“Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to Your word to Your servant. Let Your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; for Your law is my delight” (Ps 119:76-77). Certain words roll over the tongue like tasty morsels. Such are “merciful kindness” and “tender mercies.” Some have translated […]
Edward Hoare, son of a London banker, was a well-respected evangelical preacher in Tunbridge Wells at the end of the 19th century. One day a businessman requested a tour of the graveyard so he could select a spot for his “final resting-place.” After he had made his choice, Hoare turned to him and asked, “You […]
CHRIST the CONFIDENCE-BUILDER: We have confidence in His unchanging PURPOSE: “According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him” (Eph 3:11-12). We have confidence in His unchanging PROMISE: “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent […]
“…making mention of you in my prayers: that…the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working […]
When William Featherston wrote, “For Thee all the follies of sin I resign,” he reminded us of what Paul confessed regarding his days as a brilliant but lost Jewish zealot: “being exceedingly mad” (Acts 26:11). Sin is a waste, defiling, disappointing, a self-inflicted death wound. G.C. Berkouwer observes about sin’s fundamental senselessness: “Therefore, since every […]
CHRIST our INTERCESSOR (Heb 7:25): To make intercession (en-toong-khan’-o) for someone is to first meet and converse, then to petition or plead on that person’s behalf. How encouraging is this! If we fail to pray for ourselves as we should, or fail to ask for what we desperately need, Someone Else is praying for us! […]
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4). Nine times in his first epistle John uses the term “little children.” It is the diminutive form of the word teknon and has been translated by some […]
Is Christianity a crutch? It was Karl Marx who famously said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” There is truth in that statement, because millions have blindly followed their blind religious leaders, as the Lord Jesus described. But true Christianity is no mere religion, and certainly not a drug; it is a living relationship […]
God doesn’t always save through the first verse quoted or respond to the first prayer prayed. But the true believer knows that there is life-giving power in one sentence from the Bible because God speaks in this way to us; and there is life-changing power released through one petition sent heavenward, because that’s how God […]