For The Lord's Day

“If we refuse to take up our cross and submit to suffering and rejection at the hands of men, we forfeit our fellowship with Christ and have ceased to follow him. But if we lose our lives in his service and carry our cross, we shall find our lives again in the fellowship of the cross with Christ…. To bear the cross proves to be the only way of triumphing over suffering. This is true of all who follow Christ, because it was true for him.”  – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

ForThe Lord's Day

“Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are in a worship service. They do not view songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness – no matter how painful that may be for sinners in the short run.”  ~John Piper in God’s Passion for His Glory

For The Lord's Day

“True faith – created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel – is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything that God reveals in his word is true, but also a deep-rooted assurance that not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace earned for us by Christ.” ~ Zacharius Ursinus, 1534 – 1583

Vacation post

Fall is coming to the Adirondacks. The squirrels and chipmunks are busy gathering acorns and apples and stashing them away. They are also fussing with each other about whose tree and whose stash belongs to which critter.

For The Lord's Day

For The Lord's Day:
Overcoming Evil by doing good.
"But when a man not only keeps himself from revenging the injuries which he has received, but endeavours to overcome evil by doing good, he manifests one of the graces of a renewed and sanctified nature, and in this way proves himself to be one of the children of God; for such meekness proceeds only from the Spirit of adoption." Calvin commenting on Psalm 7:3-5

For The Lord's Day

“To be entitled to use Another's name, when my own name is worthless; to be allowed to wear Another's raiment, because my own is torn and filthy; to appear before God in Another's person, the person of the Beloved Son - this is the summit of all blessing. The Sin-bearer and I have exchanged names, robes, and persons! I am now represented by Him... He now appears in the presence of God for me (Hebrews 9:24)”. - Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness

Thanks to Pastor Chuck Isaac, Christ the King PCA, El Paso TX

For The Lord's Day

How to avoid a wasted life: “God created me – and you – to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion – namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for others to see and admire, we deceive ourselves, because the mark of God-enthralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others. The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.   -- Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper