Whatever My Lot
Embracing the Day God Has Made
Scripture teaches us to cultivate joy in the midst of sorrow through the daily habit of looking for God’s good gifts (Ecclesiastes 2:24–26). Each day, our heavenly Father gives comfort for today’s sorrows and blessings for today’s joys. Happiness in him comes one day at a time. Nine years ago this month, my dad... Continue Reading
It’s All About the Conscience
Our task as spiritual physicians is to treat bad consciences, continually delivering the healing balm of the living word of God and his life-giving sacraments.
Our goal is not to build people up to utilize their own inner resources or become better spiritual athletes. The cure of souls is instead geared to address spiritual dysfunction and disease, restoring health and life to souls burdened by guilt and torn by shame. I’ve made it no secret that Harold Senkbeil’s The... Continue Reading
Dort: Reformational Rebar for Revival
Calvinism Should Cultivate Piety in the Christian Life
When we teach the doctrines of grace, we must aim for the head and the heart. Mind-only discussions of the doctrines from Dort will fall short of promoting a piety that is well-pleasing in the sight of God our Savior. Heart-applications and affections-aimed teachings of TULIP will shame us into humble and holy disciples of... Continue Reading
Sent Into Orbit
God has given us every reason to have high expectations for marriage.
How can it be that something most of us once thought of as permanent (“till death do us part”) has become so fragile? Why have our expectations been so radically lowered that we’re scared, when we meet someone we haven’t seen for 10 years, to ask how the family is doing? I’ve been watching,... Continue Reading
Grace and Peace: How These Two Terms Summarize Christianity
Paul’s “grace and peace” greeting is full of theological brilliance.
God’s shalom is one of the main themes of the Old Testament. The Israelites were redeemed as God’s people through God’s covenant, receiving God’s hesed (covenantal love), so that they could be a holy nation and worship God, all so that there might experience and share God’s shalom—an everything-as-it-should-be peace. The apostle Paul begins... Continue Reading
Dear Aunt Tracy: The Great End Time Debate Clarified for Busy Homemakers and Teens
Questions and answers about the millennium and about how to interpret OT prophecies of the coming Kingdom of God.
The question of the millennium is like the tip of an iceberg: All sorts of interesting materials lie hidden beneath the surface. This becomes especially clear when we take a quick look at the three main views of the end times popular among Christians today: Historic Premillennialism, Dispensational Premillennialism, and Amillennialism. Actually, Aunt Tracy... Continue Reading
“Knee”hemiah
A church moves forward on its knees.
“Remember me, O my God, for good” (Neh. 13:31). This prayer is reminiscent of the psalm of Moses to “establish the work of our hands” (Ps. 90:17). Nehemiah shows us two things for the work God has given His church. One, he shows us pervasive prayer as the animating feature of kingdom building. Two, he... Continue Reading
Grace Now and Not Yet
Like the Old Testament saints, we too are looking forward to the revelation of Jesus.
Jesus’ second coming will be a revelation. He will appear. We shall see him as he is for we too shall be made like him (1 John 3:2). He will reveal His person in the full majesty of His glory. He shall descend in the same way that He ascended—visibly and upon clouds of glory... Continue Reading
Guidance and the Guide
God will almost certainly take us to places and along paths that we would never have chosen for ourselves.
The Bible makes it clear that guidance is not merely about the instructions God gives by way of direction for our life. Fundamentally it is all about our relationship with him as our Guide. There seems to be a never-ending market in Christian circles for books on guidance. The reason for this, of course,... Continue Reading
Sanctification: An Introduction
Our growth in holiness is fundamentally not the result of our own effort or inherent ability to tend toward righteousness.
The important thing to remember during those days of spiritual difficulty and genuine struggle against sin is that one is not striving to become a saint. That person is already a saint because God has marked him for his own and therefore has brought him to salvation. That discouraged and beaten down Christian can look... Continue Reading