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Love
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13)
Recent Posts
God? Who Needs Him?May 31, 2013
Self-sufficient humanism. Paul saw it coming – “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Imago Dei
September 12, 2012
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Why Can't I Pray?
August 18, 2012
The bible gives us several reasons, but according to Jeremy Taylor, a deceitful heart is at the root of prayerlessness.
It's Not Rocket Science
July 23, 2012
To keep in step with the Spirit should be our daily quest. And if we are successful at that, all of life falls into place.
Theological Steak
April 10, 2012
These words by P. T. Forsythe on the magnificence of Christ's work are to theology what Ruth's Chris is to a good steak.
Describing the Indescribable
February 11, 2012
What we have in Christ will take all eternity to describe. But for one segment of one sermon, a great preacher made a mighty attempt.
Making Sense Of It All
January 30, 2012
Where are things headed? Is there rhyme and reason to the endless cycle of summer, fall, winter and spring? Is there a plan in place, or is randomness the explanation?
Defeating A Party Spirit
July 10, 2009
Tribalism is everywhere, in politics as well as matters of faith. And who doesn't want to be on the side of truth? In a letter John Newton warned of the damage that crusading, no matter how well-intentioned, can do to our hearts.
John Newton saw himself as gifted in "the study of the human heart with its workings and counter workings, as it is altered by the different states of nature or of grace, in the different seasons of prosperity, adversity, conviction, temptation, sickness and the approach of death."
In other words, he was eminently qualified to make the following observations.
The pride of our heart insensibly prompts us to cast about, far and near, for arguments to justify our own behavior and makes us too ready to hold the opinions we have taken up to the very extreme that those among whom we are newly come may not suspect our sincerity.
In a word, let us endeavor to keep close to God, to be much in prayer, to watch carefully over our hearts, and leave the busy warm spirits to make the best of their work. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and that wait on Him continually; to these He will show His covenant, not notionally, but experimentally.
A few minutes of the Spirit's teaching will furnish us with more real useful knowledge than toiling through whole folios of commentators and expositors; they are useful in their places and are not to be undervalued by those who can perhaps, in general, do better without them; but it will be our wisdom to deal less with the streams and be more close in applying to the Fountainhead.
The Scripture itself and the Spirit of God, are the best and the only sufficient expositors of Scripture. Whatever men have valuable in their writings, they got it from hence; and the way is as open to us as to any of them. There is nothing required but a teachable, humble spirit; and learning, as it is commonly called, is not necessary in to this. I commend you to the grace of God.
In other words, he was eminently qualified to make the following observations.
The pride of our heart insensibly prompts us to cast about, far and near, for arguments to justify our own behavior and makes us too ready to hold the opinions we have taken up to the very extreme that those among whom we are newly come may not suspect our sincerity.
In a word, let us endeavor to keep close to God, to be much in prayer, to watch carefully over our hearts, and leave the busy warm spirits to make the best of their work. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and that wait on Him continually; to these He will show His covenant, not notionally, but experimentally.
A few minutes of the Spirit's teaching will furnish us with more real useful knowledge than toiling through whole folios of commentators and expositors; they are useful in their places and are not to be undervalued by those who can perhaps, in general, do better without them; but it will be our wisdom to deal less with the streams and be more close in applying to the Fountainhead.
The Scripture itself and the Spirit of God, are the best and the only sufficient expositors of Scripture. Whatever men have valuable in their writings, they got it from hence; and the way is as open to us as to any of them. There is nothing required but a teachable, humble spirit; and learning, as it is commonly called, is not necessary in to this. I commend you to the grace of God.
Guys, A Potential Wife Is Watching
January 16, 2009
Remember how we used to ask that question, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you. In the case of John Paton's father James, his devotional life caught the attention of his eventual wife Mary.
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. Malachi 2:15
In the early part of the 19th Century in Scotland, young Mary Rogerson was a "bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling and altogether heroic little woman." So says her missionary son John Paton in the story of his time in the New Hebrides.
"For 43 years, she made and kept such a wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory."
"She had gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt, familiarly refered to by all their neighbors as "Old Adam and Eve."
"Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from the "Brig End, "James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation."
"It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's GOSPEL SONNETS, which he could say by heart 60 years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiousity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God."
What a way to fall in love! Of course, they eventually married. And that marriage union produced in their oldest child John a man who stood tall under the most extreme of circumstances. Under constant threat of death, he persevered, until eventually a cannibalistic island in the South Pacific was converted to the One True God, being transformed from darkness into light.
Godly offspring indeed.
In the early part of the 19th Century in Scotland, young Mary Rogerson was a "bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling and altogether heroic little woman." So says her missionary son John Paton in the story of his time in the New Hebrides.
"For 43 years, she made and kept such a wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory."
"She had gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt, familiarly refered to by all their neighbors as "Old Adam and Eve."
"Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from the "Brig End, "James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation."
"It was a very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's GOSPEL SONNETS, which he could say by heart 60 years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and finally that curiousity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God."
What a way to fall in love! Of course, they eventually married. And that marriage union produced in their oldest child John a man who stood tall under the most extreme of circumstances. Under constant threat of death, he persevered, until eventually a cannibalistic island in the South Pacific was converted to the One True God, being transformed from darkness into light.
Godly offspring indeed.
The Church - Young and Old Together
September 30, 2008
They all joined together....(Acts 1:14) Going against the current trend, J. I. Packer argues persuasively for "one size fits all" church.
