Vacations, Emergent and Miscellania (07/27/09 - 52 Comments)
The first week of my summer vacation has come and gone. It was excellent. This week, week two of vacation, I am going to be a little busier with family stuff. Therefore I will not be much in the way of original content on the blog. I should have a book review or two along the way, but do not intend to spend a lot of other time writing. Therefore I am queuing up a...
A Humble but Flawed Servant (07/25/09 - 66 Comments)
As George Whitefield sailed from his native England to Georgia where he was to be a missionary, he ministered to those on board the ship. Here is an excerpt from his journal where he discusses a ministry encounter with a particularly willful child: Had a good instance of the benefit of breaking children's wills betimes. Last night, going between decks (as I do every night) to visit the sick and to examine my people, I...
Delight in the Lord's Day (07/19/09 - 9 Comments)
Today is the Lord's Day and I thought I'd pass along some advice pertaining to the day. It comes courtesy of Donald Whitney. His book Simplify Your Spiritual Life offers a long series of short chapters, each offering wisdom on a specific part of the Christian's walk with the Lord. And here he offers some valuable wisdom for getting the most out of your Lord's Day. This is something I read quite a few years...
When Trials Come (07/18/09 - 4 Comments)
Just a few weeks ago Keith and Kristin Getty released Awaken the Dawn, a new album of contemporary hymns. As I understand it, the album will be available on iTunes and other stores in a couple of weeks. For now you'll need to buy it direct. Many of the hymns are written by Stuart Townend, set to music by Keith and sung by Kristin (or that's how I understand the workflow). There are quite a...
Spiritual Friendship (07/12/09 - 8 Comments)
While our church focuses its teaching on verse-by-verse exposition, through the summer we often break for short topical series. This summer Julian (the associate pastor (is that his job title? Something like that) at our church) is preaching a series on spiritual friendship, looking at friendship in the light of the church's core values. At his blog he has been posting some great quotes from Hugh Black's book Friendship, published by Joshua Press. I have...
Thine Has Been... (07/11/09 - 6 Comments)
I often share Puritan prayers on Sundays. This week, though, it seemed appropriate to post a prayer for the Lord's Day Eve--Saturday night. I often find myself telling young people that, if they wish to make Sunday a meaningful day of worship and fellowship, they need to plan ahead and not stay up until 3 in the morning. A prayer like this, I think, helps orient the heart toward the day to come. ***** Another...
Worshiping Worship (07/05/09 - 13 Comments)
This morning, as most of the readers of this site head to church to worship the Lord, it seemed appropriate to post a few words on worship. These words come courtesy of D.A. Carson and his book Worship by the Book. Here Carson has just offered a definition of worship and he is now expanding upon it, challenging the reader to pursue true worship. ***** In an age increasingly suspicious of (linear) thought, there is...
The Truth of the Cross (06/28/09 - 3 Comments)
In his book The Truth of the Cross, R.C. Sproul spends some time discussing the human condition and as he does so he uses three biblical concepts: debtors, enemies, and criminals. The Bible describes all of us in these terms. What Sproul does here, and this really helped it hit home for me, is show how it is always the Father who has been offended and the Son who intercedes. We have committed crimes against...
Discount Personal Feelings (06/27/09 - 3 Comments)
I thought you would enjoy this quote from Jim Andrew's Polishing God's Monuments (one of my favorite books from a couple of years ago). This book, which offers "pillars of hope for punishing times" tells Andrews' story of faith and perseverance through almost unbelievable suffering. This man writes from hard experience and here he offers sound, biblical wisdom. ***** When the Lord's ways do not neatly conform to our pat little paradigms of what seems...
Meeting God (06/21/09 - 3 Comments)
Here is another great Puritan prayer, this one beseeching God to allow the Christian to live a life filled with prayer, filled with grace, filled with the Spirit. What a perfect prayer to make your own on this Lord's Day! ***** Great God, in public and private, in sanctuary and home, may my life be steeped in prayer, filled with the spirit of grace and supplication, each prayer perfumed with the incense of atoning blood....
Believing Lies, Rejecting Truth (06/14/09 - 6 Comments)
The following quote is from the pen of Horatius Bonar (1808 - 1889), the great Scottish preacher, poet, author and hymn writer. It talks about the nature, the true nature, of unbelief. It's worth reading and pondering. ***** In all unbelief there are these two things--a good opinion of one's self and a bad opinion of God. Man's good opinion of himself makes him think it quite possible to win God's favor by his own...
The Gospel Without Adulteration (06/13/09 - 4 Comments)
Here is a brief quote taken from John Newton's A Review of Ecclesiastical History which was published in 1769. It strikes me that the words he wrote them are perfectly applicable today: Whenever and wherever the doctrines of free grace and justification by faith have prevailed in the Christian Church, and according to the degree of clearness with which they have been enforced, the practical duties of Christianity have flourished in the same proportion. Wherever...
Contentment (06/07/09 - 4 Comments)
I mentioned a week ago that last week had been a long and difficult struggle to find joy. W week later I feel that God has really brought me through a tough time, but a time that was not in any way useless or wasted. This morning, when I sat down with The Valley of Vision, I came to the prayer titled "Contentment." It ministered to me this morning. Isn't it funny how a prayer...
Longings After God (05/31/09 - 3 Comments)
Through the past couple of weeks I have been fighting for joy, fighting to find joy in the journey. It has been one of those times that I've been longing for God but have seemingly found so little of him. And so this morning, when I opened up The Valley of Vision, as I so often do on a Sunday morning, I was encouraged by this prayer titled "Longings After God." My dear Lord, I...
Quotable (05/30/09 - 15 Comments)
A little while ago I was sorting through my files and found a document where I had jotted down quotes from four different books I had read at just about the same time. They are vastly different books so it was kind of interesting to me to see the juxtaposition between each of the quotes. The first quote is from God's Bestseller, a biography of William Tyndale written by Brian Moynahan. The author, comments about...
Reliance (05/17/09 - 4 Comments)
Here is another selection from Arthur Bennett's The Valley of Vision. This old prayer confesses to God a reliance on self, and as it does so, it teaches both the folly of such reliance and the joy of relying fully on God. "When thou art angry towards me for my wrongs I try to pacify thee by abstaining from future sin." Who can say that he has not, at one time or another, done this...
Happiness (05/03/09 - 1 Comments)
Here is another prayer from Arthur Bennett's The Valley of Vision. This is a prayer titled simply "Happiness." As I read the prayer I was particularly drawn to these words: "How precious is time, and how painful to see it fly with little done to good purpose! I need thy help." How much time I waste and how painful it is to me to see if fly on by, wasted, unused, with little done to...
Afraid? Of What? (05/02/09 - 9 Comments)
Last week I read a short biography of John and Betty Stam, missionary martyrs to China. Stay tuned for a review. In that book, written by Vance Christie, was a poem and the story that inspired it. I thought I'd share that today. ***** The poem, entitled "Afraid?" was written by Presbyterian missionary E.H. Hamilton following the recent martyrdom of one of his colleagues, J.W. Vinson, at the hands of rebel soldiers in northern China....
Eternity Without a Mediator (04/26/09 - 24 Comments)
In his little book Fear Not!, an examination of death and the afterlife from a Christian perspective, Ligon Duncan writes about the horrors of hell. Having done so, he offers a final reflection on the ultimate difference between heaven and hell. And, though I've read extensively, I do not recall ever hearing someone express it quite like this. These are words that are worthy of some reflection. Though he has already discussed hell, there is...
Humility in Service (04/19/09 - 3 Comments)
It has been too long, I think, since I've posted a prayer from The Valley of Vision. This one, titled "Humility in Service," seems appropriate for a Sunday morning as the day will undoubtedly bring us many opportunities to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ and many opportunities to share the Good News with those who do not yet know the Lord. Mighty God, I humble myself for faculties misused, opportunities neglected, words ill-advised,...
