Worth reading

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.”      –Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship 

My apologies for the lack of posts.

For The Lord's Day

"We must always bear in mind throughout our Christian pilgrimage that the Christ who commands is already also the one who has taken care of the guilt not only for past failures but for present and future ones--and even for our failure to do anything as fully and faithfully as we ought." ~ Mike Horton, 'Pilgrim Theology'

For the Lord's Day

“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”   -- William Temple

For yesterday, The Lord's Day, 3rd Sunday in Advent

Hark, the glad sound! The Savior comes,

The Savior promised long;

Let every heart exult with joy,

And every voice be song!

Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,

Thy welcome shall proclaim;

And heavens exalted arches ring

With Thy most honored Name.

 --Philip Doddridge

For The Lord's Day; First Sunday in Advent

“The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man."

 Chapter VIII, Section 2, “Of Christ the Mediator”  Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)

For The Lord's Day

“Grace makes sense to us only in light of the sin to which it provides the remedy. Consequently, the more sensitive we are to sin, misery and danger, the more clearly we will grasp the wonder of God’s salvation. Grace is only ‘amazing’ when we see that it is ‘a wretch like me’ it saves. Only sinners seek Jesus as a Savior!” Dr. Sinclair Ferguson in Puritans – Ministers of the World