Miscellanies | CJ's View from the Cheap Seats

A Fathers Day Gift Guide

June 13, 2016

Few Fathers Day gifts will provide Dad the lasting benefit of a good book. Here are some of my recent favorite reads, in no particular order, for Dad’s reading pleasure this summer. The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-boats, by William Geroux The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change and Basketball’s Lost Triumph, by Scott Ellsworth Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, And the Fate of the American Revolution, by Nathaniel Philbrick For The Glory:…

The Cause of Conflict

June 11, 2016

Quarrels and fights. Sadly, we are all familiar with the painful experience of relational conflict. No one is exempt, even if you are a Christian. If you don’t find yourself presently involved in a relational conflict, I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that there is a relational conflict in your future. Maybe even today. Now understandably, that’s not what you just wanted to read, but let me direct you to a passage that will most certainly prepare you for…

Certainty

May 23, 2016

Today we end our study of Galatians 4:1–7 with the final verse: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” In this passage we see a change from the plural (“sons” in v. 6) to the singular “a son.” Paul brings his argument down from an address to the Galatians in general, to individuals in particular. The doctrine of God’s adopting grace is deeply personal. In this passage God…

The Greatest Sorrow

May 19, 2016

Puritan John Owen penned an unforgettable statement about God’s love: “The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you.”¹ Stop for a moment and reflect on that sentence—it could change your life. Now, let me ask you three questions: Do you believe in God’s personal and passionate love for you? Are you delighting in God’s unconditional love? Or have you laid a…

Unnecessary

May 16, 2016

Today’s post will be short, not simply to take less of your time, but because at the end I would encourage you to pause for a moment of reflection. In the ancient world a father’s inheritance was passed along to his son. If a father had no son, he had no heir. Necessitated by this dilemma, a son-less father would search for a suitable son to adopt. This adopted son would become the father’s heir. Now think about this: God…