Because Jesus has been established as both Lord and Christ, our worship of God through Him is the center of the world. Everything else we do, like the water flowing out from Ezekiel’s temple, proceeds from that reality. Not only is it the center of the world, but it also shapes the world. It was …
Lawn Darts on the Sun
ExhortationWhen we worship Jesus Christ, we are coming to the Father. When we come to the Father, we are coming to the source of all things. As we do this, we discover we are not able to come unless His Holy Spirit equips and moves us. The God of Heaven is our fear. Now in …
And We All Qualify
We serve a merciful God, but one who does not trifle with sin. When we come before Him, forgetful of our sins, in that self-serving and convenient way we have, He remembers them. In Hos. 8:13, when the worshipers came to offer their sacrifices, there God promised to remember their iniquity. But this is the …
Drinking Liberty Away
One of our most precious possessions as the people of God is our liberty in Christ. As a glorious thing in the world, this Christian liberty is both assailed by the legalists and undermined by the libertines. Since we have shaken loose of the legalism that many of us grew up with, let us be …
God Prepares Both Meal and Eaters
At this Table, God delights to feed us. But God does not just feed us, He prepares us to be fed. He undertakes the feeding, and He undertakes the preparation for feeding. Of course, the preparations began before the foundation of the world, when God the Father elected a people for Himself. And the preparations …
Bruise in Us the Serpent’s Head
As we mark the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, we of course begin by celebrating the objective nature of His arrival. He was born in particular town, to a particular mother, in a particular year. He truly lived among us. When the time was fulfilled, He was born of a woman, born under the …
Christmas Started It
To be fair, we ought not to be too hard on the secularists for their ongoing war against Christmas. Because Christmas started it. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, there were no doubt people in the surrounding neighborhoods who drank too much, or who quarreled with their wives, or who sometimes shaved the edges of …
On Blaming the Stuff
Christmas is a celebration of the Incarnation, and the Incarnation is a reality that addresses our confusions in a wonderful way. When God determined to send the Lord Jesus to live a perfect life among us, die on the cross, and rise again from the dead, this intervention excludes certain heretical notions from the outset. …
Deferred Glory is Great Glory
Every week, when I read the words of institution for this Supper, it includes the phrase “you show the Lord’s death till He comes.” This means that this meal has two elements in it—consummation and delay. We commune with the Lord now, and we show the Lord’s death until He comes. The showing of the …
Openness Enough
The folks at CT were kind enough to reprint a section of God Rest Ye Merry, and it was the section that urges everyone — in the name of Puritanism no less — to go overboard for Christmas. Now I admit that there are ways of sinning in this, going over the port rail when …