Category: Graffiti
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Enduring Aroma of the Gospel
People don’t earn God’s approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they’ve done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God’s kindness through Christ. There is no other way. Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long…
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God Made Us to Pray
While studying this afternoon I stumbled upon this thought from J.I. Packer: It is not too much to say that God made us to pray; that prayer is (not the easiest, but) the most natural activity in which in which we ever engage; and that prayer is the measure of a man in God’s sight.…
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Wheting Our Apetite for Worship
Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite… Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship – it deepens… It overfloows the hour and permeates the week… – Eugene Petereson
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Hard Grace
“Even though we are now in faith, the heart is always ready to boast itself before God and say: ‘After all, I have preached the law, and lived so well and done so much that surely He will take this into account ‘. We even want to haggle with God to make Him regard our…
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The A-to-Z of the Christian Life
“The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others. Every kind of character flaw comes from this natural impulse to be our own savior through our performance and achievement. On the…
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Prayer is…
Prayer…is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of helplessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves… God means us… to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell Him that we rely on Him alone, and to plead…
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Following Jesus in Different Directions?
I’ve been pondering the following assertion from Ron Sider‘s Living Like Jesus: “Still, the modern church prefers to accept only half of Jesus. They willingly accept him either as model or as mediator – but not both. Some urge us to follow his example of love and social concern, but they forget about the cross. Others…
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Faith & Hope
The question occurs to us, What difference is there between faith and hope? We find it difficult to see any difference. Faith and hope are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Still there is a difference between them. First, hope and faith differ in regard to their sources. Faith originates in the understanding,…
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Pastors Near Pastures
The following words, along with Francis Schaeffer’s No Little People, were helpful to me when last year we accpted the opportunity to return to East Tennessee rather than pursue opportunities with churches in larger cities: “Few men have the courage to seek obscurity for the sake of its advantages, but there can be no doubt of…
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The Advantages of Pleasing God Rather than Men
The following dozen points are about the advantages to us in seeking to please God, instead of living for the approval of other people. They were originally written by the great English Puritan, Richard Baxter. I have attempted to clean up the language a little, hopefully without dulling the wisdom: 1. If you seek first to…
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The Cross Enforces Three Truths
The Cross enforces three truths: about ourselves, about God, and about Jesus Christ. 1. Our Sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the Cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, nor the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our…
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Which Way?
Your life hangs on how you relate these two statements: “If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous” (1 John 2:1). “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). Do you experience the first one weakening the second? Or do you experience the first one…
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My Sin is Ever Before Me
‘My sin is ever before me’ -Psalm 51.3 A humble soul sees that he can stay no more from sin, than the heart can from panting, and the pulse from beating. He sees his heart and life to be fuller of sin, than the firmament is of stars; and this keeps him low. He sees that…
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The Better We Know God
For the better we know God, the more we will want all of our existence to revolve around him, and we will see that the only goals and plans that really matter are those that are somehow tied to God himself, and to our eternity with him. Did not Jesus tell his followers to store…
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Seeker Sensitive vs. Cost of Discipleship
In our culture of “seeker sensitivity” and radical inclusivity, the great temptation is to compromise the cost of discipleship in order to draw a larger crowd. With the most sincere hearts, we do not want to see anyone walk away from Jesus because of the discomfort of his cross, so we clip the claws on…
