This quotation by a 17th-century pastor, Willem Teellinck, offers encouragement to me 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. Continue reading →

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

In a gathering I attended, each person was to answer this question for fun: if you were to be like one particular thing, what would that be and why?

I was unsure what to answer, and thus glad that my turn came almost toward the end.  After pondering, I finally answered that I wish to be like salt.  Salt has certain characteristic traits found in the kind of person I wish to become.  And ever since that gathering, I have been able to learn more of the other uses of salt.

First, salt causes a thirst.  I’d like my conversation to cause others to thirst for God.  I wish to help others realize their need for the Living Water—Jesus Christ. Continue reading →

I love the Puritans, lists (of all kinds), and pithy quotations.  So it was only natural to combine these three favorite things together from my reading.

This list is a great encouragement to mortify sin daily, yet at the same time reminds me of how I’ve fallen woefully short of God’s standard in my daily battle against sin.  But thanks be to God for His mercy and Christ’s imputed righteousness, that I (who is inherently unrighteous) may approach His throne of grace by faith and be declared positionally “righteous” on the basis of Christ’s perfect merits. Continue reading →

As the new year approaches, I’ve been hearing the phrase “New Year Resolutions” uttered in recent days.   The best list of Resolutions I’ve ever read was written almost 300 years ago by the great preacher/author/theologian Jonathan Edwards when he was around 20 years of age.  His was a list of 70 Resolutions or “purpose statements” that will have guided the rest of his life.

I like the practicality of his list and its transparency to the reality of the human nature and frailties.  It permeates every area of life–the use of time, eating and drinking, conversations, relationships with family & others, prayer, etc. (I Cor. 10:31)

Some of my favorites among his list: Continue reading →