If you’re struggling with sin that you feel cannot be excoriated, you have two options: Struggle alone, without the Spirit’s help, and out of the sight of others, or, bring it into the light, trust God to change you above and beyond your own weak strength, and allow others to bear fruit that will nourish... Continue Reading

While friends do (and should) encourage and uplift us, they should also create edifying wounds. These wounds aren’t meant to break or destroy us but, through their pain, lead us to growth. Like a vinedresser cutting away the dead vines or the sculptor carving away imperfections, our friendships should sharpen us—but such sharpening isn’t always... Continue Reading

He lays out a litmus test for our discernment: “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God” (4:2-3). The key phrase... Continue Reading

Let Psalms 88-89 encourage you. Remember, when our peace is in jeopardy and pain threatens our joy, the way forward is through prayer and praise. It is Christ, our good Shepherd, who gives us joy and peace in the midst of our pain.        Have there been times in your life when you wanted to sing... Continue Reading

They are too busy with other pursuits; the farm and the family take up all their time and thoughts. In all such cases, ‘I cannot come’ is the alleged reason, but ‘I will not come’ is the real one; for when the heart is true the duties of the farm never interfere with the privileges... Continue Reading

Two diametrically opposed purposes. One for the exaltation of man and his vanity, lusts, and pride; the other for the service and magnification of God Almighty. As we gather around the Lord’s Table this is a needful reminder. The same hands which receive the blood of Christ must not be hands which shed innocent blood.... Continue Reading

Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “It is a disease of the mind, which does not wholly rise to the heights where it is lifted by the truth, because it is weighed down by habit.” In other words, it doesn’t matter how much we believe the truth if we don’t get the truth into our bodies through our... Continue Reading

If we want to really know anything, if we want to possess any amount of wisdom about how to live, then the foundation of it all is fear. It’s fear of the Lord. But fearing the Lord is not the same thing as being afraid; to “fear the Lord” is to live with a holy... Continue Reading

As is always the way when Yahweh fights the gods, there’s not any combat, the actions of the Lord simply show them to be impotent before him. The first three plagues fit in a pattern of water, earth, and sky (nile →  frogs →  gnats), which is the biblical layering of the cosmos (waters below, earth,... Continue Reading

Hypocrisy is telling other people how to live when you are unwilling to do the same things. This was what the Pharisees were doing. Hypocrisy is telling people that we are all sinners in the same boat, who all need to repent of many different things, but then making out that we have no need... Continue Reading