“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace. Every day of our Christian experience should be a day of relating to God on the basis of His grace alone. We are not only saved by grace, but we also live by grace every day.” Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, 18.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King, Tolkien describes a scene where the young hobbit Pippin studies the face of the ancient wizard Gandalf: “Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own…he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.” Tolkien insightfully and…
“‘Wait on the Lord’ is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting. He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time. When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed,…
Last week it was my privilege and joy to introduce you to Peter as we begin a series on The First Letter of Peter. This week I’d like to introduce you to the original readers. We can’t understand the relevance of this letter for us if we haven’t first met them. In meeting them, we discover the occasion and circumstances that led Peter to write. The recipients of this letter are our brothers and sisters. They were being persecuted for their faith….
“[Adoption] is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification… That justification—by which we mean God’s forgiveness of the past together with his acceptance for the future—is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question. Justification is the primary blessing, because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God’s judgment; his law condemns us; guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments afraid; we…