much energy. If we were pursuing someone in... Continue Reading

The fork in the road Moses pointed out to the nation of Israel is a decision every person must make for himself. Not just those present, not just those in the future of the nation Israel, but in a real sense every person who ever lives must choose between life or death. Everyone must choose.... Continue Reading

The question to us then is simple: Will a season of enforced remote work and online fellowship lead us to become people who spiral down into disconnection and increasing self-focus or will it spur us to long to be with others in every way we can and do much more than small talk however we... Continue Reading