God is a delicious good

While thinking about yesterday’s comment from M’Cheyne about trials and the preciousness of Christ, I came across this extended statement by Thomas Watson in his classic work, A Body of Divinity. It comes near the end of his answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “what is the chief end of man?” […]

Bestselling books and what they reveal about our souls

If the words that emanate from an individual’s lips reveals the content of that person’s heart, then it is also true that what a person writes is indicative of what is in his heart. It is with that understanding that Tim Challies has embarked on an interesting adventure for this year — he is endeavoring […]

The gracious tests of storms

I’ve recently begun reading the biography of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. And this weekend I came across this statement from him that I’d come across in another source: You will never find Jesus so precious as when the world is one vast howling wilderness. Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst of desolation, […]

Book Review: In-Laws

Title: In-Laws: Married with Parents Author: Wayne Mack Publisher: P & R Publishing, 2009; 48 pp. $4.99 (available in the GBC bookstore for $3) Recommendation (4-star scale): I have dozens of books on marriage and many more on men’s and women’s issues — how a man can be a godly husband and lead his wife […]

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 […]

The day after Valentine’s Day – now what?

Yesterday was the day for candy, card, and flower shops. Today is the day for lovers. Yesterday the retailers made their money. Today marriage partners make their marriages. Call me fussy. Call me a curmudgeon. Call me a spoil sport. I just don’t like being told by business and industry when is the best time […]

Sunday Leftovers (2/14/10)

A number of years ago, Lillie Baltrip was a bus driver for the Houston ISD. She was a good bus driver. In fact, she was one of the best — nominated for a safe-driving award. Along with a number of other safe driver she was going to be given an award at a ceremony. And […]

Valentine’s Day and the love of God

Today, on the day when the rest of the world celebrates the human love, what better time is there to remember the divine love of God for man. What follow are some reflections of men who have “said it better than me” about God’s love: When Karl Barth, the famed German theologian, visited the Untied […]

Determined to give

In 1874 Francis Ridley Havergal wrote the hymn “Take My Life and Let It Be” and sent it to a friend and essentially forgot about — until she saw it in a magazine four years later. She read it again for the first time in four years and was caught by the stanza, “take my […]

Worship and missions

In what may be the best paragraph to begin a book on missions, John Piper writes this: Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the […]

What the Ethiopian Eunuch Means for You

Part of our Scripture reading this morning is Acts 7-9. And this morning when I checked my email, I found this meditation on Acts 8 from Desiring God — “What the Ethiopian Eunuch Means for You.” What this story from Acts 8 means, the author concludes, is that Luke wants the story of this emasculated […]

Uneducated and untrained men – changed

I have been challenged by something I read recently — “I worry that our lives are like soap operas. We can go for months and not tune into them, then six months later we look in and the same stuff is still going on.” The urgency of the immediate prevents us from seeing the impact […]

Be provoked to read, part 2

In general, while it is true that the question about our motivation to read Scripture is not so much “how will I provoke myself?” but, “will I provoke myself to delight in God and His declaration to me this day?” yet, there is still instruction about how to stimulate our hearts to read, as Thomas […]

Men and sexual sin — some Biblical help

Many years ago I attended a church where it was not unusual for the pastor to make application in his sermons that related to sexual sins. As a result I overheard some saying things like, “What’s his hangup — all he talks about is sex?” After having pastored myself for more than a few years […]

Be provoked to read

Thomas Watson relates our effectiveness in mortifying the flesh to the intake of the Word of God: We must provoke ourselves to reading the Word.…Our Savior bids us “search the Scriptures” (John 5:39). We must not read these holy lines carelessly as if they did not concern us, or run over them hastily, as Israel […]