The great puritan minster Thomas Adams once wrote that "Hypocrites are like pictures on a canvas, they show fairest at the farthest." We're all tempted to hold others at an arm's length so that our flaws cannot be so clearly seen. We're tempted to hide behind vague language and allusions to struggles, all the while giving the impression that we've got it all under control....

From time to time in ministry and in my own life, I try to remind myself that though Satan, sin, and death have already been defeated by virtue of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heavenly glory, that there is still a cosmic battle going on. If the Apostle John's Revelation proclaims nothing else, it proclaims that. The pronouncement of Satan's great ...

I know that we've come through Thanksgiving and are now clearly looking forward to Christmas, and it is right that we do so, but in reality we should never stop giving thanks. As I was working on a sermon a short while ago I came across an incredibly edifying passage in a commentary, which challenged me to be more thankful for garbage as well as other "mundane" and "ordina...

I've been doing a fair bit of work preparing for our members' meeting this coming Sunday and it has been a real delight. Lord willing, we'll be seeing in our largest membership class in the history of our congregation since its constitution. I've been re-reading the membership interviews that the elders and I have done over the last month and it has been encouraging to thi...

Sometimes I struggle to really pray. Does that ever happen to you? One puritan use to say, "Pray until you pray," but I think we all struggle at times to get going in our prayer. We mumble and fumble and stumble around in our prayers, praying for this and that, changing our minds about what we're praying about. Lists can help direct us. Directories can help direct us! But ...

Brothers Sisters, I wanted to write and thank you for pouring into me as your pastor. You do that in several ways, but this past week you poured into me in a practical way by providing me with time and resources to attend the Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference, and a small pastor's network meeting following T4G. I thought that it might be useful to share a few thi...

"There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing" (Proverbs 12:18). Too often, I wonder if my words are more like sword thrusts than a healing balm. Perhaps you feel that way too. The tongue is incredibly challenging to tame, James 3:1-12 makes that clear. James says some surprising things about the tongue, some things th...

I know that many of you think I'm a big cry baby. I really don't cry all that often. Really you can ask my wife (back me up, dear!). There are few things that move me to tears. Chief among them is remembering how God has lavished his saving love upon me in Christ. I also tear up when I see sick kids in the hospital. I hate that. The other cause for the formation of liquid ...

At each elders' day away I assign a book to myself and my fellow elders. Often we'll think about an issue in church history, a specific pastoral issue, a theological debate, or some aspect of ecclesiology. However from time to time I think that it is important that we simply stop and talk about that which is of first importance. That's why for this past elders day away...

Almost a decade ago, I first read John Murray's little book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, a wonderful little volume containing only 181 pages. That's not to say it isn't dense, but it is certainly a delight to read, at least it is for me. One of the things that I appreciate about Murray's book is his constant rejoicing in Christ. Time and time again in the book, he ...