Category: Church

Expository Preaching:

~ A Prayer Life ~ Leave a comment

1. Emulates biblical preaching both in content and style.

2. Best achieves the biblical intent of preaching: delivering God’s message.

3. Promotes scripturally authoritative preaching.

4. Magnifies God’s Word.

5. Provides a storehouse of preaching material.

6. Develops the pastor as a man of God’s Word.

7. Ensures the highest level of biblical knowledge for the flock

8. Leads to thinking and living biblically.

9. Encourages both depth and comprehensiveness.

10. Forces treatment of hard-to-interpret texts.

11. Allows for handling broad theological themes.

12. Keeps preachers away from ruts and hobbyhorses.

13. Prevents the insertion of human ideas.

14. Guards against misinterpretation of the biblical text.

15. Imitates the preaching of Christ and the apostles.

16. Brings out the best in the expositor.

~ James Alexander

The Simplicity of Christ

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

What does the LORD require of you but to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? ~ Micah 6:8b

Maybe the greatest beauty of the Christian Faith is it’s meek simplicity. It is true that you can multiply ad nauseam the theology, doctrines, practices and controversies of the church making the most simple things complicated. Over the centuries, well-meaning men have excelled in the art of making straightforward things complex. But ultimately, the question that should most intrigue the heart of the true believer is: What does God require of me?

The passage before us offers a wonderful summary of both God’s demands and desires for His people. And it is presented here in plainness and eloquence in three equally significant parts; do justly, love mercy and walk humbly. Imagine what the Christian life would look like if we but just consistently and faithfully followed these? How different would your life be?

The purpose of this short devotion is to remind the reader to keep their eye on those aspects of their faith and life that most matter to the Lord. These three requirements here in Micah essentially sum up the law to love God and love your neighbor. While engaging in the more weightier matters of our faith has its place and is important, we must begin and retain the simplicity of Christ as well, to do justly, love mercifully, and walk humbly with the Lord.

There Is Something Wrong

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“Here is the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this – accommodation: the evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age… Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation: loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.”

~ Francis Schaeffer

Refreshing The Congregation

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we keep from taking food ourselves, we will famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and in the dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not likely to raise theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter does not show it, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, whether errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are likely to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we would abound in faith, and love, and zeal, it would overflow to the refreshment of our congregations, and it would appear in the increase of those same graces in them!”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

Take Heed To Yourself

~ A Prayer Life ~ Leave a comment

“See that the work of saving grace is thoroughly wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Savior, your own hearts neglect him, and you miss an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish, while you call upon others to take heed of perishing”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

The Kingdom of God

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

“He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God… because for this purpose I have been sent.”

~ Luke 4:43

“The whole of the preaching of Jesus Christ and His apostles is concerned with the kingdom of God.”

~ Herman Ridderbos

The Church

~ A Prayer Life ~ 3 Comments

“The true man of God is heartsick, grieved at the worldliness of the Church…grieved at the toleration of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church. He is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil… The church used to be a lightning bolt, now it’s a cruise ship. We are not marching to Zion – we are sailing there with ease. In the apostolic church it says they were all amazed – and now in our churches everybody wants to be amused. The church began in the upper room with a bunch of men agonizing, and it’s ending in the supper room with a bunch of people organizing. We mistake rattle for revival, and commotion for creation, and action for unction… The true church lives and moves and has its being in prayer.”

~ Leonard Ravenhill

Expect Great Things!

~ A Prayer Life ~ 5 Comments

“Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things, “above all that we ask or think.” Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!”

~ Andrew Murray

A Brief Word On The Asbury Revival

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

“And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – lest you even be found to fight against God.”

~ Acts 5:38-39

In our day and age of religious superficiality and people seeking health, wealth and prosperity in this world rather than the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom, it is only natural that movements such as what is occurring in the small Kentucky town of Wilmore, at the even smaller Christian school of Asbury University, might raise some skepticism in the eyes of interested onlookers.

Therefore, I think we have to bear in mind a few things. First, what was occurring in the 1st century when the Apostles began preaching and teaching Christ and Him crucified, changed the course of history. The Holy Spirit erupted forth with a presence, power and authority the world had never known. And if what is occurring at Asbury University is of the same Holy Spirit and grounded in Biblical renewal and revival, then praise God.

But, if Asbury is of men, if it is just an emotionally filled, superficial gathering of young people who just want to “feel” something for their own sakes, then as the Bible says, it will come to nothing. Yet, we cannot read the hearts of men. We look on the outside while the Lord God peers into the very marrow of our spirit. And if the Asbury revival (and other similar revivals which have since sprung up) is of God – you cannot overthrow it – lest you even be found to fight against God.

~ apl

Burn Them To Ashes!

~ A Prayer Life ~ Leave a comment

“Therefore, put to death whatever in you is worldly: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.”

~ Colossians 3:5

“While a darling sin lives and keeps the throne in the heart — grace and holiness will be kept exceeding weak and low. But when your darling sin is dethroned and slain by the power and the sword of the Spirit — grace and holiness will quickly grow stronger and stronger, and rise higher and higher.

When a man has eaten poison, nothing will make him thrive, until he has vomited up the poison. Beloved sins are the poison of the soul — and until these are vomited up, and cast out by sound repentance, and the exercise of faith in the blood of Christ — the soul will never thrive in grace and holiness!

If ever you would attain to higher degrees of holiness, then fall with all your might upon subduing and crucifying your most raging corruptions, and your most darling lusts!

Oh do not think that your golden and your silver idols will lay down their weapons, and yield the battle, and lie at your feet, and let you trample them to death — without striking a blow! Oh remember that besetting-sins will do all they can to keep their ground, and therefore you must arise with all your strength against them, and crush them to powder, and burn them to ashes!”

~ Thomas Brooks