The logic of the Bible says: Act according to God's "will of command," not according to his "will of decree." God's "will of decree" is whatever comes to pass. "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (James 4:15). God's "will of decree"...
What is sin? It is the glory of God not honored. The holiness of God not reverenced. The greatness of God not admired. The power of God not praised. The truth of God not sought. The wisdom of God not esteemed. The beauty of God not treasured. The goo...
Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith.
Christmas is an indictment before it becomes a delight. It will not have its intended effect until we feel desperately the need for a Savior.
The most precious gifts you can think of are not ends in themselves. They all lead to God. Ultimately, that is what all His gifts are for.
We ascribe to God. We don't add to Him.
Tasks don't have to be high-impact to be worthy of high effort. Most things we do in any given day are relatively low impact. The cumulative impact of thousands of low-impact test is huge. These tasks can be transposed into worship.
If truth does not lead to falling in love, it fails.
You can't ever be your heroes, but you can love their gifts.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel ...
If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you don't get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. This is not evangelism, but deception.
For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done.
The key that unlocks the treasure chest of God's peace is faith in the promises of God.
So saving grace, converting grace, for Augustine, is God's giving us a sovereign joy in God that triumphs over all other joys and therefore sways the will. The will is free to move toward whatever it delights in most fully, but it is not within the p...
The horror of Hell is an echo of the infinite worth of God's glory.
humility is beyond our reach. if it were a product of reaching, we would instinctively be proud of reaching it. it is a gift.
Brand-new truths are probably not Truths.
In other words, all the highest aims of language are decisively the work of God. They are decisively supernatural. And no amount of poetic effort or expertise in the use of words can bring about the great aims of life if God withholds his saving powe...
Therefore everything that you enjoy in Christ - as a Christian, as a person who trusts Christ - is owing to the death of Christ.
God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.
Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.
