Quotes

Working Up a Spiritual Sweat

I was recently reading through the new, updated version of Kent Hughes’ Disciplines of a Godly Man and was struck anew by the Bible’s call that we strive and labor for godliness. While his intended audience is primarily men, the message is equally applicable to women. ***** The statement from Paul to Timothy regarding spiritual discipline in 1 Timothy 4:7—“train yourself for godliness”—takes on not only transcending importance, but personal urgency. There are other passages that teach discipline, but this is …

How To Discover and Deploy Your Gifts

The area of spiritual gifts is one that seems to come and go, to ebb and flow, in the life of the church. Sometimes we are inundated with talk of discovering and deploying our gifts, and sometimes it seems they get forgotten altogether. Either way, I was blessed to read some of Sinclair Ferguson’s thoughts on the matter (from his book Maturity). Here is what he has to say about the matter. *** The place to start is this: do …

Become a Patron

A Shepherd and His Dog

I’ve mentioned before that Harold Senkbeil’s The Care of Souls has been a particularly meaningful and challenging book for me, and one I’d commend to every pastor or elder. Today I’d like to share a brief excerpt in which he so aptly describes the relationship between a pastor and his church. ***** In the old days when I was young, dairy herds were comparatively small. On diversified farms like ours, cows would be let out to graze in pasture between …

The Greatest Wonder of All

Though you could travel a hundred times the speed of light, past countless yellow-orange stars, to the edge of the galaxy and swoop down to the fiery glow located a few hundred light-years below the plane of the Milky Way,  Though you could slow to examine the host of hot young stars luminous among the gas and dust,  Though you could observe, close-up, the protostars poised to burst forth from their dusty cocoons,  Though you could witness a star’s birth,  …

Oft in Sorrow, Oft in Woe

A little while ago I encountered the poetry of Henry Kirke White. Though he lived only a short life, he created some remarkably mature work like “Sonnet To My Mother.” Another tremendous work of his is “Oft in Sorrow, Oft in Woe.” Though it has been recorded as a hymn, I prefer it as a poem. Read it and be encouraged by it! Oft in sorrow, oft in woe, Onward, Christian, onward go: Fight the fight, maintain the strife Strengthened …

Sonnet To My Mother

Yes, I know it’s Father’s Day today, but I’m posting a poem for a mother. I’ve recently been discovering and enjoying the poetry of Henry Kirke White whose work was written in the opening years of the nineteenth century. Though he died at just 21, he left behind some wonderful poems. The one that has most caught my attention so far is “Sonnet to My Mother.” In recent months I have spent a lot of time studying and writing about the …

It Was Your Sin that Murdered Christ!

Sometimes it does us good to consider the sheer sinfulness of our sin. Sometimes it does us good to consider what our sin has cost. Perhaps these words from Isaac Ambrose will challenge you as they did me. When I but think of those bleeding veins, bruised shoulders, scourged sides, furrowed back, harrowed temples, nailed hands and feet, and then consider that my sins were the cause of all, methinks I should need no more arguments for self-abhorring! Christians, would …

Why God Delays in Answering Prayer

I was blessed to read this short article from Charles Spurgeon. He explains why God sometimes delays in answering prayer. Here goes… God often delays in answering prayer. We have several instances of this in sacred Scripture. Jacob did not get the blessing from the angel until near the dawn of day—he had to wrestle all night for it. The poor woman of Syrophenicia was answered not a word for a long while. Paul besought the Lord thrice that “the …

The Problem with the “Want Ads” in Denominational Magazines

I will keep the intro short: You ought to read and consider this brief excerpt from Derek Thomas’s commentary on Acts in which he shows how our expectations of pastors—and perhaps their expectations for themselves—are often far removed from God’s. If you’re in a huge hurry or have a microscopic attention span, skim right down to the second paragraph. Paul preached Jesus. Had you spent a month in Thessalonica at the time of Paul’s visit, you could not have failed …

’Tis a Point I Long to Know

So much of the beauty of poetry is finding words that express your soul. Poetry has a way of expressing both our conscious thoughts and our unconscious desires. Such is the case with this little poem I dug up recently. It’s an old one, written many years ago by John Newton. He expresses the universal experience of the Christian in our searching, our wondering, our perplexity, and, eventually, our confidence. The poem is titled “’Tis a Point I Long to …