How “You Do You” is Leading to Narcissism and a Mental Health Crisis
The modern attempt to situate all meaning in the self has led to an increase in anxiety and depression, along with a decline in resilience. Instead of basing our identity on God, we look elsewhere for our purpose and are inevitably disappointed.
We weren’t designed to find our identity by looking within but by looking to our Creator God. Unfortunately, humanity is instinctively repelled by any thought of looking for our identity in Him (Romans 1:18-30), and so, left to ourselves, we look for identity anywhere but the living God. And in the modern secular West, that search... Continue Reading
The Harder Our Earth, the Sweeter Our Heaven
The sorrows here prepare us for the glories there.
We know that heaven will be a wonder for all who are admitted, a place of perfect peace and perfect satisfaction for all who enter its gates. But surely heaven will be a greater wonder still for those whose joys were fewest, whose sorrows were deepest, whose earth was most distant from heaven. The... Continue Reading
The Fundamental Significance of the Lord’s Supper (pt 1)
Nothing can be more certain than that He deliberately chose the Passover Meal for the institution of the sacrament of His body and blood.
Precisely what our Lord appears to have done was to change the symbols which represented his sacrificed Person in the feast, was to adapt it to the new conditions of the kingdom as now introduced by him, and thus to perpetuate it throughout the new dispensation. The lamb had hitherto been the symbol of the... Continue Reading
Corporate Worship’s Essence: Spiritual Response
How do we know we have worshiped?
It is important that we recognize the proper function of our physical expressions of worship and the fundamental spiritual essence of worship. The physical expressions themselves are never the essence of our communion with God; plenty of people do the physical stuff without truly worshiping. Rather, the physical aspects of worship should be an expression... Continue Reading
The End of the World According to Jesus
Jesus is coming in two different ways to deal with two very different kinds of people.
To the disciples, much about Jesus’ coming Kingdom would be learned through these secretive parables (Matthew 11:34-35). They understood that for a period of time, imposters would exist alongside the true followers of Christ, like a field of wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-31). But, by the end, the Kingdom of Christ would tower over all... Continue Reading
Why Did Jesus Compare God’s Kingdom to a Mustard Seed and Leaven?
Jesus anticipated the misconceptions people would have about the kind of redemption and the type of kingdom he was bringing upon them.
This is the paradox of Christ’s kingdom—a mysterious mix of humility and glory, power and weakness. But why is this the paradox of the kingdom? Because this paradox matches Christ’s cross. Our Lord’s salvation is to save you from death, to free you from Satan’s prison of the grave. When the Lord ushered his... Continue Reading
“He Descended into Hell”
We confess that the benefits of Christ’s suffering for us sinners extend from the visible to the invisible, even from the least extreme to the most extreme torments, pains, anguish, and ignominy of both soul and body.
In God’s reckoning, when He laid our iniquities on His incarnate Son, He effectively relocated hell onto Christ Himself such that from Gethsemane to the grave His humiliation for sinners reached its nadir in both soul and body. It’s an understatement to say that the last phrase of Article 4 of the Apostles’ Creed—He... Continue Reading
On Tradition
Each generation requires the whole counsel of God.
In the writings of his prophets and apostles, God has granted the church a wholesome word and a precious deposit (2 Timothy 1:13-14): which explains our past, opens up a future, and guides us on the path whereby we might inherit it. One generation shall commend your works to another (Ps 145:4). I’ve just... Continue Reading
Jonah—Preacher of Repentance, Part 5
Three Days and Nights in the Watery Grave
The prophet will endure the three days and nights as a man made ready to receive and obey YHWH’s call. Having completed his ordeal and preparation, the sovereign God will ensure that Jonah’s mission resumes. The Fate of the Reluctant Prophet It is impossible to imagine the misery Jonah endured for those three days... Continue Reading
You Need to Rest—The Seventh Day of Creation
Jesus determines what is good for the Sabbath because it is His day.
The Pharisees loaded the Sabbath with untold stupid laws and turned it into a day of fear and misery. Jesus now recovers it. For he is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the God of the seven days of creation. He was the one who created the world and who rested on the Seventh Day. My good... Continue Reading
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