Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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One of the great challenges of the Christian life is to become a giver—and not just a giver, but a cheerful giver. The Bible commends generosity, but generosity that is free from compunction or coercion, for “each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” We must not love money so much that we fail to be generous. Yet we must also ensure we are not giving …
You can only imagine what Joseph’s family thought. You can only imagine what the townsfolk thought. You can only imagine what the religious leaders thought. You can only imagine the laughter and the mocking, the rumors and the gossip, the scolding and the censure. And maybe we should imagine it. “Does he really expect us to believe that he wasn’t the one who got Mary pregnant?” “I’ve heard lots of excuses in my time, but never ‘I was overshadowed by …
We live out our Christian lives in a place between Egypt and the Promised Land. We have been justified but not yet glorified—we have been delivered safely through the Red Sea but have not yet forded the Jordan and arrived on its far bank. We may not physically wander as did the Israelites of old and we may not actually follow pillars of fire and cloud, but we no less make a pilgrimage and we are no less dependent upon …
What is it like to be a Christian? What is it like to submit your life to the Lord? What is it like to live for the glory of an unseen God? There is a lot bound up in the questions. But an answer comes to mind as I scour the hall of heroes we find in Hebrews 11. To be a Christian is to follow God without knowing exactly where he is leading and to die without having received …
It is good to be a man or woman of faith. It is good to be a man or woman who regularly attends church, who faithfully studies the Scriptures, who diligently puts sin to death and who joyfully comes alive to righteousness. This is all good and very good. But every now and again it is important to ask something like this: What does your faith do for you? In those times when life is difficult, in those times when …
We are nothing if not rash—nothing if not prone to making vows that are impulsive, promises we cannot keep. Sometimes we deliver on them only partially and at other times we fail altogether. “It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay,” says the Sage. But too often we do exactly that—we fail utterly to pay what we owe, to come through as we have promised. This is true of our greatest vows …
What does it mean to have faith? What does it mean to believe in God’s promises? What does it mean to have confidence that God is who he says he is and that God will do what he says he will do? What is the nature of that faith, that belief, that confidence? There are times during this long and wearying pilgrimage when we undergo severe tests of our faith—tests that are often related to our losses and bereavements. Even …
Of all the divine thoughts recorded in the pages of sacred writ, of all the promises God provides to humanity, perhaps none is more moving, none more blessed, none more needful than this: He gives his beloved sleep. What would we give to those we love if we had all the power of God Almighty, if we could dispense any gift from his endless storehouse? We would give the courage of a hero, the voice of an angel, the wealth …
We aren’t certain whether gold is pure or alloyed until it is tested in the fire. We don’t know whether steel is rigid or brittle until it is tested by stress. We can’t have confidence that water is pure until it passes through a filter. And in much the same way, we don’t know what our faith is made of until we face trials. It is the testing of our faith that displays its genuineness, says Peter, and it is …
Do you ever wonder what it’s like to enter heaven? Do you ever wonder what you will see first, what you will hear first, what you will feel and experience first? Do you ever wonder what your very first thought will be after you’ve fallen asleep in this world to awaken in the next? I’m sure you do. We all do. We all wonder what’s just beyond the great chasm that separates life from death, earth from heaven, here from …