Those who teach the nice gospel will usually maintain that the gospel is good news but that they don’t want to be mean. This is false thinking. The opposite of the nice gospel is not a mean gospel, it is the true gospel. The true gospel is not mean, nor is it nice. It is the... Continue Reading

No matter where we find ourselves today, whether we’ve had a fresh experience of intimacy with God, we’re struggling in the valleys, or we’re plodding through the plains, let’s never forget: God does not only meet us on the mountaintop. He is with us in the valleys and the plains, too. And God is with us,... Continue Reading

Jesus knows temptation and testing.  Jesus fights to obey his Father’s will.  And so when we’re struggling to obey we can run to him for help in prayer because he knows what it is to fight to obey. Because Jesus knows and overcomes temptation and testing we can let go of our pretended heroism and run to... Continue Reading

Believing that God moves in spontaneous ways is not unbiblical or sinful, but I think it has been overemphasized. The Spirit cannot be manipulated or placed under constraints (John 3:8), but a mark of the Spirit is that He works in an orderly fashion through means. He is the third person of the Godhead, meaning... Continue Reading

How is this faith, which has been gifted to me, strengthened? According to the Divines, I engage the means that God has appointed for its growth, the preaching of the word (the ordinary means by which faith is wrought), the administration of the sacraments, and prayer.  These are the means through which God is pleased... Continue Reading

Plenty of Christians have found deeply satisfying and intellectually sophisticated answers to questions that troubled them. But they always found them because they were walking with God at the time, moving in His direction, obeying what they already knew, while waiting on Him to teach them further. The man refusing to budge until he gets... Continue Reading

When God looked upon the plant and animal life that He created, He saw that they were good. Good creatures do not need drastic evolutionary improvement. Furthermore, creatures that God made and called “good” do not mutate because of broken genetics, and they certainly do not die. Therefore, the Bible rejects the possibility, the assumed... Continue Reading

As with the exodus, the cross is proof that God is real and powerful. He moved history in exactly the way he promised (see Isaiah 53). He raised Jesus from the dead! More than that, if he was willing to give his own Son for our good, we can trust that he is for us. He loves... Continue Reading

A child who loves God will progressively grow in true obedience to parents—generally quick to obey (without the persistent eyeroll, sigh, or stomp) because he or she desires to please the Lord. This child (though certainly not perfectly) will show honor for his or her parents through facial and vocal responses, as well as actions,... Continue Reading

Live as in the (more than) tangible presence of the jealous God. Remember, all things are naked and bare before Him. You cannot deceive Him, for He is infinite wisdom; you cannot flee from Him, for He is every where; you cannot bribe Him, for He is righteousness itself. Keep therefore fresh realisations of God... Continue Reading