We are not as Christ-centered and cross-cherishing as we should be, because we do not ponder the truth that everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good, was purchased by the sufferings...

He came to destroy sin because it is fatal.

Paul’s antidote for wimpy Christians is weighty doctrine. . . .everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by a holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly. We don’t make God. He...

God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn’t just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and...

The ultimate difference between God’s wisdom and man’s wisdom is how they relate to the glory of God’s grace in Christ crucified. God’s wisdom makes the glory of God’s grace our supreme treasure. But man’s...

The teaching that diminishes the urgency for reaching all the unreached peoples of the world with the only news that can save them is a teaching that opposes people. Listen to these severe words spoken...

Suffering in the path of Christian obedience, with joy – because the steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3) – is the clearest display of the worth of God in our...

It is better to lose your life than to waste it.

Our obedience is God’s pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure. This is good news, because it means very simply that the command to obey is the command to be happy in God....

But to enjoy him we must know him. Seeing is savoring. If he remains a blurry, vague fog, we may be intrigued for a season. But we will not be stunned with joy, as when...

Christmas cut history in two ages, the Age of Promise, and the Age of Fulfillment.

God without Christ is no God.

The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn...

The “war” is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school… Between justice and injustice in every...

I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God.

Therefore everything that you enjoy in Christ – as a Christian, as a person who trusts Christ – is owing to the death of Christ.

The end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature

The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so prefect that the resurrection was the reward...

The call of Christ is a call to live a life of sacrifice and loss and suffering–a life that would be foolish to live if there were no resurrection from the dead.

Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven...

Without a spiritual wakefulness to divine purposes and connections in all things, we will not know things for what they truly are.

Husbands and wives, recognize that in marriage you have become one flesh. If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your joy. But...

…for poets, at least, experiencing something inexpressible does not mean silence. It’s precisely the inexpressible something that poetry is meant to help us see or feel. If it were merely expressible – if there were...

We can say that true gratitude does not give rise to the debtor’s ethic because it gives rise to faith in future grace. With true gratitude there is such a delight in the worth of...

That’s who Jesus Christ is. He became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself. Immortal, he never has to be replaced. Human, he could bear human sins....

I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person’s theology was the effect it has on one’s prayers.

Let the freedom to fail give you the hope to fight.

This point is often missed by evangelical feminists. They conclude that a difference in function necessarily involves a difference in essence; i.e., if men are in authority over women, then women must be inferior. The...

God is not an employer looking for employees. He is an Eagle looking for people who will take refuge under his wings. He is looking for people who will leave father and mother and homeland...

Go, send, or disobey.

Faith is born and sustained by the Word of God, and out of faith grows the flower of joy.

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.

The only people who soul can truly magnify the Lord are…people who acknowledge their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by the condescension of the magnificent God.

If we were perfect—if there were no remaining corruption in our hearts—there would be no fight. There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won’t fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there...

One great function of Bible verses: To keep us from drawing false inferences from other Bible verses.

So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God’s giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever...

The world will brin its condemnation. They may even put their sword behind it. But we know that the highest courst has already ruled in our favor. ‘If God is for us, who can be...

The most precious gifts you can think of are not ends in themselves. They all lead to God. Ultimately, that is what all His gifts are for.

…the gospel has an answer to both pride and guilt.

If truth does not lead to falling in love, it fails.

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie.It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite forheaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It...

A prayerless Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn’t know Clark Kent is on board.

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing...

Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?

Your mind was made to know and love God.

There would be no obstacles to overcome. We won’t fight for joy in heaven. But we are not there yet.

Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

We will wait. We will wait till all is made righteous (glorious) according to the word of God.

O, how easy it is to do religious things if other people are watching! Preaching, praying, attending church, reading the bible, acts of kindness and charity-they all take on a certain pleasantness of the ego...

Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles...