God Raised Jesus for You
If God has promised these blessings to His people by means of the covenant He made with David, then He has promised to them through Jesus, the Davidic King.
The child who would sit on David’s throne would eliminate gloom, anguish, and darkness and give light, joy, and peace instead (Isa 9:1–7). The shoot from the stump of Jesse would judge the poor with perfect righteousness, treat the meek with equity, and rid His enemies with a word (Isa 11:1–4). The chosen Servant would... Continue Reading
How to Get Our Sanctification Unstuck
You cannot hope to begin the doing of sanctification until you’ve first grasped the knowing.
When it comes to sanctification, it is not possible to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. While your effort is surely necessary, and is commanded in dozens of places in the New Testament, those efforts must necessarily fail if conducted apart from a total dependence upon the work of the Lord within us. The necessary... Continue Reading
Belief in a Savior that Leads to a Battle Against Sin
We are to “consider ourselves” dead to sin (with Christ!) and alive to God (in Christ!) – that is we are to count it as a fact.
When I feel the weariness of life and my failures, my eyes are on myself – apart from my union with Jesus. Instead, Paul would have me fix my eyes on Jesus and remember that I’m united with him until I believe it deep in my soul again. You see, we are not merely finite people... Continue Reading
The Unlikely Ways of God
The power of God can inhabit smallness just as easy as vastness.
We have a God who not simply is stronger than everything else, but delights to use weakness so that we can see his strength, so that His awesomeness is on display, not ours. Yet we get discouraged when we feel weak, or feel the weakness of our congregation, or the church. It should sadden us... Continue Reading
How to Receive God’s Gifts for God’s Glory
In order to receive God’s gifts for his glory, rather than idolatry, we should strive to recognize that everything is from him.
If we recognize that everything is from God—may we remember that the Bible literally says “all things are from him” (Romans 11:36), that he is stunningly sovereign—then we can begin to see that no good thing is merited, random, or insignificant. We know all is from God. “What do you have that you did not... Continue Reading
Kata Bethlen—A Faith Preserved
"Relight my heart, that I may keep knocking at the door of grace.”
Kata’s writings are pregnant with a sense of God’s sovereign wisdom and care for his own, in both easy and trying circumstances. “I have been like Moses’s bush,” she said, “enveloped in powerful flames, without being consumed.” Kata Bethlen (1700-1752) started her autobiography with her most painful memory: her forced marriage, at age 17,... Continue Reading
Revelation 3:20
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
The idea of Jesus’ knocking on the door of our hearts is typically based on Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” This verse is not addressing the status... Continue Reading
Changing One’s Mind
Why is it that some people change their minds about what they were taught when they were young, whereas other people hold on to their beliefs tenaciously?
On being accused of being an enemy of the truth, [Bart] Ehrman believes his entire career has been one of seeking the truth, while those whose views remain what they were have not been seeking after the truth. Bart Ehrman wrote a thoughtful piece recently on how and why some people change their minds... Continue Reading
Tried with Fire: The Things On the Earth
One reason God permits trauma in our lives is so that we may learn to love things as they ought to be loved.
God’s help arrives in many forms. One of the most common is pain. God allows us to experience the hurt, emptiness, and despair that envelop us when our idols betray us (as every idol eventually does). He puts us in positions in which we must lean either on our idols or on Him. If we... Continue Reading
Thirsting for God
Our heart is restless, until it rests in God.
Here is what we can sometimes miss. This invitation to rest in Christ does not belong just to the outset of the Christian journey; it belongs to whole of it as we sojourn in a dry and weary land that is this fallen world. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. (Psalm... Continue Reading