Sunday, January 31, 2010

For the Lord's Day

My present sermon series is from Job - "Standing Up When Everything Else is Falling Down." These are helpful words from a true "friend;"

What can separate my soul
From the God who made me whole,
Wrote my name in heaven’s scroll?
Nothing, Hallelujah!
Trouble, hardship, danger, sword
Brought by those who hate my Lord?
Slander here? Or no reward?
Nothing, Hallelujah!
-- James Montgomery Boice

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

"You formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139

For the Lord's Day


The biblical motive for being a forgiving person may be deeper than being forgiven. It is true to say: The motive for being a forgiving person is that we have been forgiven by God when we did not deserve it (Ephesians 4:32). The bottom of this motive is not God’s forgiveness, but what God’s forgiveness gives. It gives us God. … God is the goal of forgiveness. He is also the ground and means of forgiveness. It comes from him; it was accomplished through his Son; and it leads people back to him with their sins cast into the deepest sea. Therefore the motive for being a forgiving person is the joy of being freely and joyfully at home with God.  – Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Martin Luther on Confessing Christ


"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ."

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Think Like a Christian

“The effort to think like a Christian is . . . an effort to take seriously the sovereignty of God over the world he created, the lordship of Christ over the world he died to redeem, and the power of the Holy Spirit over the world he sustains each and every moment. From this perspective the search for a mind that truly thinks like a Christian takes on ultimate significance, because the search for a Christian mind is not, in the end, a search for the mind but a search for God.” —Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, p. 253
HT: Justin Taylor

Sunday, January 10, 2010

For the Lord's Day


“While I regarded God as a tyrant, I thought my sin a trifle; but when I knew him to be my Father, then I mourned that I could ever have kicked against him. When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast that I could ever have rebelled against One who loved me so, and sought my good.” -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon


Thursday, January 7, 2010

Persecution

Open Doors is reporting that North Korea may be using Christians a guniea pigs for biological weapons. This is the 8th straight year North Korea is listed as #1, hardly a great distinction. Iran and other nations are listed and I urge you to take a look and pray for the persecuted church in 2010.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

For the Lord's Day: Aging Gracefully

Aging Gracefully – Part of growing older gracefully involves accepting that our Lord is still in the process of maturing us. One of the ways He causes us to grow is by allowing difficulties to come into our lives. With age comes an increase in difficulties for each of us. If we determine to adapt to these painful situations as Job did his, then we shall have a growth profile. Consider these statements from Job: "Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face." Job 13:15 (ESV) "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold." Job 23:10 (ESV) From The Art of Aging: A Christian Handbook by Dr. Howard Eyrich, Pastor of Counseling Ministries, Briarwood PCA, Birmingham, AL.