Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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Last night our church gathered, divided into small groups, and went door-to-door in the neighborhood surrounding the school in which we meet. We went caroling and delivering copies of a book and an invitation to our Christmas Eve service to each of the homes in the immediate area. On the whole our efforts were well-received. While only a fraction of the people were both home and willing to open their doors, those who did seemed genuinely pleased to hear a …
When I was a child my parents explained to me how important it is to make time every day for reading the Bible and praying. Wanting to please them, and knowing it was the right thing to do, I began to have a brief period of devotions each day before bed. I do not remember a whole lot about how I conducted these devotions, but I do remember struggling with whether or not it was acceptable to pray the Lord’s …
“As a husband, I know it is my responsibility to pray for my wife. Often, though, I do not know the words to use, and I end up feeling that my prayers for her could be more effective. From marriage counseling and pastoral experience, I have met many men who share the same concern. The average Christian man does not know how to pray for his wife. Unfortunately, when we do not know how to pray, we end up not …
Having just read a book about prayer, and having sought recently to increase the presence of prayer in my life, I turned a few days ago to the topic of persistence in prayer. I soon found something I had written about this in the past and thought I would share it with you today, hoping that it will prove beneficial to you as it has to me. It is the Lord’s delight to give us what we ask of Him …
When you pray, petitioning God for something, do you really expect results? Do you pray as one who is already defeated, expecting before you even pray that God will not grant your prayer? Or do you pray with confidence that God hears and answers prayer? Acts 12 contains a wonderful story that shows how even the giants of the faith and the pillars of the church had trouble putting their confidence in God through prayer. In that chapter we read …
While the corporate world deals with the fact that hundreds of thousands of American jobs are being outsourced to companies overseas, now we find out that it is happening in churches too. There is a bizarre and strangely hilarious article in the New York Times about the Catholic Church’s practice of outsourcing prayer and masses. With clergy in short supply in North America, some churches are sending requests for masses to places such as India where poor, less-busy priests can …
This is my daughter Abby. She is 18 months old and tomorrow we are taking her to the hospital for surgery. She has a rather large cyst and though they are quite convinced it is harmless, the doctors would like to take it out. Eventually, they figure, it will get quite uncomfortable for her and may rupture and cause infection. The cyst is just under the skin so will not require any major digging-around to get it out. So though …