We all have a tendency to live fragmented lives, and a central part of this is because we do not look to the place where all true integration happens, and that is to the Lord Jesus. But part of the reason we don’t do this is because we foolishly believe that fragmentation makes us easier …
How the Sin Argument Can’t Work
This meal is a meal of all grace. When we shrink back from it, we do so (most often) because of our sins. But because it is a meal of grace, all the arguments we might construct out of our sins do not and cannot work. This is because grace is there because of our …
The Spice Spoons of Sentimentalism
We all know that mercy is a good thing, and we are grateful to God when He extends it to us. We also know that we are called to imitate God in this, and to show mercy to others. But because of our fallen world, this is more complicated than it might look at first …
Those Darts Are Doubts
This meal is offered to you as a means of grace. It is one of God’s great instruments for building your faith, for encouraging you in your walk, for establishing your assurance. Ah, there’s the problem, some of you might be saying . . . assurance. If only I had it. You think you need …
However Do We Manage That?
Self-deception is hard to understand, and even harder to see. Think for a moment about what self-deception involves. You have to be cunning enough to tell yourself a lie, and you have to gullible enough to believe it. How can that happen? How can one part of you pull the wool over the eyes of …
Partaking to Partake
Our corporate participation in this meal, together with all other saints in the world, is a corporate participation in one person, the Lord Jesus. This means, obviously, that He is no ordinary person, but rather is an Adam. Adam was a public person—that is, we were in him when he sinned. His sin was ours, …
When the Church Organ Speaks in Tongues
I have often quoted Chesterton when he said that anything worth doing was worth doing badly. There are some exceptions to this and church organ music is one of them. Done well, organ music is glorious. Done poorly (and there are many avenues for that) it is an affront to both God and man. In …
So Look Around in Love
One of the central things we are called to remember in this Supper is the fact that God has brought us to one another, and not just to Himself. Now He has brought us into fellowship with Him, and we rejoice in it, but He never does this in isolation. “The Lord gave the word: …
Secularism and the Blood
This is Ascension Sunday, the day on which we mark the ascension of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of the Ancient of Days. We confess explicitly on this day what we affirm on every day, which is that the Lord Jesus has been given universal authority over every nation. As a consequence—because we …
Master of Misdirection
This Table is set for you as a means of grace. God intends to strengthen you, not only in terms of your endurance, but also in your wits. The serpent, it says, was craftier than all the other creatures. And the Lord Jesus teaches us to keep our innocence, but to grow in our wisdom. …