The curse of God and the grace of Christ

The release of one book has produced a massive (and needed) output of words in the blogosphere on the topic of hell. I’ve been planning to write something myself (perhaps tomorrow morning). For now, this 8-minute excerpt from a message by R. C. Sproul is a sober reminder of the profound work Christ accomplished by […]

Signs of grace

How can you tell if you are growing in the grace of Christ (2 Pt. 3:18)? Scotty Smith regularly offers insights on Twitter (follow him @ScottyWardSmith) about manifestations of the growth of grace in a believer’s life. Here are some of my favorite over the past couple of weeks. A sign you are growing in […]

Grab bag

There has been much discussion lately in the Christian blogosphere about Hell and its duration (more comments coming at a later date). As Desiring God noted this morning, this is not a new discussion. And it predates DG’s conference in 1990 by many centuries as well! Paul Tripp continues his thoughts about the grace of […]

Jacob, deceit, and grace

This morning I read again the story of Jacob (meaning, “supplanter,” Gen. 27:36). He came out of the womb grasping his brother’s heel, and he spent his life grasping for things that were not his or manipulating circumstances so that they would be to his favor and liking. If you want your brother’s birthright, it […]

Discipleship and grace

Here are two statements worth contemplating that hit my inbox this week. The first addresses the cost of nondiscipleship. We rightly talk about counting the cost of following Christ, and that is obviously wise and biblical to do. But we also are wise to count the cost of not following Christ: This is the picture […]

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 […]

Sunday Leftovers (12/12/10)

After preaching on the story of the angel’s appearance to Zecharias (Luke 1:5-25), I came across two resources about that story. The first is Jon Bloom’s contemplation of what the first conversation between Zecharias and Elizabeth might have been when his tongue was finally loosed to speak again. Jon also notes the theme of grace […]

Learning grace in affliction

Greg Lucas’ son Jake has a variety of severe learning disabilities. And Jake has been a significant means of grace in the Lucas family. He has learned and is learning the truth that God regularly uses trouble and trial in our lives to remove inept and futile desires from our lives and replace them with […]

An amazing testimony of God’s grace

I regularly listen to the interviews produced by 9 Marks. This month’s conversation is with Mez McConnell — probably a name unknown to most American pastors and church goers. His story is a reminder of grace in two ways. Few will have endured what he did in their childhood and young adult years — that […]

God uses nobodies to accomplish much

Chuck Swindoll in The Grace Awakening, affirms the reality that God uses “nobodies” to accomplish His eternal purposes: Grace means God uses nobodies. Grace also means He makes nobodies into somebodies. The problem is this: Our shame screams so loudly and our guilt is so huge, we convince ourselves we’re not useful and we think […]

We are beggars

It’s generally not a welcome sight. And it’s not something that is often seen in my neighborhood, nor probably in yours either. But in the neighborhood where my wife and I had our first apartment, it was not unusual to see a man diving in the dumpster outside our apartment for small bits of edible […]

The future punishment of the unbelieving

The past few Sundays we’ve been considering what the life of the unbeliever is like. In many ways, this has been an incomplete consideration, for it has only contemplated what the life of the unbeliever is like now; we have not dwelt on what the life of the unbeliever will be like, because of what […]

Sunday Leftovers (4/4/10)

The work of God to redeem the sins of believers (what we call indwelling sin) — in the lives of people like Peter and his sinful denial of Christ — is a mark of great grace. And it is a reminder that God is not dependent on us; we are dependent on Him. He is […]

Sola Gratia conference audio available

The audio from the messages of the Sola Gratia conference hosted by Countryside Bible Church last weekend is now available. The three speakers for this event were Richard Phillips, Russell Moore, and John Hannah. I missed hearing John Hannah, who spoke only on Sunday, but was introduced to Phillips and Moore, hearing them both for […]

Have enough grace?

How well do you appropriate the grace given to you by Christ. If you are like Samuel Rutherford, probably not sufficiently well — Every man thinketh he is rich enough in grace, till he take out his purse, and… then he findeth it but poor and light in the day of a heavy trial. I […]