My travels have led me through many castles in many kingdoms, my journey through many palaces in many places. I have seen the grandest edifices ever designed by the mind of men to display the value, the worth, the grandeur of their inhabitants. I have seen throne rooms devised to dazzle the eyes and overwhelm…
We sometimes make the Christian life more complicated than it needs to be and more complicated than it ought to be. For when it comes right down to it, God calls us to nothing more, and nothing less, than to obey. The only thing that really matters in any context or any circumstance is obedience…
Early on a Saturday morning a young girl is told by her mother to dust the house. She dutifully goes about her chore, dusting the tables, the shelves, the mantelpieces, and all the other surfaces. Later in the day her mother inspects the work and expresses some concern. “Look at all the dust,” she says,…
Joseph died a young man, his eyes hollow, his body gaunt, his stomach distended. He suffered deeply in those final days before he finally succumbed to the great hunger that had already claimed so many members of his family, so many of the people of his land and the ones surrounding it. As his breathing…
There are few better tributes to a Christian than to say “he is a man of good conscience.” Such a man will do only what is consistent with his conscience and will take no action contrary to it. He has carefully informed his conscience according to the Word of God and then carefully heeds it…
At one of the many shipyards dotting Canada’s East Coast, another great oceangoing vessel is very nearly complete, and in just a few weeks it will begin to transport containers across the Atlantic. But before it can embark on its maiden voyage, it must endure a strict regimen of tests. Waters flood the dry dock…
It is one of the great debates of a privileged age: is dark chocolate superior to milk, or milk to dark? Both have their advocates. The ones who prefer dark chocolate boast of the flavor of cocoa that is undisrupted by excess sugar, that so wonderfully compliments the bitterness of a dark coffee. The ones…
Sunflower fields trampled, pumpkin patches trod under, apple orchards pillaged and wrecked. It has become a phenomenon of the Instagram era that fields ripe for harvest are also fields perfect for selfies. When the flowers are at their brightest, the pumpkins at their biggest, the apples at their reddest, word gets out, and crowds descend.…
For some it was a day of great rejoicing. For some it was a day of deep distress. Though Solomon’s temple had long since been destroyed by the order of King Nebuchadnezzar, the people had now returned from exile and had commenced work on a new temple, a new home for their God. Once the…
I have, in the past, shared the prayer John Stott would use to begin his day. A number of years ago I excerpted just a small part of it and began to pray that on a regular or even daily basis. I thought I’d share it here in case you would find it valuable as…
I abominate commercials for the lottery. Though there are thousands of variations of such ads, they all play off a common theme: Money brings joy. One recent ad showed people practicing the happy dance they would do when they found out they had won millions of dollars. Another had people describing the things they would…
In recent months the evangelical world has been rocked by a number of scandals, by news of yet more leaders who used their churches or ministries to indulge themselves to the harm of others. These are yet more cases of men who will no doubt stand before God some day and plead all their accomplishments—“Didn’t…
On a warm, spring afternoon, walking along pathways that lead between city and country, between suburbia and farmland, I passed by a sprawling property, the home and gardens of a local landowner. I saw that the trees had remained unpruned, that the ground had gone untended, that the fences all around were sagging and broken…
We live at a time of great public immorality, a time in which the only thing that is shameful is shame itself. Immorality is synonymous with entertainment and the basest sexual perversions are flaunted on-screen for all to see. Television shows compete among themselves to explore and transgress any boundary. The very things that marked…
As you know, I like to share occasional examples of pastoral prayers. I do this hoping they may provide inspiration for others as they prepare their prayers week by week. This particular prayer was prayed this weekend at Grace Fellowship Church. Our Father in heaven, we love you. How can we but love you, for…
The final night that Jesus spends with his beloved disciples is a night of much prayer. Before he prays privately in the garden he prays publicly in the upper room. Before he prays for himself and his own endurance, he prays for them and theirs. “I do not ask that you take them out of…
God tells us to love one another–to love others in much the way we so naturally love ourselves. Yet each of us must admit we have failed to do so. In this corporate prayer of confession, prayed recently at Grace Fellowship Church, we confess that lack of love. Leader:O God of Love,We have not loved…
“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do,” promised Jesus. And ever since that day, his followers have prayed in his name. Parents teach their children, pastors teach their parishioners, evangelists teach their new converts to close their prayers with the familiar words, “In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.” But familiarity has its…
The church would be impoverished if Joni Eareckson Tada was not a member of it. Christian history would be lacking if it did not involve the accounts of Marie Durand and Corrie Ten Boom. We would be missing out on much encouragement if its ranks did not include Amy Carmichael and Elisabeth Elliott. What binds…
Jesus did not tell his followers to take up a feather and follow him. He did not tell them to take up a scepter or a sword, a flag of surrender or a trophy of triumph. Rather, he told them to take up a cross, to shoulder a rough and heavy burden that was synonymous…