For the Lord's Day

“The effort to repay God, in the ordinary way we pay creditors, would nullify grace and turn it into a business transaction. If we see acts of obedience as installment payments, we make grace into a mortgage… Let us not say that grace creates debts; let us say grace pays debts… Past grace is glorified by intense and joyful gratitude. Future grace is glorified by intense and joyful confidence. This faith (confidence) is what empowers us for venturesome obedience in the cause of Christ.”  – John Piper in Future Grace

For the Lord's Day

"It is a great advantage to be wise. Wisdom is different from mere knowledge of the facts. Some very wise people have little formal education. And some very educated people, who know many facts, are not wise. Wisdom is the insight and sense of how to live in a way that accomplishes the goals for which we were made: the glory of God and the good of man. And since glorifying God involves delighting in God, and the good of man involves sharing our joy in God, therefore wisdom is the only path to deep and lasting joy.”   -- John Piper in When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy

Happy Mother's Day to all

For the Lord's Day; a day for worship:

“… our audience in corporate worship is not people. Corporate worship is not about pleasing people, whether ourselves, the congregation, or unbelieving seekers. . Worship in the corporate gathering is about renewing our covenant with God by meeting with Him and relating to Him in ways that He has prescribed. We do this specifically by hearing and heeding His Word, confessing our own sinfulness and our dependence on Him, thanking Him for his goodness to us, bringing our requests before Him, confessing His truth, and lifting our voices and instruments to Him in response to and in accord with the way that He has revealed Himself in His Word.”

-- Mark Dever in The Deliberate Church

For the Lord's Day

'Love without righteousness is immorality, though today in some religious circles is it called the “new morality.” Righteousness without doctrine is legalism. This is the kind of religion that existed in Christ’s day in Judaism and against which he was so outspoken. Doctrine without love is a bitter orthodoxy. It is the kind of truth that is rigorously perfect, in a sense, but which does not win anyone. All three of these elements [Love, Righteousness, and Doctrine] must be present in the life of any true and growing Christian." –  James Montgomery Boice, in the Preface to The Epistles of John

For the Lord's Day, Second Sunday of Easter

“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

For Palm Sunday

"At this time of year many people consider the question "Who is Jesus Christ?" Many reply: "He is a good teacher, but I cannot accept his claim to be God, the Son of God or a Savior!" C. S. Lewis replies to that statement this way: "That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the things Jesus said would not be a good moral teacher. He would be a lunatic -- on the level of a man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."    - -    Mere Christianity, p. 41