Open my eyes

A couple of months ago, I printed and inserted a copy of John Piper’s brief I.O.U.S. prayer and inserted it into the Bible that I use for my morning Bible reading. It is a daily reminder that I need the Lord to move my heart towards Him and I need the Lord to give me […]

The resurrected Savior

The accounts of the resurrection are very familiar to us. And because of that, it’s easy to miss the reason for the account — like every other Gospel passage, the resurrection is given to provide us information about the Savior so that we will worship Him. The advantage of the shortest of the resurrection accounts […]

The great commission

It was in the 1960’s, during the time when the Green Bay Packers were the National Football League’s perennial champions that on one particular week they suffered a humiliating loss. It was the contention of Vince Lombardi, the coach, that the Packers never lost a game, but some weeks the clock just ran out on […]

Cast your burden on the Lord

The story of Brian Hesse is one of my all-time favorites. One account of it is as follows: Brian Hesse had more than his share of luck in July (1981), and most of it was bad. When his apartment in Provo, Utah became flooded from a broken pipe in the upstairs apartment, the manager told […]

Prophecy and the crucifixion

Jesus was not only resolute in His intention to go to the cross, but God intentionally planned the death of Christ. Consider, for example, the number of Old Testament prophecies that John alone says were fulfilled at the crucifixion of Christ (other Gospel writers offer even more prophetic fulfillments in their crucifixion accounts): Jesus’ tunic […]

They didn’t know what they were saying

At the trials and crucifixion of Christ, there were many accusations made against Him. Yet these accusations and declarations were far closer to the truth about Christ than those who uttered them realized. A few examples: Caiaphas — “Now Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to […]

“They crucified Him”

The words of the crucifixion are simple: “And they crucified Him” (Mk. 15:24). Yet there is a horror behind this kind of death, as one doctor has told: Simon is ordered to place the patibulum on the ground and Jesus is quickly thrown backwards with His shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the […]

Paradoxes of the crucifixion

Whenever I read the account of the crucifixion of Christ, I am always amazed at the simplicity of the account of the actual crucifixion (for instance, Matthew almost regards it as an afterthought — “and when they had crucified Him…,” Mt. 27:35) and the ironic and paradoxical activities surrounding the events of the crucifixion. Consider […]

The cup that the Father gave Christ

We have been reading the Gospels for almost four months in our Bible reading program. For four months we have been consumed with Christ. For four months, each day we have had a new or increasing view of the nature of Christ. Perhaps the temptation has been to think, “there must be something more that […]

Meditate on sin…and forgiveness

Reading Psalm 51 this morning is a reminder of the power and pervasiveness of sin. And of the grace of forgiveness. We do well to meditate on both, as Thomas Watson exhorted in The Christian on the Mount: Meditate upon the FILTH of sin. Not only is the guilt of Adam’s sin imputed, but the […]

The Lord’s prayer

In prayer (when we are genuine and truthful), our hearts are exposed and revealed as in no other way. That is true as well of the heart of Christ, which makes the Lord’s prayer in John 17 a particularly rich and stimulating passage of Scripture. Of this passage, Melanchthon wrote, “There is no voice which […]

Take courage

Jesus never promises His followers a pain and trouble-free life. In fact, He promises just the opposite. There will be troubles, and often those troubles are because we are followers of Him. As two examples, consider: “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted […]

Life on the farm

One of my favorite pictures from my childhood is a picture that was taken of me and my farmer grandfather. I was maybe four or five-years-old and I was standing with my grandfather in one of his fields. He was surveying the crop; I was more interested in the camera. In those years, I would […]

Fearful?

What do you offer a man who is discouraged and hopeless? What do you offer someone whose world is shattered? What do you offer someone who has captured a glimpse into the future, and the fear of it is not startling, but terrifying in its deadliness? What did Jesus offer the disciples? On Thursday night […]

The Father and the Son

Several years ago, Mark Ashton-Smith was on a planned 4-day kayak trip around the Isle of Wight in England when his kayak capsized. Unable to get back into the canoe and in frigid and rough waters, he reached for his phone (which he’d had the foresight to place in a watertight container) and called the […]