February 2012
16 posts
What to Do If You Wake Up Feeling Fragile
There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It’s often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible. It’s usually after a lot of criticism. Lots of expectations that have deadlines and that seem too big and too many.
As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic mornings, I am amazed how...
The Prison Gates Opened of Their Own...
One of the great benefits of vacation is that there are no deadlines for being done with devotions. I can start and go as long as I want. If the Bible plan says four chapters (which it does), I can read eight. If it takes 20 minutes to read four chapters, I can take two hours. That’s the way I really like to read the Bible. Roll it around in the mouth of your mind before you swallow it down into...
So they asked: How can young workers glorify God at work?
Here’s the gist of my answer.
Dependence. Go to work utterly dependent on God (Proverbs 3:5-6; John 15:5). Without him you can’t breathe, move, think, feel, or talk. Not to mention be spiritually influential. Get up in the morning and let God know your desperation for him. Pray for help.
Integrity. Be absolutely and meticulously...
We know that before Paul was born God had set him apart for his apostleship.
He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. (Galatians 1:15–16).
And we know that Paul became a Christian-hating (Acts 9:1), Christ-persecuting (Acts 9:5), zealot (Philippians 3:6; Galatians 1:14)...
“For too long, we’ve called unbelievers to ‘invite Jesus into your...”
– Dr. Moore
A Purpose-Driven Cosmos: Why Jesus Doesn't Promise...
There’s a cemetery plot, somewhere out there, waiting for your corpse. Regardless of who and where you are, you will one day be quite dead. And in 100 years, chances are no one will remember your name—including the people carrying your genes in their bloodstreams. We see our mortal future in everything from the natural forces that sap our hair color to the bacteria that eventually grind...
Watch
Watch
“They were unprepared before the passion and resurrection to conceive of a...”
– Carson/moo
Oh, that we would cling to Christ
When Monday morning comes way too quickly and we’re already exhausted before the week begins, OH that we would cling to Christ! When our spouse pulls away from our touch and hasn’t made eye contact in weeks, OH that we would cling to Christ! When the bills keep coming, but the work and paycheck do not, OH that we would cling to Christ!
When all is well and we’re tempted...
An Open Letter to Christian Singles, or, How to...
“Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free.” (Mumford and Sons, “Sigh no More”)
“Love never fails.” (Paul the apostle, ca. 55 A.D.)
To my Christian single friends, this Valentine’s Day:
Cheer up. Or at least try. I get it…you’re getting older, and you’re not getting any less single. And, if you’re like me and find yourself single past 30, you...
“The aim of the Bible translator William Tyndale (strangled and burned in 1536)...”
January 2012
9 posts
“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free...”
– Charles Spurgeon (via abideinhislove)
The Goal and Difficulty of Teaching Biblical and Theological Studies and the Personal Traits That Fit You for It
December 1, 1977 | by John Piper | Topic: Life of the Mind
Prepared for the Bethel College Pre-Seminary Group (1977)
The only reason for living is the achievement of what you value. Nobody should ever sacrifice a higher value to a lower one. You should always aspire to...
B. B. Warfield’s sermon “Imitating the Incarnation” “offers the most riveting description of the goal of Christian living that I’ve ever read.”
Here is an excerpt:
It is not to this that Christ’s example calls us.
He did not cultivate self, even His divine self: He took no account of self.
He was not led by His divine impulse out of the world, driven back into the recesses of His own soul...
“… Let angels sing for sinner repenting, prodigals restored,
backsliders...”
– the valley of vision: a collection of puritan prayers and devotions (p. 6).
December 2011
16 posts
“‘Immanuel, God with us.’ It is hell’s terror. Satan trembles at the sound of it… . Let him come to you suddenly, and do you but whisper that word, ‘God with us,’ back he falls, confounded and confused… . ‘God with us’ is the laborer’s strength. How could he preach the gospel, how could he bend his knees in prayer, how could the missionary go into foreign lands, how could the...
Hope was born this night.
Those Who Walk in Darkness Have Seen a Great Light: The Wonder of Christmas
“The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” [Isaiah 9:2] Those words from the prophet Isaiah told of the coming Prince of Peace, and of the light and life He would bring.
Christmas arrives again with all the promise of remembrance and...
Thinking Wrongly About Money
Throughout this fall I have been able to spend some time teaching my church about money. One of the first challenges I faced was in distinguishing between what the Bible teaches about money and what we, as Christians living in this time and this place, tend to believe. What I found is that there are many ways that we think about money that owes more to the...
Here is a core dilemma for Bible readers.
On the one hand, we are told that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). Likewise, we believe that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in...
Watch
The X in Christmas is used like the R in R.C. My given name at birth was Robert Charles, although before I was even taken home from the hospital my parents called me by my initials, R.C., and nobody seems to be too scandalized by that.
X can mean so many things. For example, when we want to denote an unknown quantity, we use the symbol X. It can refer to an obscene level of films, something...
“”I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead...”
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5
How can I tell if my trust in the Lord is wholehearted? One way is this. Do I let the Bible overrule my own thinking? It says, “Do not lean on your own understanding.” So, do I agree with the Bible, or do I obey the Bible? If I merely agree with the Bible, then my positive response is not...
November 2011
10 posts
family tensions and the holidays
We tend to idealize holidays, but human depravity doesn’t go into hibernation between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. One thing that will hit most Christians, sooner or later, are tensions within extended families at holiday time.
Some of you will be visiting family members who are contemptuous of the Christian faith and downright hostile to the whole thing.
Others are empty nest couples who now...
“This life is too short to play church games. Time is running out fast.”
– Dr. Rainer
“We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the...”
– elliot
The English word “hallelujah” is a transliteration of two Hebrew words, “hallelu” and “jah”. The first word, “hallelu”, is the second person imperative of “praise.” The second word, “jah,” is the short form of “Jahweh” (or “Yahweh”).
So when we say, “Hallelujah!” we are exhorting others (people and angels) to join us in...
“The heart is heated by meditation and cold truth is melted into passionate...”
“Apart from the Gospel of the Kingdom, death is the mighty conqueror before whom...”
– George Ladd