EXHORTATION
1 John 2:1 says:
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ didn’t just die for you. He stands beside you as your lawyer. When you sin, what does Jesus say to the Father? “Oh Father, they’ve sinned. They are guilty. But have mercy on them.” Is that what Jesus says as your advocate? No! You don’t hire a lawyer …
EXHORTATION
If we ended our day by listing how we sinned, we’d find that most of our sins were sins against charity. We’ve sulked, snubbed, sneered, or stormed against someone else. And it wouldn’t take long before we found ourselves making the excuse that we sinned because we were suddenly provoked or caught off guard and in the moment we’d simply reacted. If we’d had time to collect ourselves, we’d have acted differently.
What we …
EXHORTATION
These weekly exhortations are intended to embolden and encourage you to resist sin. As it says in Hebrews 3: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” We see that sin hardens us. It curves us in on ourselves and makes us cold and calloused to God and our neighbor. Conversely, exhortations soften us. They expose the …
As we approach the midterm elections on Tuesday many are asking themselves, “How did our nation get here? How did we get to the point of denying what a human is or installing a Supreme Court Justice who says she can’t define the word “woman?” Abraham Kuyper tells us how we got here when he said:
In any successful attack on freedom, the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the …
Whenever we feel that our deepest needs are not being met, we often act in ways that will ensure those needs will not be met. Whether it’s a husband who needs respect from his wife, a wife who needs love from her husband, or a child who needs the attention of their parent: whatever it is we need, when we set about trying to get it—if we are not submitting to Christ, we inevitably push …
EXHORTATION
Many of us embarked this week on our three-month reading plan through the New Testament and getting the most out of our Bible reading requires the right approach. The old English Puritan, Thomas Watson, gives us the right approach when he said the Scriptures show the Credenda, what we are to believe, and the Agenda, what we are to practice.
First, read the Bible with reverence. Think, in every line you read, …
EXHORTATION
In Isaiah 45:22 our God says, “Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: For I am God, and there is none else.“
Take note of how simple the way of salvation is. One word. Four letters: Look. Too many people are fond of intricate worship; worship so complex they don’t understand what’s happening. They want not a pastor, but a priest. Not a man in normal dress, …
The Christian life is all of grace. We never do the right thing apart from God’s grace. Our motives are never pure apart from God’s enabling grace. And you need to sink this truth deep into your repentance.
Oftentimes, when a Christian realizes they are ensnared by sin; be it bitterness, or anger, or fear, they know they need to repent of their sin, and yet they might wonder: “Am I truly repenting because I …
Psalm 56:3 says:
What time I am afraid,
I will trust in thee.
A defining mark of a Christian is trust in the Lord; resting in his Fatherly disposal of every circumstance. Our trust is in the Lord.
This doesn’t mean that Christians are never afraid. Even mature Christians have security systems installed in their homes. Trusting in the Lord goes hand in hand with common sense safety precautions. So, it is no lack of …
EXHORTATION
If you’ve ever grown a vegetable garden, you know that certain plants make great companions. Native Americans famously planted the Three Sisters together: corn, pole beans, and squash. The tall stalks of corn made great support for the climbing beans and the low growing squash shades the ground to retain moisture and suppress weed growth.
In the same way, certain sins make great companions. One sin runs defense for another. One sin provides shade …
