I love my church. I love the people I gather with week-by-week. They are fun and safe and easy to be with. But who said church should be safe and easy? What if one of the marks of a good church, a blessed church, is that it’s a messy church? I’m sure you know of the…
It is good to know – especially when facing the next world – that every time we have failed to conform to God’s will in thought, word, and deed, by actively sinning or failing to conform to his revealed will, His Son has fulfilled the obedience that we owe. By never once giving it to…
One of the disciplines of the Christian faith is remembering and reorienting your mind to the truths of what God does with your sin. Tim Challies wrote on this weeks ago that I’ll briefly summarize. He writes, God throws your sin into the sea (Micah 7:19) God treads your sin underfoot (Micah 7:19) God throws…
One of the disciplines of the Christian faith is remembering and reorienting your mind to the truths of what God does with your sin. Tim Challies wrote on this weeks ago that I’ll briefly summarize. He writes, God throws your sin into the sea (Micah 7:19) God treads your sin underfoot (Micah 7:19) God throws…
Sin, as a label for our natural state before God, signifies rebellion, defilement, condemnation, and slavery. Rebellion: all persons resent, defy, evade, belittle, ignore, and disobey God in way or another, every day of our lives. Defilement: all persons are unclean — dirty, to say it straight out — in God’s sight; we are offensive…
Several years ago I shared that I wanted to use this blog to encourage and educate individuals on how they can pursue Jesus with more joy, obedience and faithfulness. The issue of porn has brought great heartache to many men and increasingly women in and outside the church. Here’s a great article on How to Slay…
Michael Horton’s book The Gospel-Driven Life has some good thoughts on repentance I wanted to pass on. Horton starts by quoting Psalm 51:1-9, David’s prayer of confession and then cites four features of David’s repentant spirit. They are: David is not simply ashamed of his behavior but guilty (pp. 119). Though David has sinned cruelly against Bathsheba and…
When you’re bitter and refuse to forgive or exude an openness to forgive what do the Scriptures say about you? You are forgetting the size of the massive sin debt for which God forgave you. You are declaring that you do not need God’s forgiveness in your life. You are declaring that you do not…
Andrew Sister’ song “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” has some great lyrics with regards to the “spirit” of this post. Several weeks ago I took my bride to a show at a cultural arts center in Tempe, AZ. The show was The Bridges of Madison County. My bride is an old soul. She…
Several weeks ago I took my bride to a show at a cultural arts center in Tempe, AZ. The show was The Bridges of Madison County. My bride is an old soul. She loves movies such as Driving Miss Daisy and Steel Magnolias and I thought this was one of the movies she liked.…
Theology Along the Way 