All the Good Things (by Jill Phillips)

Forgive me for my shortsighted look at this world
Where you keep proving that you know what you’re doing

If I could see like you do with your perspective view
The fires I’m walking through would look much different
I’d see those difficult days for who they made me become
And I would count them among
All the good things You’ve done for me.

 tinubos.blogspot.com

Our Idolatrous Tendencies

RUSSELL MOORE

"There are very few people in Christian churches who have ever danced in worship around a cow statue. But the Scripture warns us that our forefathers weren't especially aberrant. There remains before all of us, everywhere, a pull toward a golden calf spirituality."
 ~ You Cannot Serve Both God and Mummy (SBJT, Fall 2008)

tinubos.blogspot.com

Born Weak? Grow Strong

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER

"The recovery of a disposition to love God supremely is the richest blessing which the gospel brings. This is the purpose of redemption. By regeneration. love is implanted again in the human soul, which has a natural capacity for this affection; so that when implanted, it takes deep root. But, in the beginning, this affection is commonly feeble in all; it is imperfect. The spiritual birth is analogous to the natural. All who are born again partake of life, but not all in an equal degree. Some are strong and lively from the moment of their conversion, while others are weak and sickly. At first they give such uncertain signs of life that, for some time, it may remain doubtful whether they are dead or alive. But these feeble babes may, by means of the sincere milk of the Word, come nearer to the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus than those who commenced their spiritual existence under more favorable circumstances."

~ Practical Sermons

Kissing the Rod

SARAH EDWARDS

In 1758, when Sarah Edwards heard the news that her husband Jonathan had died, she picked up her pen and wrote these words to her daughter Esther:

"What shall I say! A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod, and lay our hands upon our mouths! The Lord has done it. He has made me adore his goodness, that we had [your father] so long. But my God lives; and he has my heart. O what a legacy my husband, and your father, has left us! We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be."

Marriage to a Difficult Man (by Elizabeth Dodds)

Sin is Incompatible With Christmas

Having had this overwhelming experience in the midst of their normal environment and having believed in the Savior, can we imagine one of the shepherds remarking, “It’s very nice that I’ve seen an angel, and it is nice I have seen the Christ, the Messiah the Jews have been waiting for, for so long. It’s nice that I’ve believed in him (unlike some of the other people in Bethlehem) and that I’m going to be in heaven. But really, in practice, it’s not going to make any difference at all in my life.” 
This is inconceivable.

Since the shepherds were much like each one of us, they faced a round of old sins when they returned to life as usual. In the light of their experience of looking at the face of the baby Jesus, in the light of their understanding of that situation, can we imagine them continuing to live in sin as though it were normal, without being sorry and having real repentance? I think not. I would suggest that the shepherds, full of the reality of what they had seen in the heavens and in the manger, would have been sorry for their past sins and even more if they sinned again.

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER
No Little People

Do you love the Trinity?

kuyamanny

Do you love the Father in heaven? Do you love God's only Son? Do you love the Holy Spirit? Do you love the Trinity? I'm not asking if you affirm the Trinity; most probably you do. What I want to know is what do you feel whenever the doctrine of the Trinity is vehemently denied.

       Do you think it was an insignificant matter for Eddie Villanueva to call Apollo Quiboloy as a "Preacher of Righteousness" and a fellow citizen of heaven? Do you regard Philips, Craig and Dean as good worship leaders because their music is excellent even though they deny the Trinity? Do you count non-Trinitarians as spiritual heroes? If your answer is "YES" to any of the three questions in this paragraph, I don't think you love the Trinity even if you affirm the doctrine.

Our Generation's Bad Tolerance

Thomas Schreiner

"In a world where tolerance is valued and the rigidity of the past generation is rejected, we are inclined to go to the other extreme. Is it the case that Paul's anathemas here (Galatians 1:8-9) seem to be ill-mannered and unloving? Such sentiments reveal how far we have strayed from the biblical witness, indicating that our churches have not rightly balanced the doctrines of God's holiness and his love."

 ~ Galatians (ZECNT)