Church Family, What motivated the Lord Jesus Christ to leave heaven, become incarnate, and bear our curse? One word, love. Consider how Donald Macleod describes the pactum salutus (the pact of salvation) in his book Christ Crucified: The most important of these is that Christ takes our place voluntarily, and behind this lies the fact, already noted, that he came into t...

Church Family, How do you look at your life? How do you think about when and where God has placed you? Do you think your life, with your background, experience, and present location are an accident or full of purpose? What if God has been at work from the beginning? What if God is at work in the present? What if God has been at work surrounding you with people who need to...

Brothers and Sisters, A few weeks ago, during the membership course, I was asked a difficult question about one of the thorniest areas of Christian theology how do we relate to the law of God? I did not have a straightforward or succinct answer. There are two terrible troughs we can fall into. One is called antinomianism (against the law), and the other is legalism (an a...

Brothers and Sisters, This past Lord's Day from 2 Kings 2:22 we reflected on the power and potency of God's Word. There we learned that it was not Elisha's throwing salt into the spring of water that brought life that was simply the visible sign which attended the miraculous work of Word of the Lord. It was the Word of the Lord that brought healing and life. And Elisha s...

Brothers and Sisters, Naboth and Jesus: have you considered their similarities? Until I was preparing for last Sunday's sermon, I had not really thought much about how there were shadows of Christ in the life of Naboth. One of the ways in which Naboth's life pointed to Christ's was the great miscarriage of justice he endured. This reminds me of a book that a brother in th...

Brothers and Sisters, This past Lord's Day we reflected on the fact that there is a difference between godly repentance and superficial repentance. The difference is the work of God in us. We ever need to remember that there is joy in repentance. Spirit-given joy due to Spirit given power to turn away from sin and to turn to Jesus Christ. David Murray in his wonderful boo...

Church Family, I have long believed that in order to live well it is important to look death in the eye. One of the most useful little resources on this subject is Marcus Nodder's book What Happens When I Die? In it he examines Jesus' words, especially his words from the Gospel of John. Consider this brief meditation on Jesus as our life: The second part of Jesus' clai...

Lately I've been anxious, and after speaking with a number of other believers, I've found out that I'm not alone. I've been praying, and seeking to live Paul's practical counsel in Philippians 4:4-7: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in eve...

Brothers Sisters, What word makes you happy? When you are grinding it out from one day to the next, what truth do you grab a hold of, preach to yourself, and rest in to make it through the day? If you could pick one word, maybe it should be "Finished." That may seem like an odd word to begin the day with. Finished? Why remind yourself of the word "finished" when the day...

Brothers Sisters, On Tuesday morning around 5:50am I received an alert from the National Weather Service for a Tornado Warning. It came with the instructions to seek shelter and move to a basement if possible. Being the over protective dad that I am, I left my home office and went upstairs. I woke my children up and moved them downstairs. We all sat quietly in the dark ...