Praise is becoming

One of the most common commands in Scripture is, “Praise the Lord” (or some derivation of that imperative). The follower of God is to give worship to and find joy in God in all things and at all times. Sometimes, the God-follower is simply commanded to praise God, and on other occasions, as in Psalm […]

Do you believe this?

I believe it was Mark Twain who once said, “It is not what I don’t understand about Scripture that concerns me; it is what I do understand that concerns me.” There indeed are passages that are difficult to comprehend; but there are a great many more passages that are clearly comprehended. But do we really […]

Remember the character of God when you pray

All it took to capture the disciples’ attention was for Jesus to pray. They heard Him pray, and when He finished, the immediate response was, “Lord, teach us to pray…” (Lk. 11:1). Something about the manner of His praying evidently made them realize the deficiency of their prayers. And they wanted to pray with greater […]

What makes you happy?

What makes you happy? Many years ago, Charles Schultz suggested that, “Happiness is a warm puppy.” The little book by that title contained many similar kinds of suggestions of the identity of happiness. Whether you care for warm puppies or not, one thing is certain, there is something you are pursuing that you believe will […]

The Good Shepherd

One Saturday afternoon while running errands, I noticed that one of my care tires was almost completely flat. I was not too far from the tire store, so rather than taking the time to change the tire, I slowly made my way to the shop. There was a long line and wait leaving me mildly […]

Who sinned?

In A View from a Zoo, Gary Richmond tells about the birth of a giraffe: The first things to emerge are the baby giraffe’s front hooves and head. A few minutes later the plucky newborn calf is hurled forth, falls ten feet, and lands on its back. Within seconds, he rolls to an upright position […]

Weeping in the night

David: Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning. (Ps. 30:5) Paul: Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory […]

Those perplexing brackets in the Bible

The account of the adulterous woman at the beginning of John 8 has created no small amount of interpretative challenges. Two questions will help us sort out some of the basic issues and facts. 1. Why are there brackets around this story? The story (7:53 – 8:11) is bracketed because there is a question whether […]

Christ, the dividing line

Christ is the division point of history, marking the transition from B.C. to A.D. And Christ is the division point between men. What individuals believe about Christ will either unite them together or separate them from each other. This is exceedingly clear in John 7. The half-brothers of Jesus, having seen His life and ministry […]

Avoiding the two woes of temptation

I wish this were not true, but it is. There is an inevitability to sin. All men will sin because all men are fleshly and even those who are redeemed have not yet been finally redeemed. Our own natures will eventually produce sin. We are enticed by our own lust, James says (1:13-14). In that […]

Don’t miss the obvious, and…

Comparisons are virtually always a bad idea (I’d say “always,” but I was taught that it’s always bad to say “always”). Inevitably, we favor ourselves in our comparisons and we fail to be objective in those comparisons. Even in the church, it’s tempting to offer comparisons that are unfair to the ones compared. For example, […]

When you are in trouble

There are a number of ideas about David’s circumstances in Psalm 27, but no one is certain what actually was happening to him. But one thing is certain — he was tempted to despair. Notice all the different phrases he used to indicate the oppression he was under: fear (vv. 1, 3), dread (think “panicked […]

“It is good for us to be here”

Two sentences prepared my heart for my Bible reading this morning. First, while reading Thomas Watson (reading a Puritan immediately after awakening is good and enlivening for the soul), I came across this sentence: “A man may be carnal while he is doing spiritual things…He delights in hearing [the Word of God] but it is […]

He cares — another demonstration

After writing this morning that Jesus cares for us, I came across the blog post, “He is Able to Sympathize” by Erik Raymond: When I read a passage like the one above [Heb. 4:15] I am driven to the gospels to analyze the context of some of the days within the context of Christ’s earthly […]

He cares

Philip Yancey recounts the words of a man with leprosy who visited Dr. Paul Brand, who had done much research on that disease: “When I got to Vellore, I spent the night on the Brand’s verandah, because I had nowhere else to go. That was unheard of for a person with leprosy back then. I […]