On January 1, 1713, the Bible commentator Matthew Henry wrote the reflections below that feel especially timely as I enter the new year of 2026. As I read them, I am reminded how impossible it is to live up to such devotion without God’s help. May our gracious God guide and strengthen me, helping me to approach this year with the same spirit of submission and commitment that Henry exemplified in his writing:
Continue reading “A New Year Devotion from Matthew Henry: Trusting Our Times to God”
I was reading Thomas Brooks’ The Crown and Glory of Christianity, and his chapter on “Eight means, helps, and directions for progress in holiness,” stood out to me. I wanted to jot down some of my takeaways as reminders and encouragement.
Continue reading “Eight Helps for Progress in Holiness (from Thomas Brooks)”
Charles Spurgeon’s love for books is well known, yet he reminds us that even the best reading cannot replace the nourishment of Scripture. This illustration captures him reading The Pilgrim’s Progress.
This quotation by a 17th-century pastor, Willem Teellinck, reminds me of God’s sovereign providence and offers encouragement in light of today’s news and event (from Redeeming the Time, p. 36):
“When you begin to consider the things which are happening all over the world, always remember that the Lord is working in them. He who can bring light out of darkness, will yet from the completed and combined work bring forth something glorious. Be not therefore too much vexed that there appears somewhere to come an ill stroke in your own affairs, or in the affairs of God’s people in your day, as is now the case; for the Lord would not permit this to take place, did He not mean to use it as a background to give the whole work a more beautiful lustre.”
From Thomas Watson’s Sermon, The Spiritual Watch:
Keep your heart as you would keep a garden. Your heart is a garden (Song of Solomon 4:12); weed all sin out of your heart. Among the flowers of the heart, weeds will be growing—the weeds of pride, malice, and covetousness: these grow without planting and cultivating. Therefore be weeding your heart daily by prayer, examination, and repentance.
Weeds hinder the herbs and flowers from growing; the weeds of corruption—hinder the growth of grace. Where the weed of unbelief grows—it hinders the flower of faith from growing.
Weeds spoil the walkways. Christ will not walk in a heart overgrown with weeds and briars. Christ was sometimes among the lilies (Song of Solomon 6:3)—but never among the thistles.
Reading a troubling news yesterday made this quotation poignant to me:
“And therefore: Let us stay our faith here, that our Lord is still working in all these confusions. And when matters are turned upside down to human appearance, our blessed Lord is not nonplussed and at a stand when we are; he knows well what he is doing, and will make all things most certainly, infallibly, and infrustrably to work for his own glory, and for the good of his people.”
—James Durham, Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53, Sermon 34 (on Isa. 53.9), p. 358
Bishop Joseph Hall marveled at the “world of wit” packed onto library shelves, yet Puritan John Flavel takes this imagery further, pointing us to a library far more enduring than paper and ink—a library of God’s own attributes.
Continue reading “Finding Wisdom in Books and God’s Attributes”
We often talk about the necessity of spiritual growth, but we rarely discuss the logistics of the battle. I came across a one-year reading plan of William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour. The grand theme of this book is spiritual warfare and we are furnishing ourselves with the “spiritual arms” necessary for the daily fight. While tackling an unabridged volume of more than 1,100 pages may seem intimidating, the reading plan below makes the task far more manageable.
Continue reading “A One-Year Reading Plan for The Christian in Complete Armour”