God’s will for your life is in the Bible, but not in the way you may expect. One of the ways we discover God’s will for our lives is by learning the principles of God’s word. For example, the Bible doesn’t tell us who we should marry, but it does tell us a lot about marriage and purity and what kind of person we should marry. The Bible doesn’t tell us where we should work, but it does teach us about the nature of work, about laziness, about submission [...]
Last month I turned forty. For some that’s old, for others it’s young. For me, I feel the same way I did at thirty-nine! But turning forty seemed like a good time to stop and reflect on God’s goodness in my life. So on the morning of my birthday, I took a couple hours and wrote down forty things I’m thankful for at age forty. There’s not a strict order to my list, but it does move more or less chronologically through my life. Upon turning forty, I thank [...]
Abraham Lincoln is probably the best known and most loved president in the history of the United States of America. His rise to prominence, however, was totally unpredictable. He was a nobody from nowhere. He was born in Kentucky to poor, subsistence farming, Reformed Baptist parents who moved to southern Indiana where he spent most of his childhood working on his father’s farm instead of going to school. His mother died when he was nine and his father was verbally and physically abusive. His sister died in childbirth when [...]
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution that declared that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” Two days later, on July 4, 1776, the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. We honor this day with barbeque and fireworks because it marked the beginning of our new nation. The Declaration of Independence, however, did not lay out the specifics about how we would be governed. The Articles of Confederation were supposed to do that. They were drafted in 1777 [...]
In our culture, physical beauty is a matter of great importance. There are many who climb high on the ladder of social status because of the way they look, and there are those who struggle to fit in because their appearance falls short of society’s standards. As Christians how should we think of physical beauty? We should start by remembering that the Captain of our faith came to us in a lowly and humble appearance: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no [...]
In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel each bring an offering to God. God accepts Abel’s offering but rejects Cain’s. Why does God accept one and reject the other? Because, with a heart full of faith (Heb. 11:4), Abel brought the best of what he had to the Lord. Abel’s attitude was, “Because God is what’s most important to me, I want to give him the best of what I have.” So he brought the firstborn and the fat portions, and “the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering” [...]
John 17 is one of the richest and most profound chapters in the Bible. It is often called Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer” because it contains Jesus’ prayer for his people. Verse 9, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” Jesus’ longest recorded prayer in the Bible is for us. This is amazing. The profundity of John 17 is also in that Jesus gives us a peak behind the curtain into some of [...]
“And the king ordered Joab and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.’”- 2 Samuel 18:5 How could David say such a thing about Absalom? This rebel son, this scoundrel who turned the kingdom upside down. He was a murderer and a liar who conspired against his father David, didvided the nation of Israel, and caused David and his men to run into hiding. Yet, when the occasion finally arose for vengeance, the king asked nothing of his commanders but gentleness toward this [...]
In December, Christians remember, reflect on, and rejoice in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnation refers to when the Son of God, or the second Person of the Trinity, put on human flesh, or “took flesh to himself.” The apostle John describes it like this: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). And the apostle Paul: “In him (Jesus) the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). The Ligonier Statement on Christology summarizes this doctrine like this, “Truly God, he became truly man, [...]
Martin Luther’s life is an excellent example of a life well-lived for the glory of God. But his death is also an excellent example of how to die well for the glory of God. Luther preached what would be his last sermon at his home church, the Castle Church in Wittenberg, on January 17, 1546. On the same day, he wrote to a friend, “I am writing, my James, as an old man, decrepit, sluggish, tired, cold, and now also one-eyed.” He wrote of the “highly deserved rest (as [...]