Ask whatever you want…God will do it

Found on the internet recently: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 Is that what that means? And what about Jesus’ words in John 15? “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done […]

Life on the farm

One of my favorite pictures from my childhood is a picture that was taken of me and my farmer grandfather. I was maybe four or five-years-old and I was standing with my grandfather in one of his fields. He was surveying the crop; I was more interested in the camera. In those years, I would […]

Fearful?

What do you offer a man who is discouraged and hopeless? What do you offer someone whose world is shattered? What do you offer someone who has captured a glimpse into the future, and the fear of it is not startling, but terrifying in its deadliness? What did Jesus offer the disciples? On Thursday night […]

The Father and the Son

Several years ago, Mark Ashton-Smith was on a planned 4-day kayak trip around the Isle of Wight in England when his kayak capsized. Unable to get back into the canoe and in frigid and rough waters, he reached for his phone (which he’d had the foresight to place in a watertight container) and called the […]

The lovingkindness of God

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised” (Ps. 48:1). The words are familiar to us. He is great. We do praise Him. But do we think on Him in ways that are fitting of Him? Do we consider His character and His activities and recognize them as the facets of greatness that they […]

Sunday Leftovers — How an Elder Leads

Elders are the gift of God to the church to lead the church to spiritual maturity (Eph. 4:11-13ff). But what do elders do to lead the church? The New Testament provides many functions for the elder. Here are some of the basics. He teaches. This is emphasized in Titus 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:2; 4:6, 11, […]

The Anatomy of Holiness – Kevin DeYoung

This morning Kevin DeYoung asks an important question: What exactly does it mean to be holy? What does it look like? Here’s one to think about it: consider growth in godliness as the sanctification of your body. The mind is filled with the knowledge of God and fixed on what is good. The eyes turn […]

Christ, the Servant

Jesus is the greatest of all men. He is greatest not because He is like every other man, but better. He is greatest because as a man, He is incomparable. He is the God-Man (both fully God and fully man), and that separates Him from every other person in the category of men. There is […]

The flesh is weak

The crucifixion of Christ would occur within hours. So Jesus went to the garden to pray and asked the three disciples in the “inner core” — Peter, James, and John — to also pray (Mk. 14:32-42). These were not immature or ungodly men. They loved Christ. Peter had just professed that he would die for […]

Free Lloyd-Jones audio sermons!

From an announcement by the MLJ Trust this morning: This is probably the biggest announcement the MLJ Trust will ever make. Starting from tomorrow, April 12th, all 1,600 recorded sermons by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones will be available to download, at no cost, to anyone who wants to listen to them! There are no exceptions, so […]

“It must happen this way”

Last week was the Passion week, which culminated in Easter Sunday. Many spent the week reading and contemplating the final events of Christ’s life before the cross. And then this week our Bible reading plan has taken us to that same week again. Isn’t that just too much about the cross? Do we really need […]

Judgment is coming

It was Spring of my sophomore year in college and I had a bad case of spring fever. A group of friends was headed to the beach on one particular day, and I had a dilemma — “beach or class?” Sand and surf won out over desk and discourse. The next week I walked back […]

Sunday Leftovers — The Supremacy of Christ

Christ is supreme over all things. He always has been. When creation began, He was already in existence, co-eternal with God the Father. He was, in fact, the One who created all things. And one week after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, He demonstrated that supremacy for all men to see with His resurrection. That […]

When Christ returns

When Christ returns (see Luke 21:25-38), He will come “with power and great glory” (v. 27). He is the Son of Man — a title that emphasizes His humanity, but also is a reference to His Messianic authority — I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like […]

God, our refuge

While redeemed from sin, no believer in Christ lives perfectly. Every believer knows the daily (hourly? minute-by-minute?) battle with the flesh. Paul knew it (see Romans 7:14-25) and so do we. How can a believer stand more effectively? What will transform our hearts and change the way we live so that we are more like the […]