Book Review: The God Who is There

Title: The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story Author: D. A. Carson Publisher: Crossway, 2010; 234 pp. $16.99 Recommendation (4-star scale): Three days ago our church again began our annual trek through the Scriptures. Now one of the so-called problems of reading through the Bible in one year is the inevitable […]

Resolved to read and pray

Today many people will make resolutions for the coming year. Even believers will make resolutions concerning their spiritual lives. Setting spiritual goals is a worthy enterprise. But the task of spiritual growth is often overwhelming: where shall we start and what shall we do? We know we need more biblical reading and study and memorization […]

Two pictures of God’s grace

How vast is God’s grace and how shall we describe it? Two pictures from my Bible reading this morning demonstrate the amazing grace of God, the first from Isaiah: “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money […]

Who is like God?

This morning I read this question that the prophet Micah directed towards God — “Who is a God like You?…” (7:18). The prophet further went on to define the character and nature of God — He is a God “who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession.” What […]

John 3:16

Martin Luther called this verse “the gospel in miniature” because there was a sense in which the entire story of the Bible is expounded in it. Just two weeks before he died, he repeated the text with evident ecstasy and added, “What Spartan saying can be compared with this wonderful brevity? It is a Bible […]

Jeremiah, destruction, and Christ

This morning I finished reading the last few chapters of Jeremiah — prophecies of the destruction of Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Elam, and Babylon. And then the account of Judah being taken into captivity in Babylon. With all the words concerning the judgments of God and then that judgment being demonstrated against His own people, […]

Read 10 chapters of the Bible every day?

There are many different kinds of Bible reading plans — Old Testament only, New Testament only, a-chapter-a-day, four-chapters-a-day, the whole Bible in a year, chronological readings. But a couple of months ago I came across another unique plan — 10 chapters a day! The design of the plan by English Professor Grant Horner is to […]

Seven times a day I praise You

How much praise of God is “enough?” Will we praise morning, noon, and night? Will we praise in between each of those time slots of worship? The psalmist contemplates the worthiness of God to be praised — His ordinances are righteous — and concludes, “seven times a day I praise you” (119:164). He is not […]

How suffering is good

Suffering is good. Now there is a statement that is sure to raise a few questions in the minds of most readers and thinkers. Yet the Scriptures affirm that the varied kinds of suffering endured by believers really are for their good and for God’s glory. A few examples: Suffering from sin teaches us the […]

Suffering and worship

This week we finish reading the book of Job. The majority of the book contains the dialogue between Job and his three not-so-wise and not-so-comforting and not-so-biblical friends. They foolishly attempt to answer why a godly man like Job suffers (their faulty answer — “he’s not as godly as he thinks”). But in question after […]

The inclination of our hearts

Our hearts are, because of the fall of man, naturally inclined to evil and sin and disobedience and rebellion against God. Yet in His grace, God works in the hearts of men to incline them in new ways to Him. We call this regeneration. It is God making a stony heart into a fleshly (sanctified […]

God is faithful

It was my first real job. Every morning I would get up early, go down to the corner, and pick up a bundle of newspapers, fold them, bind them with a rubber band, put them in my canvas carrying bag and deliver them. On only the second or third Sunday, I showed up at the […]

Seeking happiness through sorrow

John Piper frequently quotes the French philosopher Pascal, who wrote in Pensees, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. the cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attending with different views. The will […]

Principles of giving

A preacher went to visit a farmer and during the course of that visit asked him, “If you had $200 would you give $100 to the Lord?” “I would, preacher.” “If you had two cows, would you give one to the Lord?” “Yes, I believe I would.” “If you had two pigs, would you give […]

Why do you serve Christ?

May I ask a straight-forward question? Why do you do what you do for Christ? That is, what is the motive for your actions? What drives you and compels you? Specifically, when you think about how you serve God, can you also determine why you serve God? Some serve God from a sense of “holy […]