Having such a High Priest...

Let us remember that the eye of our loving Savior is upon us morning, noon, and night. He will never suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, for He suffered himself being tempted. He knows what battles and conflicts are, for He Himself was assaulted by the prince of this world. Having such a High Priest, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." -- J.C. Ryle

An Example of Practical Piety

The life and legacy of the founding professor of Princeton Seminary, Archibald Alexander.

"5 Signs Waiting Has Weakened Your Faith"

With characteristic insight, Paul Tripp shares Biblical wisdom about waiting on God in faith (and 5 signs that our faith in God is starting to weaken).

The Book of Revelation and the Songs We Sing

Bob Kauflin shares some key insights from David Peterson regarding what the Book of Revelation can teach us about the songs we sing in worship today.

In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion

Mark Chaves:

"Polarization aside, people who do not care about American religious institutions for their own sake still might be concerned that the hollowing out of some traditional religious beliefs and practices–alongside a tentative increase in a generic spirituality–could point to a future in which American religiosity may be less grounded in institutions. Despite continuing high levels of religious belief and some kinds of practice, religious institutions may or may not find ways for people to express their religiosity through face-to-face gatherings and local organizations to the same extent as they have in the past. If half of all the social capital in America–meaning half of all the face-t0-face associational activity, personal philanthropy, and volunteering–happens through religious institutions, the vitality of those institutions influences more than American religious life. Weaker religious institutions would mean a different kind of American civic life."  (American Religion, 113)

HT: Kevin DeYoung

Sacrificial giving?

“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, page 67.

What kind of a pastor do sinners need?

Sinclair Ferguson answers this question from his Marrow Controversy Lectures:

"But when your people come and have been broken by sin and have fallen into temptation and are ashamed to confess the awful mess they have made of their life, it is not a Calvinistic pastor who has been sanctified by vinegar that they need. It is a pastor that has been mastered by the unconditional, free grace of God. It is a pastor from whom ironclad orthodoxy has been torn away and the whole armor of a gracious God has been placed upon his soul–the armor of one who would not break the bruised reed or quench the dimly burning wick.

"You see, my friends, as we think together in these days about a Godly pastor we have to ask, what is a Godly pastor? A Godly pastor is one who is like God, who has a heart of free grace running after sinners. The Godly pastor is the one who sees the prodigal and runs and falls on his neck and weeps and kisses him and says, 'This my son was dead, he was lost and now he is alive and found.'"

HT: Tullian Tchividjian

To progress is always is to begin

"We become Christians through faith and repentance, and we grow as Christians through continual faith and repentance. We don’t graduate from the gospel to some advanced way of holiness or progress. Martin Luther said, ‘To progress is always to begin again.’"

— Tim Chester
You Can Change
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2010), 107

The whole point of being a Christian...

“. . . the whole object of being a Christian is that you may know the love of Jesus Christ, his personal love to you; that he may tell you in unmistakable language that he loves you, that he has given himself for you, that he has loved you with ‘an everlasting love.’ He does this through the Holy Spirit; he ‘seals’ all his statements to you through the Spirit. . . . You believe it because it is in the Word; but there is more than that; he will tell you this directly as a great secret. The Spirit gives manifestations of the Son of God to his own, to his beloved, to those for whom he has gladly died and given himself.”

-- D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 7.1-8.4, page 61

Point of view is crucial

"We don't live life based on the facts of our experience, but on our interpretation of facts." - Paul Tripp   This is an aspect of being "transformed by the renewing of our mind" (Rom. 12:2).

Human approval

From Ray Ortlund, Jr.:

1.  Human approval is divided.  Some like you, others dislike you.  A split vote.  Who can you believe?

2.  Human approval is shallow.  None of them know your deepest heart.  What if they did?

3.  Human approval is distorted.  Your friends overlook many failings.  Your enemies can’t see anything right with you.  How do you sort it all out?

4.  Human approval is unsatisfying.  The need of your heart for belovedness goes far beyond anything another sinner can say or do.

5.  Human approval is a blessing.  The loving favor of true friends is a gift from God.  Receive it cheerfully, with thanks to him.  And be sure to give it out to others in generous measure every day.  They need it too.

“I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”  Philemon 7

Do you feel your sins?...

"Do you feel your sins? Are you sick of them? Are you ashamed of them? Are you weary of them? Then come to Christ just as you are, and Christ’s blood shall make you clean." ~ J.C. Ryle

A higher hand is governing...

“For how many a soldier in a concentration camp, weak with hunger and smarting under the whip of the torturers; for how many a person huddling in the last extremity of ghastly dread in a bomb shelter; for how many on the endless gray road of a refugee trek was it not the great experience suddenly to know: I am not in the hands of men, despite everything to the contrary; another hand, a higher hand is governing in the midst of all man’s madness and canceling all the logic of my calculations and all the images of my anxious sick imagination?  I am being led to the undreamed-of shore, the harbor, the Father’s house.  And always when things grow dark, suddenly that marvelous helping hand is there.  If there is anything that is really bombproof, then it is this.”

Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father (New York, 1959), page 36.  Italics original.

"Make Jesus your focus..." in the pursuit of holiness

‎"You make a mistake when you hyper-focus on one aspect of your own sanctification. Make Jesus your focus, don't make a better you your focus." - Ray Ortlund @Acts29

"Is your faith in Christ real?"

"Would you like to know whether your faith is real? Then try it by the feelings toward Christ which it produces. Nominal faith may believe that such a person as Christ existed, and was a great benefactor to mankind. It may show Him some external respect, attend His outward ordinances, and bow the head at His name. But it will go no further.

"Real faith will make a person glory in Christ, as the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Priest, the Friend — without whom they would have no hope at all. It will produce confidence in Him, love towards Him, delight in Him, comfort in Him, as the mediator, the food, the light, the life, the peace of the soul."

~ J.C. Ryle