Joy Banishes Burnout
How pastors finish well.
When you read Deuteronomy 33:27 — “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms” — you find a solid foundation for security. Our identity in him takes away the shame that society, with its competitive ethos, inflicts upon us. For “those who look to him [daily] are radiant, and their... Continue Reading
Against the Communion of Rome on the Worship of Images
They who make images divide Christ’s two, inseparable natures in the minds of men, who are trained by images to think of a fantasy of his human nature, and not that eminent return which shall consummate our salvation.
If Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3), and if it is absolutely impermissible to portray God, as Rome herself says in Catechism 2129, then how can it be right to portray him who is the image and revelation of God? For if the... Continue Reading
Zion, the City of God
The climax of God’s redemptive plan centers on the coming together of heaven and earth.
The expectation of a future city of God runs throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. According to Hebrews, the patriarch Abraham looked forward to “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10, NIV). The expectation of a transformed Jerusalem is a dominant theme in the oracles of the Old Testament... Continue Reading
Why a Consumer Mentality Doesn’t Work at Church
We have the supernatural gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ at work in our hearts.
I think consumerism particularly bites hard against God’s plan for a church made of people who share little in common other than Jesus Christ. The fact is that we have the gospel at work in our lives, and we want to show it off. It’s like you have the special edition Camaro. You don’t want... Continue Reading
Reflections on Forty Years of Being Born Again
God’s chastening is always good for me, though I am sometimes a slow learner.
God employs loss and its accompanying grief to strip me of inferior objects of trust and sources of joy and anchor my soul more securely to Christ. Fear is a powerful enemy and an opponent of childlike faith. Suffering is the most powerful instrument of the Spirit for exposing my heart’s sin and false trust.... Continue Reading
How Intellectuals Found God
Almost 150 years after Nietzsche said ‘God is dead,’ some of our most important thinkers are getting religion. Peter Savodnik meets the new theists.
For two decades, Jordan Hall, 52, had been on this hypercharged, neon-lit journey through the whirlwind of Web 1.0: Burning Man, Big Sur, Aspen, private islands, cross-country RV treks, the jungles of southern Ecuador. Then, in 2022, Hall and his then-girlfriend Vanessa arrived in the green, rambling, rolling Blue Ridge Mountains of westernmost North Carolina.... Continue Reading
How Did We Get Here (Part Two)
The problem for the church is not a culture to be fixed with a different moral ordering, but a spiritual problem of men and women in need of reconciliation to God.
Looking and sounding like the world mutes the true spiritual difference between the world and the Christian message. The entire progressive project is an attempt to create an ethos within the church to address the problem of church attendance as if that was the first concern of the church. Now the music, the message, the... Continue Reading
2024 Year in Review: The Top 40 Christian Headlines (Part 1)
The United Methodist Church overturns its ban on LGBTQ clergy.
The UMC now joins the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the United Church of Christ as being among those to ordain gay clergy. Christ has removed his lamp stand from these churches (Revelation 2:5), and the Holy Spirit is not there. Interestingly enough, the liberal African Methodist... Continue Reading
Notable Deaths of Church and Ministry Leaders in 2024
Morgan authored books and articles on leadership and served a combined total of 14 years on the senior leadership teams of three large churches.
Tony Morgan died Sept. 4 following complications from a heart attack. Morgan was founder of the Unstuck Group, a church consultancy firm that “helps pastors clarify where God’s called the church to go in the future, and how you’ll get there.” Since its founding in 2009, the organization claims to have “helped over 600 churches... Continue Reading
How Do I Live Through a Season of Darkness?
We must wait for the Lord, cry to him, and know that our own self-indictment, rendered in the darkness, is not as sure as God’s word spoken in the light.
We can draw no deadlines for God. He hastens or he delays as he sees fit. And his timing is all-loving toward his children. Oh, that we might learn to be patient in the hour of darkness. Darkness Is Normal It will be of great advantage to the struggling Christian to remember that seasons of... Continue Reading
The Word and Prayer
The word of God not only rouses our souls by the adrenaline of praise, it nourishes our beings for the conduct of life.
The truth of God’s Word will sink deep into our beings, assimilated by the digestive juices of prayer to our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. Our very beings are affected, sustained, fortified, and changed. By the Spirit, that embraced Word will accomplish the purpose intended for us in it. Prayer in Nehemiah (15) “And... Continue Reading
Don’t Be a Partial Christian
Partial Bible makes only a partial Christian.
Few dare to plunge into the unusual laws and regulations of Leviticus, the troubling histories of Judges, the long prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel. Yet if each of these books is from God and ultimately about God, then each book teaches us how we can best honor God. The Bible is a canon, an authoritative... Continue Reading
The Theology of Christmas
What is a Mediator?
“It pleased God, in His eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world; unto whom He did from all eternity... Continue Reading
A Case for Seasonal Awareness
This wisdom of the seasons is a wisdom that the Church follows, too.
Instead of having time to become bored, as it were, with resting and naturally begetting excitement for an upcoming event, we instead have no time amid the general rush to keep up with commercial demands. We find ourselves constantly too busy—not only for meaningful connection with other humans, but for celebrating holidays, living seasonally, and... Continue Reading
Consider the Snowflakes
He who has time - indeed, makes time - to craft each and every snowflake uniquely surely has His affections set on you.
When the redeemed observe the faintly falling snow through the universe, their minds ought to turn to the Maker of both snow and universe, the One who crafts each and every snowflake individually, separately, uniquely. A great torrent of white snow settling on a blemished creation ought to remind us all of Him who delights... Continue Reading
Waiting for the Second Christmas
The present misery, need, and decay must pass away and the new day of the son of man must dawn.
Humankind needs desperately to find this deeper meaning of Christmas which transforms people’s hearts and consequently their whole lives and relationships. This is the eternal mystery of Christmas, its great power and light, its everlasting gospel of love, unity and purity, its infinite joy and gladness. We must discover what it means that the kingdom... Continue Reading
2 Things Jesus Did That Everyone Desperately Needs
Peace with God is found only by his grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John... Continue Reading
Finding Strength in God’s Promises
Letting faith transform your daily life one moment at a time.
Faith, like anything meaningful, needs nurturing. It’s not something that stays strong on its own—we must be intentional about it. These are a few practices that have helped me strengthen my connection to God. Over the years, I’ve learned that consistency matters more than perfection in these practices. Life has a way of throwing... Continue Reading
Honor Your (Elderly) Parents
How adult children ‘make some return’.
There is wisdom in listening to and learning from doctors and experienced caregivers. But Christians have the full resources of the all-wise God available to them — by God’s Spirit, through his word, and among his people. Generational ministry lives in the church, Christ’s body; we are meant to work together as we honor the... Continue Reading
Twenty-Five Marks of Unbelief
Faith gives us peace and comfort in our souls; but unbelief works trouble and tossings, like the restless waves of the sea.
Faith makes us see preciousness in Christ; but unbelief sees no form, beauty, or comeliness in him (1 Pet 2:7; Isa. 53:1-3). By faith we have our life in Christ’s fulness; but by unbelief we starve and pine away (Gal. 2:20). Faith gives us the victory over the law, sin, death, the devil, and all... Continue Reading
How to Thrive in 2025: The Hands of Men and the Hand of God (Proverbs 27:23–27)
Take what God has given you, and make the most of what you have—for him, for yourself, and for others.
The Lord uses His people similarly to provide for His church today. Generally speaking (again, these are proverbs for us today), God desires to bless our faithfulness with fruitfulness to care for ourselves, for others, and His church. Fruit may not always be in dollars and things, but a faithful life is generally a happy... Continue Reading
Appeal to the Man Beneath the Armor
Is anonymity serving a righteous purpose, or is it covering something your conscience knows isn’t right?
If you claim to follow Christ, your interactions—whether in person or behind a screen—are not neutral. Every word you type reflects either the flesh or the Spirit. Anonymity may shield you from others, but it doesn’t shield you from the Lord who purchased you with His blood. He calls you to holiness, even in how... Continue Reading
You’ll Never Really Settle In
The reason why we’re always homesick in this world is because we were made for another one.
C.S. Lewis puts his finger on this desire – a yearning homesickness – as the deepest human longing, and what eventually led him to Christianity. He describes it as “that unnameable something [the] desire for which pierces us like a sword at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the... Continue Reading
Are You Missing Out on the Gift of the Good and Abundant Life?
The abundant life is a life lived with one foot on earth and the other in heaven.
Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, we are all on a search for “the good life.” We are all after that person, place, or thing that will make us satisfied, someone or something that will give us meaning in this world. And since that’s what we’re all looking for, that’s what everyone... Continue Reading
Three Mysteries in the Lord Jesus Christ
He is more than double a king.
Where will you set Christ? Where will you get a seat, a throne, a chair for Him? He cannot be set too high. Nay, if there were ten thousand times ten thousand heavens, and each to be above another, and Christ to be set in the highest of them all, yet He would be too... Continue Reading
Top 50 Stories on The Aquila Report for 2024: 1-10
Numbers 1-10 of the top 50 articles for 2024
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here... Continue Reading
We are Trinitarians
We will know ourselves more fully when we understand God more as Trinity.
Don’t be afraid to call yourself a Trinitarian. We believe in a thrice holy God. This God, who exists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, redeemed us when we were headed for hell. The Father chose, the Son purchased, the Spirit empowers. As we live, we live in communion with the Trinity.... Continue Reading
The Advent of Expectancy
Christian expectancy is not escapist but realist.
The expectation of joy in Christ and the advance of his glorious kingdom ought to motivate us all to “attempt great things for God.” This optimism, grounded in the gospel of Christ, will prompt us to celebrate the first advent of Jesus, while living zealously anticipating his second advent. When William Carey preached on... Continue Reading
The Problem with the King’s Gospel
You might have expected the King, as the head of the Church of England, to offer more than basic humanist doctrine, tinged with a splash of religiosity.
The main problem with the King’s Gospel [is]…it is a gospel for our age—which is no gospel at all. Ultimately it leaves out the real Christ, and leaves us with a collection of wishes and cliches—which saves no one. In a year when the Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to resign, and with continued... Continue Reading
What Is Happening in Germany?
And Why Americans Should Pay Attention
Germany is historically a Christian country, the birthplace of the Reformation, and a stronghold of Western civilization. Although much of the nation has secularized, the remnants of Christian Germany are still visible in places. If Germany as a nation survives, those historic roots could serve as the foundation for Christian revival. With the recent... Continue Reading