CHRIST the SWEET SAVOR: “And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph 5:2). Years ago, I read a story in the Sunday School Times that I never forgot. It told about a lady who made a […]
“Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Mk 15:34). The question “Why?” is one of the simplest yet profoundest petitions sent heavenward by multitudes of people through the ages. This question has two parts. “Why…You?” and “Why…Me?” More […]
It is a serious thing…to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All […]
JESUS the BRIGHTNESS of GOD’S GLORY: “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Heb 1:3). Christ is here described as “the resplendent outbeaming of the essential glory of God” (Adam Clarke). He is the “shining forth” (W.E. Vine) of God’s character. The writer is careful to explain that […]
“David therefore pleaded with God for the child…David perceived that the child was dead…So David arose…and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped.…And he said, ‘…Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him…’” (2 Sam 12:16-23). A friend who had lost two children told me how he found comfort […]
Will and Peter Pell once were preaching at a conference in Hamilton, ON. At lunch, a woman asked if they would visit her unsaved brother in the hospital. When they arrived, the nurse told them the man had been in a coma for some time, a detail the sister had not given them! But they […]
It may be a debatable verse, but one fact is beyond question: God loves to bless those who seek to bless others. […]
It’s the irony of humanity that, in aspiring to being godly, we discover the secret of humility. If Job is going to try out for the position of God, he needs to repurpose his anger—or, as God calls it, “the rage of your wrath” (Job 40:11)—and focus that energy on one project. “Look on everyone who is proud, […]
CHRIST the BREAD: “Lord, give us this bread always” (Jn 6:34). I recall hearing of an old Jewish lady, a survivor of the Holocaust, who lived with her son in a Manhattan mansion. In spite of lavish surroundings, she always checked the kitchen before she went to bed. Due to the searing memories of her […]