Spurgeon: The reaping time will come. Our chief business is to glorify God by teaching the truth whether souls are saved or not; but still I demur to the statement that we may go on preaching the gospel for years and years, and even all our lifetime, and yet no result may follow. They say, […]
The Pattern of the Christian Life
The pattern of the Christian life seems to be trial, deliverance, trial, deliverance, trial, deliverance: “. . . my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ […]
John Piper: "Do Something Risky With Your Life"
A fantastic, short video of John Piper:
Holiness is a Promise — Not a Threat
Mike Horton, in Christ the Lord: As Christ is the answer to our guilt and condemnation (through justification), so he is the answer to our bondage and corruption (sanctification). He takes away not only the verdict, but also the slavery. To justify us in the heavenly court without giving us the gifts that, by virtue […]
Don't Divide Christians into Two Groups
Lloyd-Jones, in Studies in the Sermon on the Mount: Read the Beatitudes, and there you have a description of what every Christian is meant to be. It is not merely the description of some exceptional Christians. . . . I pause with that for just a moment, and emphasize it, because I think we must […]
Christianity is a Religion of Joy, Not Prohibitions
William Wilberforce, in A Practical View of Christianity: My grand objection to the religious system still held by many who declare themselves orthodox Churchmen…is, that it tends to render Christianity so much a system of prohibitions rather than of privilege and hopes, and thus the injunction to rejoice, so strongly enforced in the NT, is […]
The Five Convictions of Christian Hedonism
Piper has written a lot of books and preached a lot of sermons. You can learn something amazing and biblical from everything he has said. But the best place to start, in my view, still remains Desiring God. This is where Piper lays out most fully the foundations of “Christian Hedonism” — the truth that […]
Spurgeon: Grace Makes us Unworldly, Not Unearthly
Spurgeon, from Counsel For Christian Workers: Grace does not make us unearthly, though it makes us unworldly. True religion distinguishes us from others, even as our Lord Jesus was separate from sinners, but it does not shut us up or hedge us round about as if we were too good or too tender for the […]
Why Does Justification by Faith Apart from Works Lead to Good Works?
Martin Luther explains one of the chief reasons. Here’s what he says in The Freedom of a Christian (quoted in Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough): Although I am an unworthy and condemned man, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit […]
God-Centeredness Leads to Other-Centeredness
If we are God-centered, we will be on the lookout to meet the needs of others and do them good. God-centeredness does not lead to an inward focus on ourselves, or simply our own relationship with God (as important as our own relationship with God is). Rather, it leads us up and out of ourselves […]