While Hebrews urges us to fix our hearts and hopes on Jesus, who sits at God’s right hand in heaven (Heb. 12:1–2), our preacher is vividly aware of the faith-threatening challenges that confront his hearers on this sin-sick earth. The original congregation had endured the loss of social acceptance, property, physical safety, and freedom (Heb.... Continue Reading

As we entrust our sorrows to him, we find that he has first entrusted them to us. He has assigned to us these sorrows so we can in turn consecrate them to him. He means for us to faithfully steward them, confident that they will guide us into deeper submission to his purposes and deeper... Continue Reading

To arrest a possible breakup, you need to talk about the threat before the root of bitterness grows. Deal with it quickly. Like cancer, it must be handled as soon as it is discovered because any delay only allows the cancer to grow.    Jesus’s Prayer for the Church Toward the end of Jesus’s life... Continue Reading

Keep working for the Lord…You and I may be just very ordinary people. But we can do some extraordinary things with the help of our Lord. We might just be ordinary, but our God certainly is not.   The longer you are a Christian, the less you speak about “coincidence” and the more you speak... Continue Reading

[God’s] got you now, present tense. But he’s got you in the future too. He will keep you from evil. He will keep your life. He will keep your going out and coming in not just now but into eternity. It’s not just a promise for this life but for all time. God has promised good to his people throughout... Continue Reading

At the end of life, when he is no longer able to sing, the man who has led his family in song will have a rich repertoire at hand and will have prepared himself well for the eternal song of the saints of God in heaven.   Singing is a manly and powerful means of... Continue Reading

God reveals himself to us in the pages of this holy book. To the novice and the expert, to the young and the old, God offers himself to those who would take up and read.   The force of gravity that one object exerts on another depends on a few factors: the mass of each... Continue Reading

There is the temptation to trust our own wisdom. Proverbs warns us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (3:5–8). To believe that our own wisdom is sufficient to guide us not only is foolish but is the essence of sin. That belief led the first... Continue Reading

I think we make a mistake by believing we are keeping this commandment by not bowing down to images. Of course, there are modern controversies that could be discussed, such as the Catholic practice of veneration of saints and the use of icons. There is also the distinction that some have made between religious worship... Continue Reading

When you move from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you encounter the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and he seems to be the opposite of the son depicted in Deuteronomy 21:18–21. Whereas the son in Deuteronomy 21 wouldn’t obey the voice of his father or mother (Deut. 21:18), Jesus was an obedient son... Continue Reading