What the Doctors Missed: My Experience of Depression and Spiritual Disconnection
If the Great Physician wouldn’t provide any peace for my racing mind or balm for my frayed nerves, I would have to seek help elsewhere.
Depression tempts us to curve inward rather than reaching out to God. We easily succumb to this temptation because, after all, it is the ordinary human condition is to curve in on ourselves. In my experience, during the later stages of my depression, I became tired of calling out to God and soon became skeptical... Continue Reading
An Important Reminder About Death
For the person who has placed his or her faith in the forgiveness of sin by God through Jesus Christ, death loses its fear and power.
What does that make death for the saved person? Death is 100% not your enemy. There is no fear in death. When you die, you simply pass from this life to the next. As Dr. Bob Smith used to teach: Death is a door from here on earth to God’s presence in heaven. This... Continue Reading
Sanctification of the Spirit
We can endure suffering much better when we know there is a purpose behind it.
The efforts we make show results by God’s workmanship. Peter reminds us that whatever adversity we are experiencing, whatever hardship we are enduring, whatever suffering we undergo, God has not lost sight of the plot. It’s all part of His plan, just as it was for His Son in His mission as Messiah. elect... Continue Reading
We Are Not Disposable
A meditation for the church and the world.
The Internet age is one in which God’s providence is questioned at an emotional level every second. Every time we log on, we are seeking in some ways to escape the embodied realties that our Creator has placed us in. Owing much to this, ours is a culture in which people feel that they and... Continue Reading
The Garden of Eden was No Picnic
We were made for work. We were made for dominion.
There is a shocking truth that escapes the notice of most Christians: when we go to heaven, we won’t stop working. We were made for work and in heaven we will get to experience work in the fulfilling and meaningful way God intended. Heaven isn’t (just!) a picnic, either. We don’t know exactly what this... Continue Reading
But That is Unfair!
God is good and is never unfair.
God can do as he pleases. He is sovereign and we are not. He can choose to give certain gifts to some people, but not to others. He can allow one Christian to go through all sorts of hardships and trials, while another might seem to go through life relatively unscathed in this regard. ... Continue Reading
Make Our Worship Spaces Presbyterian Again
Part of the beauty of Presbyterian worship is that you don’t need a fancy place with a bunch of pomp and circumstance. All you need is a Bible and Christians.
Our joy and happiness on the Sabbath morning and evening should come not from the elaborate displays of outward means, but from the inward assurance of gospel peace. Lastly the worship that happens in that room should emulate these principles as well. Really all that should take place in a Presbyterian service are the means of... Continue Reading
One Last Magnificent Porous Day
For one brief day the immanent frame of our secular imaginary was peeled back, and we were given a vision, albeit in shadow form, of what true majesty might look like.
In this final passive act, the Queen called us to acknowledge not our inner selves, or our felt selves, or our authentic selves, or whatever the latest psychobabble bon mot is that describes incurvatus in se, (the self curved in on itself) – but God Himself above. Her commitment to transcendence – God’s transcendence meant that down here she... Continue Reading
The Problem with Cultural Christianity
Human ingenuity cannot overcome sin and the curse, no matter how much positive thinking and mental determination we direct toward them.
When Jesus said, take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me, he was not inviting us to a life of misery. He was calling us out of ourselves to the most extraordinary life possible: knowing God. There is no greater glory and no greater joy, but we must root our life in his truth, not ourselves or the... Continue Reading
The Rural Church Dilemma
Some Thoughts for Rural Pastors
Be energized by the concept that your church could become the most loving church in the world. I find this compelling. There will be many things your church may not be. It may not be the most educated church or the most innovative church, or the most evangelistic church, but it can be the most loving church.... Continue Reading
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