Your Greatest Dread or Greatest Delight
There is hope! The Lord has given sinners a sure salvation.
In the future, hearts far from God will experience the terror of God in his inescapable holiness. Revelation 6 says that one day, there will be nowhere to hide. All people, from the greatest to the least, will be exposed in their sin. God calls all Christians to personal holiness. To be holy means... Continue Reading
Experiencing the Love of God
The fact that God’s love has been ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us’ is the key to understanding what it means to experience this love.
There are several places in the New Testament where we are given an insight into what it means to experience God’s love genuinely. One of the most helpful is found in Romans where Paul, rounding off his exposition of God’s justifying grace and how it leads to ‘hope’ says, ‘and hope does not put us... Continue Reading
The Messianic Prophesies in The Book of Micah
The promised salvation and restoration is bound up with the promise of the Lord reigning over His people (Mic. 4:7, 9).
The paradox of Micah’s message of judgment and exile is that it was meant to prepare the people for the message of salvation and restoration (Mic. 4:1-13). In this prediction of restoration, the Lord prophesied of peace and prosperity (Mic. 4:3-4). In order for the people to come to a place of understanding their need... Continue Reading
The Pillars That Grace Built
Train your heart to see the thousand ways that God is delivering you, then take stock of the moments and build them into a pillar of grace.
God rescues, but we are forgetful. God saves, but we are prone to short-term memory. God provides, but we are in continual danger of self-sufficiency. Yet even in this, even in our tendency to enjoy the benefits of salvation without acknowledging our saviour, God’s grace continues to extend toward our calloused hearts. The roar... Continue Reading
The Essential Pronouns of Christmas
In the darkness of this present evil age the gospel still shines with all its glorious light: Jesus came for sinners.
The name “Jesus” is taken from the Hebrew word that means “to deliver, to rescue.” This baby boy is the most perfectly named baby in all the history of the world. Never has a child been born to address such a peril as the peril of a justly condemned race. Never has a person so... Continue Reading
Three Wise Points Made in James 5
James really makes three points through verses 7–11 that I think are wise for us to consider today.
James was writing to churches scattered all over the place and all of which were under intense persecution. He knew the temptation to want to give up, forsake the name of Jesus, and leave the church to escape this cruel punishment would be very tempting. That being said, he commands them to be patient and... Continue Reading
Is the Trinity Biblical?
How must we understand God in order for everything Scripture expressly teaches to be true?
The Westminster Confession of Faith explains, “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (1.6). The doctrine of the Trinity is not expressly set down in Scripture... Continue Reading
If God is Love, Then Why Won’t Everyone be Saved?
God is love; gloriously so. But he is also just.
It must also be acknowledged that even those Christians who have been well taught—those Christians who have sat under a faithful preaching ministry which upholds both the love and justice of God—are not unaccustomed to moments of inner conflict. We think about the many unbelievers we know who are good and decent people and wonder... Continue Reading
The Way Up is the Way Down
Maybe it’s by losing that we win.
Some boast in power, some in progress, others in truth. But we boast in love. Love alone is credible. Love is the enticing fragrance of the gospel that moves us forward. The answer of love is not the opposite of power or progress or truth. But it is a reversal. Literary critic and poet... Continue Reading
Against Concupiscence
Concupiscence always leads to death—ours or Christ’s.
We cannot separate Christian ethics from the life of the mind and the internal drives of the professing Christ-follower. It is for this reason that Jesus runs his own reductio ad absurdum in the Sermon on the Mount, equating lust with adultery and hatred with murder (Matthew 5:21ff). To put it plainly: wanting to sin... Continue Reading