UPDATE: Amos and Story

At her blog, Jamie Ivey has been posting updates regarding the integration of their two newest family members, Amos and Story, into the family. The latest update gives a glimpse into how difficult adoption can be. Amos asks me every day why I love him. I’ll tell him I love him and he looks at [...]

God’s Glory

An interesting twitter discussion has arisen between Mark Lamprecht Wes Widner and Jacob Hall. Friends of Mark’s have a six year old son who has developed a brain tumor and on his blog, Mark posted John’s facebook entry about Faith, Sovereignty, and God’s glory. Go take a look at John’s response to this situation and [...]

Grace

Austin Christian Fellowship is having a series on the Most Beautiful Word. If you want to hear a demonstration of what Grace is and why it is indeed the most beautiful word, then listen to the interview with Bob and Audrey Meisner. Wow! wow.

two on suffering

first courtesy of Vitamin Z we get this comforting bit that we will never be able to fully explain the problem of evil but that we can trust God anyway: So how do Christians explain the problem of evil? The reality is, we can’t provide an exhaustive theodicy or explanation of the existence of evil.  [...]

reality of marriage

Challies put up an article on Monday just after his eleventh wedding anniversary that was a very real look at marriage through the device of wanting to give his younger newly married self some counseling. the whole thing is good, but I thought this part was especially helpful because so many people have unrealistic ideas [...]

the hope

this is the hope we have because of the love of God. 1 John 3:1-3: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and [...]

conception of self part II

earlier I quoted C.S. Lewis in Perelandra to illustrate the point that our enemy has as his project the inflation of our ego to the point that we find it difficult to deny anything to ourselves and our own vision of how the world should be. Satan has as his project affirming to us that [...]

love takes time

Jesse Phillips is bringing up a good quote from Jon Tyson. “We simply cannot love one another as Jesus commanded if our lives only overlap in 15-minute segments before and after programmed Christian events. And we cannot reach out to those far from God if the normal flow of our lives is disconnected from theirs [...]

worship such a God

Vitamin Z has a quote from D.A. Carson that is well worth repeating. But despite all the mysteries bound up with the nature of God, I perceive, on the basis of Scripture, that he is simultaneously personal and transcendent. He is utterly sovereign over his created order, yet he is nothing less than personal as [...]

truth in love

Paul reminded the Ephesian church that only with truth would there be mature Christian unity and only if truth was spoken in love. Truth cannot be ducked or minimized in any way, but it must be softened with compassion. It is not compassionate to downplay or minimize or disregard truth. Dr. Mohler wrote about this [...]

tyranny?

why use such a strong word when judges make up law and choose to favor one group over another rather than allow democratic processes to work? Keith Pavlischek at First Things quotes Nathan Diament who calls this struggle over competing legal rights between gay rights and people of faith “the mega-cultural issue of the decade.” [...]

small reminder

from Jesse Phillips “Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In fact, it seems that no other admonition is repeated more in the New Testament than to love and be loving to one another. If this is true, why aren’t we known for this? Why do [...]

the object of the Christian life

Todd Burus has had a couple of interesting posts on depression and biblical counseling this week. The book he is reading is Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and Cure. Yesterday, Todd talked about the spirit of bondage and had some extended quotes from Lloyd-Jones that were quite good. one little piece of the [...]

John 10

I have been spending some time in the Gospel of John lately. It is amazing how reading familiar words can have a new impact on you when you are reading them again. Just look for a minute at some phrases from John 10. here are verses 3-5: 3. To him [the shepherd] the gatekeeper opens. [...]

friends ride in

Timmy Brister has posted a round up of reactions to the Baptist Press article on Mark Driscoll. I found three of them to be particularly interesting. First, Ed Stetzer writes that Friday is for Friends and he says, in part: So, some don’t like Mark, and they point to his past as justification. But we [...]

discussion

I don’t how many of you have noticed the discussion that has been going on in comments to this post, but I encourage everyone to take some time and go check it out. I have a some questions though for everybody: Is pregnancy and childbirth the same thing as giving up a kidney for another [...]

God saves bad people (hallelujah!)

here is a word from Dr. Art Azurdia III courtesy of the Ramblin’ Pastor Man. Romans 5:1-11: 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we [...]

road trip listening

I just downloaded all nine of the messages in Mark Driscoll’s Peasant Princess series. I figured we are going to be spending some time in the car over the next week or so and might as well have something useful to listen to with our teenagers. If you don’t know what this Driscoll series is [...]

Jesus went after the one

powerful thoughts from Julie Neidlinger on helping others: I have some guilt, I suppose, but I can see that that would serve no purpose except to cause me to do nothing. I’ve learned that guilt isn’t always a motivator from the conscience, but sometimes an excuse to wallow in inaction. I don’t understand God’s concept [...]

what is community?

I have been struggling with what a christian community should really be for almost six years now. Acts 2:42 says that the first church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to prayer, to fellowship and to the breaking of bread. that seems simple enough, except that there aren’t any more apostles around and we don’t [...]

porn-again christian

Mark Driscoll has posted chapters 3 and 4 of his book Porn-Again Christian. If you are a man, then go take the thirty minutes it takes to go read the introduction and the first four chapters. Pornography is a serious issue that must be dealt with straight on by real men who want to love [...]

beyond first impressions

Do you make judgments based on what someone looks like? Do you automatically categorize and rank the people you come into contact with based on their clothes? I know it happens. and so do you. I go to a furniture store wearing my work uniform. Suit, Tie, Pressed shirt, Shiny polished cap toe shoes. I [...]

fireproof

Julie and I and some friends of ours went to see this movie last night. It was really good. Not in the usual way. There wasn’t any great acting accomplishment and the script was kind of wooden. But the story was absolutely true to life. The review I link above explains the attraction of the [...]

help for the hurting

Here is a great resource for people who have made a terrible choice. Remember that all of us have made terrible choices and that God loves us anyway. In our badness and when we didn’t have anything to offer Him, He sent His son to die for us. Romans 5:6-8. There is love, grace, mercy [...]

where we are.

according to George Barna, in 2001 8% of americans were evangelicals defined as follows: All Barna Research studies define “evangelicals” as individuals who meet the born again criteria; say their faith is very important in their life today; believe they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; acknowledge the [...]