3 Neglected Aspects of Spiritual Formation That Destroy Us
The work of David Powlison and J.I. Packer remind us of three pivotal themes in our spiritual life. We neglect these to our detriment.
Spirituality is an area of ongoing interest to those outside the Christian faith, and so our neglect of these themes—motivation, repentance, and holiness—does more damage to our witness than we realize. If someone can look at your life and not see differences in your motive, a daily practice of repentance when that motive is off,... Continue Reading
The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching and the Unity of Scripture
The recovery of Irenaeus’ Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching reminds us that Christianity did not emerge as a corruption of apostolic faith, but as its continuation.
To read Scripture apostolically, then, is not merely to extract moral principles, distill doctrine in abstraction, or isolate proof-texts. It is to perceive the coherence of God’s saving work in his ordained story from creation to new creation, centred upon the person of Jesus Christ. This may be one of the most important lessons the... Continue Reading
True Knowledge Leads to Worthy Walking
We are Christians. And we must live in a manner consistent with that name.
We might be tempted to think that living “worthy” means garnering enough merit to deserve respect. And we know there are at least two problems with that. First of all, we know that we will never be worthy of the Lord, no matter how hard we try. But secondly, we know that as Christians, we... Continue Reading
Gyros, Lamb Chops, and the Church: A Warning Against Doing Christianity Alone
The Good Shepherd never intended His sheep to live outside the flock He gathers and sustains. You need the Shepherd, and you need His herd.
Perhaps you have a good reason for being unchurched. Maybe pain or disappointment from the family of God has left you with a bad taste in your mouth. If that’s your story, that pain matters, and it shouldn’t be minimized. Just “going back to church” may not be reasonable. I instead challenge you to take... Continue Reading
The Bible Verses Dividing Washington: How Matthew 25 Became a Political Litmus Test
'He told me that Matthew 25 was about individuals, and not nations,' Sen. Raphael Warnock said, referring to Speaker Mike Johnson. 'The text actually says nations.'
At a congressional hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s Minnesota deportation efforts, the Rev. Mariah Tollgaard, a United Methodist minister in St. Paul, read a statement criticizing the president’s immigration policies and mentioned Matthew 25. In response, GOP Rep. Michael Cloud, a former communications director at an evangelical megachurch, brandished a Bible and argued... Continue Reading
Taught in the Valley: Why God Often Uses Suffering to Make Us Depend on Him
Suffering trains us. Slowly. Painfully. Often invisibly. But God uses it to produce fruit that ease rarely grows.
Suffering can reveal impatience, anger, self-pity, pride, envy and unbelief. It can show us how much we crave ease, recognition, productivity and control. But this exposure is not God’s cruelty. It is part of his fatherly care. There are lessons God teaches us in the valley that we rarely learn on the mountain top.... Continue Reading
The Case Against Paedocommunion (WLC 171–177)
The Lord’s Supper is the family feast, reserved for those who have grown to the point where they can knowingly sit at the table.
Baptism is the sacrament of birth into the visible church; it can be passively received. The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of growth and nourishment; it must be actively received by faith. You can bathe an infant who does nothing but cry, but you cannot feed a steak to a newborn. Because the Reformed... Continue Reading
God’s Purpose Develops a Discerning Mind
God’s mercy deserves everything you have, and God’s will demands everything you are. Give Him everything, and you will find His will to be good, pleasing, and perfect.
The consecrated life and the discerning life turn out to be one and the same, and this is where every Christian should rest. God pours out His pleasure on the child who is given over to His will and able to discern it. The renewed mind is given for a purpose, and the close... Continue Reading
No Faith Worth Defending
England has no significant institutions by which Christianity can leaven the broader culture.
Public Christianity in England has long since been evacuated of any doctrinal content or counter-cultural pungency. The fact that the Church of England remains established and yet only a fraction of the country bothers to attend even once a year means that it is in a permanent state of having to justify its own existence... Continue Reading
The Science of Unbelief: The Religious Nature of Unbelief
Why there are no neutral worldviews.
The biblical worldview recognizes no such category. Scripture does not divide humanity into religious and non-religious people. Rather, it divides humanity into those who worship the Creator and those who worship the creature (Rom. 1:25). The fundamental distinction is not between worship and non-worship but between true worship and false worship. The Bible assumes that... Continue Reading
The Value of Spiritual Disciplines
Jesus himself spent a lifetime obeying the Father, attending the synagogue, and reciting Scripture.
We don’t naturally develop speed and endurance while sitting on the couch and scrolling our phones. And we don’t develop speed and endurance because we went for a run one time. In the same way, we don’t naturally develop Christlikeness by living in this world. And we don’t get to know the Lord deeply because... Continue Reading
” . . . To Forgive Is Divine”
The humble sinner who receives God's forgiveness in Christ, and who grants it to other sinners, makes himself "like" his Great God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ made it abundantly clear, that those who do not forgive other sinners, are not (themselves) forgiven their sins (by God Himself). And, to not be forgiven one’s sins, is to be abiding in sin, death, condemnation, judgment, and (impending) hell. Our Savior could have said a lot about His “Lord’s Prayer,”... Continue Reading
Colorado Couldn’t Ban Christian Counseling — So It Did This Instead
Just as in the days of Jesus, scoffing and retaliation over Christian principles are increasing.
The First Amendment protects free speech. But financial terror accomplishes what a legal ban cannot. When a counselor faces the prospect of unlimited liability for simply having a conversation, they go silent. And when counselors go silent, the silencing of the Gospel is accomplished. This is not a hypothetical threat. It is already happening. ... Continue Reading
Conscience – Minister’s Letter June 26
God has gone to enormous lengths to speak to us in ways that are designed to get through to even the most damaged conscience.
Dear all at IPC, What is it that makes the difference between hearing God’s words, even listening to God’s words, and then responding to him in the way that we should? What is it that makes the difference between the days when we are actually arrested, grabbed by the word of God and have to... Continue Reading
How to Live Simply and Give Generously
When we live on less than we make, we create margin to help others.
Choosing a smaller house, selling expensive jewelry, or skipping the latest tech gadget may seem like a sacrifice. But if those choices free up funds for God’s work, the return is eternal. Jesus promised that we are storing up treasures in Heaven when we invest in His kingdom. Every time we say “no” to materialism,... Continue Reading
Spur One Another On (pt 4)
Church that gathers to one another one another for the glory of God as we live for his kingdom that is both here and approaching.
Inviting you to commit to gathering with God’s people, to recognise the drift into apathy, and change your habit. If that’s you this morning, will you share that with someone, so they can pray for you and encourage you to come along Sunday by Sunday?And it’s not just Sunday. We need to be meeting with... Continue Reading
I May Not Be the Best, But I Choose to Be My Best-Maxim # 60
If we all gave up everything we weren’t the best in, we’d end up doing nothing except being the best at giving up and quitting.
Should I have given up real estate because there may have been a few better real estate agents than me? No, I should have fulfilled the place I had, giving excellent service, along with my wife, and help the people we helped. There will always be people smarter and more talented than me. I... Continue Reading
Pastor’s Job Description
Four essential responsibilities of a shepherd.
Sheep are defenseless and vulnerable. They are not predators but prey. Therefore, they need shepherds to protect them, particularly when it comes to false teachers who prey on the flock (Acts 20:29; Eph. 4:14). These teachers make lies sound like truth; they make slavery look like freedom; they offer poison as candy. They present the pathway to... Continue Reading
Would You Attend Your Son’s Execution?
The day will come when the crosses that stand before us will be seen to have achieved God’s purpose just as much as the one that stood before her.
I can barely bring myself to picture Mary as she stood before the cross, but I love to picture Mary just a short time later. Her grief must have been intense in the day that elapsed between what we now call Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Her senses must have been overwhelmed, her body exhausted... Continue Reading
Is There Anything Else you Would Rather Do?
Virtually nothing can compare with this joy, this contentment, this pleasure, this freedom. And all of it is found in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who, by grace alone, have “seen” the “face” of Jesus Christ by faith, are so-enrapt by this visage that they earnestly and sincerely *want* to meet with their God every day. In fact, this fellowship with The Holy Trinity becomes *so* special to them, that nothing else can replace it/replicate it/or (even) compete with... Continue Reading
God’s Mercy Deserves Sacrifice and Worship
Give us a church wholly committed to Jesus, with nothing held back. For when you lay yourself on the altar, everything changes.
You take your ordinariness, your ‘nothing special,’ and you give it wholly to God for Him to use as He wills. There is nothing in you of value in itself, and yet you may set yourself apart and place yourself entirely in His hands. If the mercies of God are the reason we respond, what... Continue Reading
Ordinary People
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
I have marked the words “ordinary” and “insignificant” because it is clear from the records that this is not how Jesus regarded such people. Again and again he gave them his attention. He listened to them. He helped them. Mind you, my category of powerless and low-status people is problematic. Jesus was not a social... Continue Reading
Act in Accordance with Your Prayers
We might say that one of the ways we express our confidence in God’s ability and willingness to answer our prayers is through our actions in accordance with those prayers.
In Matthew 9, Jesus was busy traveling throughout the region, teaching, preaching, and healing everyone who came to Him. Understandably, crowds followed Him everywhere, and “when he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). That’s when Jesus gave a prayer instruction... Continue Reading
The Foot of the Table
Our Lord highlights two things for our kingdom conduct in this world.
Jesus lays out the pattern for greatness in the kingdom. “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is... Continue Reading
God’s Gift to You Is Real Life
"For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building."
This cultural moment has conditioned us to want tangible rewards. But raising children, loving our spouses, and serving our local church—none of these provide a linear view of progress or accomplishment. Yet God has promised that He is doing His eternal work in and through us (Phil. 2:12–13). The unrecognized spheres in which we serve... Continue Reading
Live Not by Lies
Individual conscience and objective truth.
We must again reckon with our consciences—with the inescapable conviction that certain things are real, and therefore universally true, regardless of how we feel about them. If they’re true for everyone, then the loving thing is to have the courage to seek them, live according to them, and call everyone to do the same, especially... Continue Reading
Waiting on God
Are you looking elsewhere? The secret of every great spiritual movement is not moving. It is setting our eyes upon Him, our hearts in a determined trust, and moving only as He directs.
We want to be noticed for what we have done, but impatient faith that is not focused on God is no faith at all. It can only yield humanistic fruit, the fruit of the flesh that Paul describes. To wait is to understand your place. To wait is to realize who the great God of... Continue Reading
The Perfect Man
His life, death, and resurrection are the only works I’m trusting in.
When He was tempted, He never faltered. He never gave in. When He was tired, and hungry, the devil came and tried to turn His head. But Christ was victorious. When He dealt with His mother and unbelieving brothers, He was without sin. When He flipped tables and cracked the whip, He never sinned. The... Continue Reading
How Do we Know That we Are Not Deceived?
"Truth of the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ--all revealed in and by the Holy Scriptures."
You may have asked yourself at some time: “If all the unbelieving world is deceived, how may I know that I am not?” That is a good question; and you have several very strong “pillars” to support you. Principal among them is your Christ, the One who has united your humanity to His divinity, and... Continue Reading
Precious Affections
When God creates better loves in us.
There is only one escape—to ask God to fill you with new affections, his loves. For forever joy and peace, it’s wise to nurture new and better loves in the here and now. God alone is the source of all that is true, good and beautiful, and as fallen creatures, we need his loving hands... Continue Reading