Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little […]
Read More Man-centered or God-centered?…the strength to live tomorrow will be given tomorrow, not today. And it will be given. Our task today is not to have the strength needed for tomorrow’s burdens. Our task today is to live by the mercies given for today, and to believe that there will be new mercies for tomorrow. Today’s mercies do […]
Read More We need strength and it will be givenNothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come […]
Read More Nothing compares with GodThe cross is the burden of the gospel (‘we preach Christ crucified’, 1 Cor. 1:23; cf. 1:18; 2:2). It is the centrepiece of God’s eternal plan of grace (‘you redeemed were redeemed…with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb…chosen before the creation…revealed in these last times for your sake, 1 Pet. 1:18-20; cf. John. 3:16f; […]
Read More What is the cross?We need the Bible if we are to be competent Christians. The Bible will build us up so that we can endure suffering. It will give us discernment for difficult choices. It will make us strong enough to be patient with others and patient enough to respond with kindness when others hurt us. The Bible […]
Read More We need the BibleThe curse under which we live today is not that we must work. The curse is that, in our work, we struggle with weariness and frustration and calamities and anxiety. And all this is doubly burdensome because now by this very toil we must keep ourselves alive. ‘In toil you shall eat of the ground.…In […]
Read More The “curse” of workI sympathize with those who find it difficult to trust God in adversity. I have been there often enough myself to know something of the distress, the despair, and the darkness that fills our souls when we wonder if God truly cares about our plight. I have spent a good portion of my adult life […]
Read More It’s hard to trust God[Keeping the heart] is the hardest work; heart-work is hard work indeed: to shuffle over religious duties with a loose and heedless spirit, will cost no great pains; but to set thyself before the Lord, and tie up thy loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him; this will cost thee […]
Read More Watch your heart…what we have here in this psalm [Psalm 27] is what we may well call ‘a strategy for living’, how to face the battle and the conflict in life.…we must always start in heaven and with God. Then, having done that, we come down to earth and face the problems of life and of living […]
Read More A strategy for livingWhat is the reason that one man is called [to salvation], and not another? It is from the eternal purpose of God. God’s decree gives the casting voice in man’s salvation. Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God’s will. God did not choose us because we were worthy, […]
Read More He chose us because……The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father’s heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor […]
Read More The greatness and miserableness of manQuestion. How may we keep our love from going out? Answer. Watch your hearts every day. Take notice of the first declinings in grace. Observe yourselves when you begin to grow dull and listless, and use all means for quickening. Be much in prayer, meditation, and holy conference. When the fire is going out you […]
Read More Keep loving GodThere is an eternal difference between regret and repentance. Regret feels bad about past sins. Repentance turns away from past sins. Regret looks to our own circumstances. Repentance looks to God. Most of us are content with regret. We just want to feel bad for a while, have a good cry, enjoy the cathartic experience, […]
Read More Repentance and regretWhen the heart is grown hard and stiff in wickedness, it is hard to tune the penitential string. A tender plant is easily removed, but it is hard to pluck up an old tree that is rooted. An old sinner who has been a long time rooting in sin is hardly plucked out of his […]
Read More The danger of not repentingI give thanks to God that, taking compassion on me whom he had created and placed in this world, he delivered me by his power out of the deep darkness of idolatry, into which I was plunged, that he might bring me into the light of his gospel, and make me a partaker of the […]
Read More John Calvin’s last will and testimony
Words of Grace 