Category: Theology

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

Heart, Mind & Soul

~ A Prayer Life ~ 1 Comment

“[They] honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me” ~ Matt. 15:8a

The Christian faith is first and foremost a matter of the heart. If one thinks living for Christ is simply, or primarily, going through a set of religious rites and rituals, they have missed the point entirely. Sadly, we can convince ourselves otherwise. Many do practically, though maybe unintentionally, honor Jesus with their lips while their hearts are far from Him.

The Lord made this clear even under the Old Covenant with Israel. He desires our heart. Though true believers in the Lord Jesus should honor Him with their lips, it should be from a heart that is drawn near to Him. It isn’t either or, it’s both. May we not depend on our outward conformity as the basis for our experience with God, rather may we be inwardly convicted and surrender our whole hearts unto Him honoring the Lord heart, mind and soul.

The Simplicity of Christ

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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.

The Best Weapon

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“Prayer is the mightiest weapon that God has placed in our hands. It is the best weapon to use in every difficulty, and the surest remedy in every trouble. It is the key that unlocks the treasury of promises, and the hand that draws forth grace and help in time of need. It is the silver trumpet that God commands us to sound in all our necessity; it is the cry He has promised always to listen to.”

~ John Charles Ryle

His Offending Creatures

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

“The complete atonement which Jesus Christ has made for our sins, by the sacrifice of Himself, is the life and center of the evangelical system, and that which endears it so much to the hearts of those who believe. Here we see pardon procured, and the sinner saved, while sin is condemned and punished.

Here we see the most solemn display of justice and holiness, in conjunction with the freest exercise of mercy. Here we see sinful rebels delivered from deserved punishment, and advanced to a state of dignity and honor; and at the same time, the rights of that divine government against which they had rebelled inviolably preserved and maintained.

Through what Jesus Christ has done and suffered for us – we behold the righteous law of God magnified, in justifying those who had violated its precepts, and brought themselves under its curse. In the death of that Lamb of God, we perceive at once – the Almighty’s eternal abhorrence of that which is evil and His infinite love to His offending creatures.

~ John Fawcett

Free Indeed

~ A Prayer Life ~ 2 Comments

Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. ~ John 8:36

I love music, but I never learned to play an instrument. Yet, one of my favorite pastimes is listening to music. And though I never personally learned to play a guitar, the drums, a saxophone or piano, I can certainly appreciate the amazing talent, commitment, hard work and devotion that goes into mastering one of these or many other instruments.

Though I love music, I am not free to make music on my own. At least, not through instrumentation. Those who first train on those instruments, and take lesson after lesson for years, are the ones who are free to produce the wonderful sounds of rhythm and harmony who others, like myself, are not free to make on our own. In other words, it is only through the confining discipline of submitting oneself to the rigors of apprehending the musical instrument that one is truly free to play whatever they choose.

Likewise, it is only through submitting yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ that one becomes spiritually free. Until then, we are in bondage, in bondage to sin and confined to the limitations of our own sinful nature. Limited in our freedom to spiritually enjoy the richness of Christ. It is by discipline, apprehending, and submitting oneself to God that one truly tastes freedom.

The world will try to offer you it’s version of freedom. But it is a false freedom. It will seek to entice you with freedom from discipline, from responsibility, and from accountability to God and others. But this is not real freedom. Like the concert pianists who only through years and years of disciplined training is he free to play whatever he chooses, it is only through discipleship to Jesus that spiritual freedom ever comes. Freedom to love, serve and honor the Savior. But, once Christ sets you free, be assured dear friend, you are free indeed.

~ apl

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

Being & Becoming

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“For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a Rock, except our God?” – Ps. 18:31

“The doctrine of God’s immutability is of the highest significance for religion. The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the Creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest in God, in Him alone, for only He is pure being and not becoming. Hence, in Scripture God is often called the Rock.”

~ Herman Bavinck

Warning Against Growing Cold In Preaching

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“When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and I can often observe the effect of this in the best of my hearers: that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too much like my preaching.”

~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor