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With the Easter season fast approaching, I thought I would share a sweet poem by Robert Herrick that considers the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice along with the reality that we still suffer. Here is how he thought about these truths. Have, have ye no regard, all ye Who pass this way, to pity me, Who am a man of misery! A man both bruised, and broke, and one Who suffers not here for mine own, But for my friends’ transgression! …
I have long observed that it is the rare individual who values completing a task as highly as beginning one. We are all good at setting out with great gusto, but so often, whether through poor planning or waning interest or even the vicissitudes of providence, we fail to complete what we’ve begun. If this is true of our minor plans and tasks, how much more the ones we thought might define our legacy on this earth. Thankfully this is …
Every Christian parent prays that God would extend his saving grace from one generation to the next (and, of course, to the ones after that). Every Christian prays, then, that they would see the Lord save their precious children. This was on George Swinnock’s mind when he prayed this lovely prayer many centuries ago. May it give you words to pray to the Lord as you consider God’s mercy toward the children the Lord has given you. Father of spirits, …
I suppose nearly everyone holds out some kind of hope for some kind of heaven. The reality, though, is that few truly long for the heaven the Bible describes. Richard Sibbes considers this fact in an excerpt drawn from a new daily devotional collection titled Refreshment for the Soul, published recently by Banner of Truth. The devotional is based on 1 John 3:3: “And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” It is impossible for …
For as long as there has been truth, there has been division over the truth—over what is consistent with God’s revelation and what is aberrant, over what pleases him and what grieves his heart. Richard Baxter was no stranger to this reality and, aware of his own sinfulness, penned a prayer meant to plead God’s help in times of controversy. Lord God, when controversies occasion division among your people, may I look first to the interest of the common good …
The Bible warns about the danger of a hard heart. It warns that a heart can be so hardened that it becomes resistant even to the words of God. It warns that a hard heart is an impenitent heart and that an impenitent heart is a heart that falls under God’s just judgment. In this brief exhortation, F.B. Meyer reminds us of the sobering truth that hearts grow hard slowly and over time, first through small acts of defiance and …
It is one of the hard realities of the Christian life—we have been saved, but we still sin. We have committed ourselves to the Lord, but are sometimes still so committed to rebelling against him. We have been forgiven, yet still at times spurn his grace. I expect thoughts like these were in the mind and heart of a poet named M.A.B. Kelly when she wrote “Without and Within” and pleaded with the Lord to “let the sunlight in.” The …
We live in a world of enemies, a world of people and forces that wish to do us harm. The last enemy we must all face is death. The old preacher James Smith once pondered this enemy and gave his church both warning and encouragement. In this closing excerpt of a sermon he calls upon Christians to bravely cling to the cross as they face death. The sick bed, the dying pillow, the painful disease, the dying pangs are before …
A new year has dawned. And while we tend to face a new year with energy and enthusiasm, excited by all the possibilities it will bring, perhaps we ought to pause for just a few moments to consider the reality that is set before us. Octavius Winslow would have you consider that this world and all that is in it is but a shadow. And if we simply acknowledge this, we are prepared to live this year well—to live it …
Merry Christmas, my friends. May this day bring you heartfelt worship and tender joys. On this day, I am pondering a lovely quote I found in one of De Witt Talmage’s sermons—a quote that calls us to not only be joyful at Christmas, but to see in Christmas proof that Christianity is a joyful faith. He means to counter the “delusion that the religion of Christ is dolorous and grief-infusing.” Here is how Christmas counters any such notion: The music …