I needed this reminder from John Newton today: The hour is coming when we shall be astonished to think what mere trifles were once capable of discouraging us; for though many things we now meet with have a kind of importance respecting the present life and our natural feelings, yet when we come to see […]
Read More Making mountains out of molehillsToday is the final day of the final Resolved Conference. You can find all the audio from all the conferences, including this year’s, on the Resolved media page. This year’s speakers included John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Al Mohler, Austin Duncan, Jonathan Rourke, C. J. Mahaney, Carolyn McCulley (women’s breakout session) and the founder of the […]
Read More Resolved conferenceSpurgeon’s comments about David, from Psalm 78:72 — So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart. David was upright before God, and never swerved in heart from the obedient worship of Jehovah. Whatever faults he had, he was unfeignedly sincere in his allegiance to Israel’s superior king; he shepherded for God with […]
Read More David, the ShepherdSteve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, one of the men martyred by the Auca Indians in the 1950s, recently suffered partial paralysis in an accident at his ministry. He gives a testimony to the grace of God and calls others to the missionary endeavor from his hospital bed: He has previously talked and written […]
Read More A testimony of God’s grace in sufferingIn junior high I wasn’t much of a fighter. I was big, but conflict and fights were of no interest to me. However, junior high is a time when many boys/young men are interested in fighting as a means of demonstrating superiority, strength, and “manhood.” On one occasion, while walking home from school, I was […]
Read More Stand firmIt’s no secret that I enjoy books. A really good day is a day off that is rainy and cold that forces me inside with no inside tasks to do so that I can sit in front of our fireplace and read all day. And another good day is having money in my pocket and […]
Read More Books and librariesThe judgment of God. It is a doctrine that many use to denounce and reject God. “How could God be both loving and vengeful and a judge?” they ask. In fact, they often will assert that if God is judge and if God carries out wrath, then they are more god-like than God. Yet Godis […]
Read More The judgment of GodYou cannot keep people from sinning against you. You will be treated unjustly. You will be lied to and gossiped about. Ungodly accusations will be spoken against you — and said directly to you. Others will be angry with you — sometimes because they have misunderstood you and sometimes because they understood you. Sometimes people […]
Read More When you are sinned againstThe pain of parenting is not greatest the first time a child commits a significant and serious violation of trust. It is when that child persists in his sin for years and decades. The greatest trouble for a cancer patient is not the first chemo treatment. It is the ongoing chemo treatments, followed by radiation, […]
Read More Keep onJoni Eareckson Tada’s book, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty is currently free in the Kindle format from Amazon. I’ve not yet read this book, but have heard the first chapter in audio format and was greatly encouraged by her approach to this topic. This should be […]
Read More Free Kindle book — A Place of HealingIf there is one thing a young man should do, he should be sensible. That is, he should be self-controlled, clear-headed, and sober-minded (Titus 2:6). Paul tells Titus six things an older man should be (2:2), four things an older woman is to be and do (2:3), and seven things that a young woman is […]
Read More Sunday Leftovers — what’s a young man to do?Ask any believer about his prayer life, and he will invariable acknowledge something like, “It’s not what it should be.” And as a pastor, I am not only called on to pray often, but prayer is actually part of my calling. You won’t find “prayer” in most pastoral job descriptions, but the apostles believed that […]
Read More Praying for othersWhen you awakened this morning, did the day seem heavy? Did you awaken expecting the problems of yesterday to seem lighter and a resolution more likely only to feel as though the problem grew in dimension during the night, obscuring any possibility of hope? Despair and discouragement are not unusual. The psalmists felt those pains […]
Read More Despairing and troubled?Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been slowly making my way through Nancy Guthrie’s O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God. I’ve been encouraged by the biblical thinking of godly men about death. This morning I read this from John Eaves, a believer who was diagnosed […]
Read More Thinking about…deathThis fall, our church is again hosting the Biblical Counseling and Discipleship Conference. This conference fulfills the requirements for the basic training track for those interested in being certified as biblical counselors through NANC (currently, we are still the only church in the state of Texas certified by NANC to provide this training). And for […]
Read More Biblical Counseling and Discipleship Conference
Words of Grace 