You have heard many times that there is no neutrality, not anywhere, and not in anything. This is not the same thing as saying there is only one way to do something, but it does mean that we should think about everything that we do. For example, we are seated as we partake of this …
Spiritual Bone Cancer
Father in heaven, we know that rottenness in the bones is not simply a consequence of sin, but is the sin itself. When we are not being honest with You, we are trying to hide sin, or spin it, or explain it, or otherwise manage it. We confess to You that as a nation, we …
Lent Without Easter
In Leviticus 23, the weekly sabbath is listed along with the rest of Israel’s festivals as a feast, as a festival. The weekly sabbath was a day of rejoicing, not a day of gloom. The Jews had only one penitential day out of the year — their Good Friday, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. …
Vertical and Horizontal
When we come before the Lord to worship Him, we are to have pure hearts. We have a vertical relationship with God, and a horizontal relationship with one another. The Bible teaches us that there needs to be a symmetry between those two. If the liturgy and the sermon create the wrong kind of space, …
Propitiation or Wrath
Gracious Father, You are the one who sent Jesus Christ into the world, to be the propitiation for our sins. And yet, Father, we have tried to claim that we do not need this propitiation, which leaves us under Your righteous and holy wrath. Have mercy on us, we pray.
Christ Is Not Food to the Faithless
Fathers feed their children. One of the ways we know that we are children of God is that He provides food for us here. We come in faith rejoicing at what He has provided for us here. Now some might wonder if this is really true. Do not hypocrites join churches? Don’t they participate in …
Teaching Us on the Outside
The Word of God tells us to put to death our members which are on the earth, and this exhortation is followed by a list of that unhappy crew (Col. 3:4-6). Uncleanness, lust, fornication . . . all must die. The apostle Paul gives this assignment to Christians, to saints and faithful brethren (Col. 1:2). …
The Grace of Human Sexuality
Father in Heaven, You are the one who created us male and female, and it was one of Your great gifts to us. We confess to You now that our nation has fallen into a great confusion about this. We no longer even know what marriage is, and we have raging political debates over what …
That Our Eyes Might Be Opened
A biblical scholar and exegete has recently pointed to the striking parallel between the fall of our first parents and one of the resurrection accounts. In Gen. 3:7, it says “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew . . .” In Luke 24:31, it says, “And their eyes were opened, and …
Not at All Symmetrical
It would seem that grace is a good deal, and absolute grace would be a really good deal. If salvation is free, unearned, unmerited, and undeserved, then this means that absolutely anyone can be saved. What could be the catch? Well, the catch is that these terms mean that anyone can be saved by Christ …