Matt Perman has an excellent book entitled, What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms The Way You Get Things Done. Chapter 4 answers the question why we need to be God-centered in our productivity. He briefly walks through the progression of thinking regarding time management that I found helpful, as well as convicting. Get organized through lists, reminders…
Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:7 to encourage him that God hasn’t given Christians a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control. What is self-control? Is having self-control a big deal? Should not having self-control concern us? If you’re anything like me there are areas in my life where I’ve…
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” But what does it mean that all the promises of God find their Yes in Jesus? Jerry Bridges…
When we describe someone’s attributes, we usually make a distinction between a person and his attributes. For instance, you may say your mother is patient, but you wouldn’t say that your mother is patience. And you would say that your mother is more than a mere list of traits. In the same way, God is…
Change is hard. Read Jeremiah 13:23; 22:21 – what is Jeremiah referring to? Wrong interpretation: referring to sinful nature with which men are born. However, Calvin insists that it should be understood as a description of “the habit that is contracted by long practice.” Jeremiah makes the point elsewhere in Jeremiah 22:21. Change is a cooperative act (Phil…
What Nicodemus needs, and what you and I need, is not religion but life. The point of referring to new birth is that birth brings a new life into the world. In one sense, of course, Nicodemus is alive. He is breathing, thinking, feeling, acting. He is a human created in God’s image. But evidently,…
As long as I am inside the gospel, I experience all the protection I need from the powers of evil that rage against me. If is for this reason that the Bible tells me to ‘take up’ and ‘put on’ the whole armor of God; and the pieces of armor it tells me to put…
What are the characteristics of God’s forgiveness? God’s forgiveness is gracious. He offers forgiveness freely. This is not because forgiveness is free in terms of cost. It is a very expensive gift that can be offered freely because, motivated by love, God send his one and only Son to pay the price for it. God’s…
According to Scripture, God deliberately designed the gospel in such a way so as to strip me of pride and leave me without any grounds for boasting in myself whatsoever. This is actually a wonderful mercy from God, for pride is at the root of all my sin. Pride produced the first sin in the…
In Thomas Watson’s book The Doctrine of Repentance he gives several aspects of true, biblical repentance. For a free PDF copy of his book click here. Observation of sin (Acts 26:18; Luke 15:17). Without a sense of sin there is no humiliation; that without humiliation there can be no repentance; and that without repentance there can be…
Theology Along the Way 