You can . John Owen’s Mortification of Sin in Believers is a beast of a book. It’s not a beast in size–it clocks in at 84 pages. It’s a beast in content, language and style: Content: Mortification (killing) of sin doesn’t get a lot of work in our modern churches. Neither do the methods behind killing…
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The introvert in me burns for solitude. The Christian in me burns for the lost. A house on a hill. A room with a window. A desk near that window. A typewriter on the desk. Piles of books about the desk. Look down from the window and you see a garden. Then a long lawn….
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What comes to mind when you hear the word fear? A horror film? Crashing in an airplane? Losing a child? Those are certainly things that cross my mind. Theodore Roethke’s poem also comes to mind: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We…
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This is the other side of Never Tell a Child They Are Personally Worth the Sacrifice Jesus Made. The side I seem perfectly incapable of articulating. So much so I actually need someone else to write it to get it right. The person who knows my blind spots inside and out. And protects me against their…
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True, I’m a curmudgeon. But this is a gospel-backed rant. Most contemporary Christian songs make God out to be a supernatural soccer mom. It’s the kind of stuff you hear at high school rallies. Why this slant in the modern church? Because everything else in our culture makes much of us. Advertisements. Movies. Psychology. Self esteem…
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(Editor’s note: Formerly a Facebook post. . If you’re in to that an all.) I hate songs that make much of me at the expense of God. Songs that tell me I’m special. Significant. That God loves me. True, he loves me. He loves himself more. And he’s not some supernatural soccer mom who wants nothing…
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Vibrating. That’s the test. Do you vibrate before, during and after you preach the gospel from the pulpit or the street corner? When you visit a criminal? When you haul a load of coats down to the homeless below the bridge? When you teach a Bible study? When you lead a group of teenagers on…
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One of the better lessons I learned from the book was to pray that God would make your wife the model of beauty. An apt prayer in a culture steeped in the cult of self-image and supermodels. The point behind Gary Thomas’ statement is two-fold: one, to steer us away from the temptation to compare…
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Part of a weekly series on Matthew. This week: Matthew 12:1-8. The Pharisees had a tough time seeing it. Something greater than Jonah. Something greater than Solomon. They made the same mistake when they accused Jesus and his disciples of plucking grain and eating it on a Sabbath. Jesus, like he did when tempted by…
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Every morning the tug to over throw the King renews. Albert Camus said that the modern man–who’s –could be the “master of his days” if he scorned the gods, hated death and loved this life. Indeed, he would conclude that the universe without a master seemed neither sterile or futile–but rich in life and happiness. Noble…
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