The cost of discipleship

The benefits of salvation are great and wondrous and are and should be spoken of in glowing and rich terms. The privileges accrued through the cross ought to be of our greatest happiness. Yet there is also a corresponding truth that since by the gospel God means to change our lives from fleshly and earthly-minded […]

Sunday Leftovers (1/24/10)

In our very earliest years of marriage, my wife and I had a neighbor who always asked a simple and direct question whenever she saw us come outside: “where are you going?” The question became something of a game to me and Raye Jeanne — could we initiate and direct the conversation first so that […]

What God cannot do

The apocryphal story is told of a Sunday School teacher who asked his class, “If you tell me something God can do, I’ll give you an apple.” To which a wise little girl responded, “If you tell me something God can’t do, I’ll give you a case of apples!” Well, in actuality, there are things […]

An implication of loving darkness

Jesus said, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20). To which […]

God as our friend

Thinking more about yesterday’s topic of friendship: since it is true that the greatest friend is the One who is the friend to sinners, then what ought our response be to Him, and what kind of friend is He? The puritan James Janeway answers both those questions: It is the duty of man to acquaint […]

In need of friends

Recently I finished reading Stephen Ambrose’ book, Comrades. In this volume he briefly explores the lives of a number of men and their friends. Some of the men are well known — Dwight Eisenhower, George Custer, Richard Nixon, and Lewis and Clark. Others are lesser known — his relationships with his own brothers, friends, and […]

Technology and your soul

Whether we like it or not, or use it or not, the advancement of technological influences in our lives is here to stay. This is the conclusion of a recent report done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, and cited by Al Mohler in a blog post this morning. The essence of the report is that […]

The gospel for today

For many believers, the gospel is something they needed once and believed and likewise something that they have moved beyond. The gospel is for unbelievers, the weak, and the immature. The gospel is in the past, not the present or the future. But the gospel is, in fact, for every day. It is the means […]

Why are you afraid?

The list of things that stimulate fear is long. Do a google search of phobias and you will find lists of dozens and even into the hundreds of fears (I found one list with 536 phobias) — including such things as aulophobia (fear of flutes), linonophobia (fear of strings), sinistrophobia (fear of things on the […]

Sola Gratia conference

Countryside Bible Church is hosting on Feb. 19-21 the fourth of five scheduled conferences around the theme of the five solas of the Reformation. This year’s topic is Sola Gratia — salvation by grace alone, and the speakers are Richard Phillips, Russell Moore, and John Hannah. Registration is now open. The conference is free. If […]

Sovereignty and responsibility

The question about how the sovereignty of God relates to the responsibility of man is an old one. In His book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, J. I. Packer addresses how God’s sovereignty relates to our responsibility in proclaiming the gospel to unbelievers. There is abroad today a widespread suspicion that a robust faith […]

Why should we glorify God?

Why should we glorify God? Glorifying Him does not add to His character or worth — our glorying in Him does nothing to increase His preeminence. So why glorify Him? Why should we glory in His name? Because God has made all things for his own glory.…especially has he made the godly for his glory; […]

Sunday Leftovers (1/17/10)

John Piper has written much, often, and well on the topic of the glory of God. In his tribute to Jonathan Edwards, God’s Passion for His Glory, Piper notes that “The exhibition of God’s glory and the deepest joy of human souls are one thing. The implications of this are breathtaking.” Among those implications are […]

The glory of God and prayer

In anticipation of tomorrow morning’s sermon (on Paul’s doxology in Eph. 3), I was reading again in A. W. Pink’s work, Gleanings from Paul: the Prayers of the Apostle. He makes several helpful statements about the glory of God and its implications for prayer: …we should be deeply concerned with the glory of God, that […]

Meanwhile…

Sometimes, the smallest and seemingly most insignificant words in a verse carry the biggest implication. So it is in a verse of Scripture that we read this morning. The word “meanwhile” in Genesis 37:36 in Hebrew is actually the word “and.” It is generally translated as a simple connective or as a contrastive (like “but”) […]