What is prayer?

"Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God."


— John Bunyan
Prayer
(Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1991), 13

God the Judge...and Father

“To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.”

–J. I. Packer

The Story of Human History

“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

–C. S. Lewis

Reasons to Rejoice

"There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice."

-- John Calvin

We are not mushrooms, but oaks

"Remember, the growth of a believer is not like a mushroom—but like an oak, which increases slowly indeed—but surely.

"Many suns, showers, and frosts, pass upon it before it comes to perfection. And in winter, when it seems to be dead—it is gathering strength at the root.

"Be humble, watchful, and diligent in the means, and endeavor to look through all, and fix your eye upon Jesus—and all shall be well."


— John Newton
Cardiphonia: Letters from a Pastor's Heart

From your affliction glory will spring

"When your faith endures many conflicts, and your spirit sinks low, do not condemn yourself. There is a reason for your season of heaviness. Great soldiers are not made without war. Skillful sailors are not trained on the shore. It appears that if you are to become a great believer, you will be greatly tested. If you are to be a great help to others, you must pass through their trials. If you are to be instructed in the things of the kingdom, you must learn from experience. The uncut diamond has little brilliance, and the unthreshed corn feeds no one, and the untried believer is of little use or beauty.

"There are GREAT BENEFITS to come from your trials and depression. The one who is much plowed and often harrowed will thank God if the result is a larger harvest to the praise and glory of God by Jesus Christ. If your face is now covered with sorrow, the time will come when you will bless God for that sorrow. The day will come when you will see great gain from your losses, your crosses, your troubles and your affliction. From your affliction this glory shall spring, and the deeper your sorrow the louder you'll sing.

-- Charles Spurgeon, "Beside Still Waters"

"You have visited me by night." -- Ps. 17:3

“Now, you may be saying to yourself, ‘I have not enjoyed such visits as these.’  Yet you may enjoy them.  If the Father loves you even as he loves his Son, then you are on visiting terms with him. . . . If you long for him, he much more longs for you.  No sinner was ever half as eager for Christ as Christ is eager for the sinner; no saint was ever one-tenth as anxious to behold his Lord as his Lord is to behold him.  If you are running to Christ, he is already near you.  If you sigh for his presence, that sigh is the evidence that he is with you.  He is with you even now; therefore, be glad.”

-- Charles Spurgeon, Joy in Christ’s Presence (New Kensington, 1997), page 15.
HT:  Ray Ortlund, Jr.

The Essence of Faith

"Belief in God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ is the very essence of faith. To believe in God implies trusting Him, being loyal to Him, obeying Him and loving Him. Faith is the cardinal allegiance in life." -- James M. Grier

Eternal Life -- Abundant Life

What does it say when a Christian who professes to have received 'eternal life' (John 3:16) seems to know nothing of the 'abundant life' (John 10:10, 'rich and satisfying life' [NLT]) that Christ says he came to give?

The Unavoidable Choice

“The thief’s [Satan’s] purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My [Jesus’] purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” – John 10:10 (NLT).

The New Living Translation’s paraphrase of this verse is a good one, and reminds us of this crucial fact that we so often shrink from facing: there are only these two alternatives. This is the choice we all inevitably face. There is no third alternative.

So we must choose: to stay on the broad way of the Thief, with its inevitable miseries, or to enter into the narrow way of Jesus that leads to “a rich and satisfying life” (in this world, and in the next). Not to choose, is to choose nonetheless.

News Upon Which the History of the Planet Turns

"‘Preach the gospel; use words if necessary’ goes hand in hand with a postmodern assumption that words are finally empty of meaning. It subtly denigrates the high value that the prophets, Jesus, and Paul put on preaching. Of course, we want our actions to match our words as much as possible. But the gospel is a message, news about an event and a person upon which the history of the planet turns."

— Mark Galli, quoted by Ed Stetzer in
Tabletalk (June 2012)

Simple Synopsis of Our Christian Faith

…God my Creator/Father, Jesus my Savior, the Spirit my Helper, the Bible my rule….

What we all really need....

An excellent post from Ray Ortlund, Jr.:


Gospel + safety + time.  It’s what everyone needs.  A lot of gospel + a lot of safety + a lot of time.

Gospel: good news for bad people through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the endless power of the Holy Spirit.  Multiple exposures.  Constant immersion.  Wave upon wave of grace and truth, according to the Bible.

Safety: a non-accusing environment.  No finger-pointing.  No embarrassing anyone.  No manipulation.  No oppression.  No condescension.  But respect and sympathy and understanding, where sinners can confess and unburden their souls.

Time: no pressure.  Not even self-imposed pressure.  No deadlines on growth.  Urgency, but not hurry, because no one changes quickly.  A lot of space for complicated people to rethink their lives at a deep level.  God is patient.

This is what our churches must be: gentle environments of gospel + safety + time.  It’s where we’re finally free to grow.

-- Ray Ortlund, Jr.

Christianity Offers Only a Real Happiness

"If you seek happiness, you will never find it. If you seek holiness, happiness will find you. Christianity does not offer us an easy happiness, only a real happiness."

-- Matt Papa, "Look and Live"

The Power of Free Grace

"The object of the Gospel is both to pacify the sinner’s conscience , and to purify his heart; and it is of importance to observe, that what mars the one of these objects, mars the other also . The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil. Thus it is, that the freer the Gospel, the more sanctifying is the Gospel; and the more it is received as a doctrine of grace, the the more will it be felt as a doctrine according to godliness. This is one of the secrets of the Christian life, that the more a man holds of God as a pensioner [that is, the more a person realizes how much he has freely received fromg God], the greater is the payment of service that he renders back again."

-- Thomas Chalmers, "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection"