"You and Your Pastor"

Characteristically Biblical, balanced, life-related insight from Ray Ortlund, Jr. on the relations between pastors and members in the church.

When God's Face Turns Upon Each of Us

‎"In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us. . . . To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the Divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."

-- C.S. Lewis, ”The Weight of Glory”

"God's Glory, Our Excellence"

Another very insightful post from Paul Tripp.

Man's greatest tragedy

“A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man's greatest tragedy and God's heaviest grief.”
― A.W. Tozer

"He will tend his flock..."

“He will tend his flock like a shepherd.”  Isaiah 40:11

“Jesus, the good shepherd, will not travel at such a rate as to overdrive the lambs.  He has tender consideration for the poor and needy.  Kings usually look to the interests of the great and the rich, but in the kingdom of our Great Shepherd he cares most for the poor. . . . The weaklings and the sickly of the flock are the special objects of the Savior’s care. . . . You think, dear heart, that you are forgotten, because of your nothingness and weakness and poverty.  This is the very reason you are remembered.”

-- C. H. Spurgeon, Treasury of the Old Testament (London, n.d.), III:575-576.

HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.

"Some advice for youth ministers...."

Bible-based wisdom and common sense for doing youth ministry today....here.

Truth Without Love?....

“If we are Christians and do not have upon us the calling to respond to the lostness of the lost and a compassion for those of our kind, our orthodoxy is ugly and it stinks.  And it not only stinks in the presence of the hippie, it stinks in the presence of anybody who’s an honest man.  And more than that, I’ll tell you something else, orthodoxy without compassion stinks with God.”

-- Francis A. Schaeffer, "Death in the City" (Chicago, 1969), page 123
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr..

"Ambassadors of Glory for a Beaten Down Church"

Another wise and perceptive essay from Paul David Tripp.

"...God is the Ruler yet..."

"No matter how many strong enemies plot to overthrow the church, they do not have sufficient strength to prevail over God’s immutable decree by which he appointed his Son eternal King."


— John Calvin, quoted by Eric J. Alexander in
"The Supremacy of Jesus Christ in John Calvin A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine & Doxology," ed. Burk Parsons  (Orlando, Fl.: Reformation Trust, 2008), 109

"Your emotions are a gauge, not a guide"

Here's just a brief excerpt of an insightfully helpful post:

'...God designed your emotions to be gauges, not guides. They’re meant to report to you, not dictate you. The pattern of your emotions (not every caffeine-induced or sleep-deprived one!) will give you a reading on where your hope is because they are wired into what you believe and value — and how much. That’s why emotions like delight (Psalm 37:4), affection (Romans 12:10), fear (Luke 12:5), anger (Psalm 37:8), joy (Psalm 5:11), etc., are so important in the Bible. They reveal what your heart loves, trusts, and fears. At Desiring God we like to say pleasure is the measure of your treasure, because the emotion of pleasure is a gauge that tells you what you love....'

Read the entire post here.

"The Danger of Asking 'Why Me?'"

A helpful post on the CNN blog from Tim Keller.

Venerating (yes, venerating) Scripture

"Such veneration we ought indeed to entertain for the Word of God, that we ought not to pervert it in the least degree by varying expositions; for its majesty is diminished, I know not how much, especially when not expounded with great discretion and with great sobriety.

"And if it be deemed a great wickedness to contaminate any thing that is dedicated to God, he surely cannot be endured, who, with impure or even unprepared hands, will handle that very thing, which of all things is the most sacred on earth.

"It is therefore an audacity, closely allied to a sacrilege, rashly to turn Scripture in any way we please, and to indulge our fancies as in sport; which has been done by many in former times."

-- John Calvin
Epistle Dedicatory to Romans

"The Gospel is more than a Story"

This excellent essay offers a correction that is badly needed and long overdue, including among evangelicals.  "The Gospel is more than a Story."

"The Character of the Genuine Theologian"

 'The theologian, as I use the term, is one imbued with the knowledge of God and divine things, under the teaching of God himself; who celebrates his adorable perfections, not by words alone, but by the ordering of his life, and is thus entirely devoted to the Lord.'

-- Herman Witsius

"But as for me...."

Surely it is incumbent on each of us, who profess Christ, to come to the place where we decide that, whatever others might do, and however they might do it, in terms of the practice of their profession of faith in Christ, I myself must get it right -- believe the truth and live it out, as best as I can understand, seeking to serve God with a clear conscience.  If many are lukewarm or Laodicean, nominal or worldly, they will answer for that.

"But as for me"... I will walk with and serve and worship the Lord according to the light He's given me, joining with others of like mind and faith.