First Peter 2:2–3 lays on Christians a good and wise command from God. It is a surprising command, and easy to overlook. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 2:2-3 In this verse God doesn’t command us to study his Word or obey his Word (although he certainly does this elsewhere in his Word), but instead to “long for”…
“A sleepless night is just as much a gift from God as is a night’s sound sleep! Not that we usually look on it that way—but David did! Those ‘watches of the night,’ so often occasions of restlessness, always time when the day’s ‘mole hills’ become mountains of anxiety, he turned into opportunities to ‘muse’ about God (Psalm 63:6), and to come, not to a fresh place of worry, but to a fresh place of joy and all-around assurance (63:7-11)….
“It is a not uncommon instinct among contemporary Christians to encounter difficulties and immediately conclude they have fallen into divine disfavor… We are not the best interpreters of divine providence. Nor is our conviction of the Father’s love for us grounded in his providential ways with us. The fatal mistake here is to base our assurance of grace and salvation on the fact that ‘God is blessing my life.’ When we do so, we have no anchor when life turns…
“…Jesus has reached the lowest point in his humiliation and the most awful moment of his agony. The physical pain is no worse than before, perhaps less, but his soul is in torment: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’… Jesus stands where no-one has ever stood before or since, knowing himself the bearer of the sin of the world, destined to pay the price for its redemption (Mark 10:45), and now drinking the bitterest dregs of the…
“When Jesus took the curse upon Himself, He so identified with our sin that He became a curse… At the moment that Christ took upon Himself the sin of the world, He became the most grotesque, most obscene mass of sin in the history of the world… I have heard many sermons about the physical pain of death by crucifixion. I’ve heard graphic descriptions of the nails and the thorns. Surely the physical agony of crucifixion was a ghastly thing….