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  • As Innocent as a Snake

    As Innocent as a Snake

    There is something deep within the human heart, even the regenerate human heart, that enjoys evil. There is something within us that is drawn, almost magnetized at times, toward those things that are improper or even outright vile. At times each of us wants to see, taste, touch, or experience what God forbids. We want…

  • What the Wayward Wants

    What the Wayward Wants

    Few things bring sorrow and break hearts like dealing with wayward people—people who have determined they will pursue their sin, that they will reject their roles, forsake their promises, ignore their counsellors. When dealing with such people we need to ask, what is the mindset, the worldview, the value system of a wayward man or…

  • Four Key Principles of Repentance

    In our family devotions we have been sharpening some big beliefs, learning some big truths. We have been doing this with help from David Helm as he has led us through the Westminster Confession of Faith. This was a confession that played an important role in my younger years, but one I had neglected until…

  • Things Christians Just Don’t Get To Do

    This one began with a conversation, with a statement within that conversation: “Christians don’t get to hold a grudge!” It’s just not an option, not a vice we can allow ourselves. But it’s not the only thing Christians don’t get to do. There are other kinds of behavior that God rules out, that God describes…

  • Gospel Weariness

    Gospel weariness. It’s a little phrase I picked up from a friend when he preached at our church not too long ago. His text was James 1, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…” As he began to preach he told of some of the difficulties his church had…

  • The Provocative People of Proverbs

    The perverse person. “A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends” (16:28). Just like a computer hacker writes a virus and releases it to spread across the internet, this perverse person creates strife—bitter disagreement—and seeds it into his relationships. He may do this through slander, through gossip, and through backbiting, always with…

  • Are You Going to Hurt Me?

    Autumn has descended at last. The heat of summer has slowly, stubbornly given way to the cool of autumn. The long summer days have surrendered to evenings that come too early, nights that linger lazily before yielding to dawn. Most days I find myself outside long before the sun has shown its face, running through…

  • What God Does With Your Sin

    Sometimes it’s better to show than to tell. Sometimes it’s more effective to rely on illustration than description. Maybe this is especially the case when we are distressed, ashamed, or sorrowful, when emotions threaten to displace reason. In those moments, God comforts us not only with descriptions of what he does with our sin, but…

  • War, Women, and Wealth

    Have you ever noticed that some of our sorest temptations arise around God’s greatest gifts? Food, money, sex, ministry, authority—all of these can be used for such good, yet we consistently find they are attended by such difficulties. That is life in this sinful world, a world in which we turn blessings into curses, gifts…

  • The Utter Devastation of Sin

    Do you remember Pepé Le Pew? Pepé was a skunk, one of the classic characters from Looney Tunes. He was known for two things: His obsession with finding amour (love, that is) and his unbearable stink. These factors were constantly and comically at cross purposes. If you remember watching those cartoons, you no doubt remember…

  • Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit

    One mark of a successful sermon is that it satisfactorily answers some questions while provoking still others. On Sunday I visited a little church in an eastern-Ontario village and heard just such a sermon. The pastor preached on Ephesians 4 as part of a series on the Christian’s identity in Christ, but as he continued…

  • Have You Looked Into the Mirror Today?

    There is something comforting about peering into a mirror every now and then. It’s not so much a matter of gazing into your own reflection as it is looking for those things that are out of place, those things that don’t belong, those things you don’t want to see reflected back—the parsley between your teeth,…

  • Resist the Devil

    3 Truths to Speak To Your Temptation

    As a true son of Adam, a person born with a natural affection for sin, I have no shortage of opportunities to consider sin and to consider the desire to commit it in its infinite varieties. As a husband and father, a pastor, and a church member I have no shortage of opportunities to speak…

  • Our Forgetful God

    There are some things I just can’t forget. There are some wrongs done to me that I cannot erase from my mind. I try, I pray. I don’t want to remember them. I don’t want them to remain in my memory or to come back to my mind. But somehow I can’t forget them. Somehow,…

  • The Holiness Instinct (and the Unexpected Temptation)

    Though I didn’t know it when I began, this article would come to hang on a single moment, a single moment of temptation. On Saturday I found myself musing on personal holiness and the joyful reality that you can be far holier than you ever would have thought possible. On Sunday I began scribbling thoughts…

  • Run! Run Away!

    Maybe you’ve seen that hilarious news footage of a man unexpectedly coming face to face with a bear. He is on his own property, distracted by his phone, when he looks up right into the face of a marauding bear. The man’s reaction is exactly what we would expect—he turns tail and runs away as…

  • The Atrocity of Sin

    The Atrocity of Sin

    I’ve got a little bit of Spurgeon to share with you today. Here is Spurgeon reminding you of the cost of your sin and calling you to repentance for it. A deep sense and clear sight of sin, its heinousness, and the punishment which it deserves, should make us lie low before the throne. We…

  • The Half-Trained Dog

    A site I visit from time-to-time dedicated Christmas day to displaying nothing but videos of people receiving puppies for Christmas. They meant to spread Christmas cheer, I suppose. There were little boys and girls, grown men and women, and even seniors, all screaming and weeping with joy as they came face-to-face with their new pets.…

  • Hold On

    I am a quitter. In some ways I am, at least. There are parts and places in life where I will maintain a stubborn determination to the end (like, say, this whole blog every day thing I’ve been doing). But there are others where I give up, where I can too easily quit. And one…