For those who are converted to God, the grace of God envelops everything, drives everything, and defines everything. This includes our desire to learn how to walk in His ways, which means our desire to grow and flourish in our sanctification, which means loving and understanding His law. This is a Table of grace. There …
The Apostles Creed 4: Maker of Heaven and Earth
Introduction: We confess the absolute authority of God, and there are layered reasons for doing this. He has authority over us in the first instance because He created us, and in the second because He redeemed us from our sins. We will come to the issue of redemption shortly, but we must begin where the …
A Ritual Reminder
Over the years we have emphasized the importance of ritual. Rituals are significant in the Bible, and they ought to be significant to us. We have also emphasized the importance of worshiping God with our bodies and not just with our minds. We have sought to resist the temptation that many Reformed Christians deal with, …
Christ as Manna and Water
Our Jewish fathers in the wilderness were followed by Christ and were fed by Him. He was the Rock that accompanied them, and they all drank from that Rock. The apostle Paul says that this was written for us, as an example, lest any of us destroy ourselves, the same way many of them did. …
Bomber Pilots Among the Sheep
Karl Marx famously said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Although his taunt misses true religion, there are many forms of religion in the world that his arrow hits dead center. One of them would be the Pharisaism of Jesus’ day. We often miss the import of the Lord’s teaching, his cryptic sayings, …
Objectively Submitting
The Table before us is set by God Himself. He invites us to it, and as we sit down with Him (in the person of the Lord Jesus), He deals with us. We cannot prevent this, we cannot manipulate it, and we cannot turn it to our own ends. This Table means what God says …
The Apostles Creed 2: God the Father
Introduction: So we begin the Creed with the statement “I believe.” Believe in what or whom? We do not believe in a generic deity, with details to be filled in later. We begin with the confession that we believe in a personal God, identified by name, and revealed in His Son. I believe in God …
When Forgiveness Is Called For
Our God is a God of both grace and mercy. In the English language, grace is generally unearned, unmerited favor. Mercy is demerited favor that we receive anyway. When we have forfeited goodness, and God gives it to us anyway, He is showing mercy. When Adam was first created, he had obviously done nothing to …
Partaking in the Covenant
The world is covenantal. This is because the God who Himself is eternally covenanted, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the Creator of this world. He could not fashion a world in which He was not the God of it, and the heavens declare His glory. In other words, the universe must display the characteristics …
Kane and Ashlynne
Marriage was established by God in an archetype. That is, He created the first man from the dust of the ground, and fashioned the first woman from the man’s rib, and did so in order that we would have a pattern to follow. The language manifesting this as a grand template in evident in the …