Contemplations
Living Faith
“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1) David’s heartfelt plea in Psalm 51:1 demonstrates the level of faith and trust the psalmist had in the goodness of...
My Dependency and His Sufficiency
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17) The Christian life is characterized by an ongoing tension between human striving and divine...
Eternal Choices
“Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.” (Titus 1:1) The doctrine of predestination, often misunderstood, stands as a cornerstone of divine grace in...
The Glorious Mystery of Christ’s Incarnation
“Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification.” (Romans 4:25) The incarnation of Christ is foundational to the Christian faith, as it is the glorious mystery by which the eternal Son of God took upon Himself true humanity in order to...
Born Again by God and Believing by Faith
“Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:3) Jesus answers the curiosity of Nicodemus with words that hold the key to eternal life: “Except a man be born again, he...
Renewed in the Spirit of the Mind
“And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” (Ephesians 4:23) Christians are often thought of as those who believe certain truths, participate in religious ordinances, and maintain an active connection to a local church. And while doctrine and worship are essential,...
Confessing My Discouragement
"I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots." (Song 1:9) Believers tend to judge themselves more by their present struggles than by Christ's gracious work in them, forgetting that every grace they possess has been freely given by...
Through Christ Alone
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Though the world wants to promote the notion that all religions lead to the same destination and that sincerity...
The Threefold Witness of Christ
“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6) The apostle John presents one of the most comforting and glorious testimonies...
Christ – King Over All Nations
"When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, 'Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.'" (Acts 11:18) Acts 11:18 marks a major turning point in the life of the early church—the realization that Christ died...
Laboring Faithfully Until Death
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Genesis 3:19) The sentence pronounced on Adam in Genesis 3 reveals the bitter effects of sin on...
Truth that Takes Hold of the Heart
“For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.” (2 Corinthians 13:8) One of the most remarkable evidences of God's saving work in the soul is the change He produces in a person's relationship to truth and sin. Before conversion, our heart may be...
The Conquered Dragon
“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” (Revelation 12:9) Scripture continually reminds us that the Christian life is a spiritual battle. Behind the visible affairs of nations, controversies,...
Those Who Fear God
"Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and His days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:" (Ecclesiastes 8:12) The prosperity of the wicked can present a difficult hurdle for our faith. Those in...
The Wrath From Which I Must Not Hide
"Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them." (Psalm 21:9) Psalm 21:9 declares the certainty of the Lord’s vengeance on the enemies of Christ and His kingdom. Though the...
The King Whose Enemies Cannot Stand
"The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath." (Psalm 110:5) Christ, the Mediator and King of His church, never stands alone in the execution of His royal office. As He sits at the right hand of the Father in glory, the government of...
The God Who Cannot Deny Himself
"If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself." (2 Timothy 2:13) The faithfulness of God rests entirely in His own unchanging nature. He is faithful because faithfulness is His very being. He cannot cease to be what He eternally is. Therefore,...
Our Incomprehensible Portion
"Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: He is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: He will not afflict." (Job 37:23) God is an incomprehensible being. He may be truly known because He has revealed Himself, yet neither man nor angels...
The Greater Glory of the Gospel
"How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?" (2 Corinthians 3:8) God’s law, written and engraved in stones, possessed inherent glory because it came directly from God, revealed His righteousness, and declared His holy will. Yet it was also a...
Chosen and Secure in the Father’s Love
“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.” (1 Peter 1:2) In the first chapter of his first epistle Peter shares...
The Patience of Christ
"Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." (1 Peter 2:23) The patience of Christ in the wake of the onslaught of His accusers is one of the clearest displays of His perfect...
The God Who Makes All Grace Abound
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8) The sufficiency of believers flows from the sufficiency of God. Because God makes “all grace abound” toward...
Delivering Grace
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, ‘O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’” (Matthew 3:7) John the Baptist's question recorded here in Matthew 3:7, addressed to those...
The Sovereign Government of God
“For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched...
A Heart Made Willing to Obey
"Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." (Ephesians 5:6) Paul urges the Ephesian believers not to be deceived by words that disregard the seriousness of sin by downplaying the...
Strengthened for Holy Perseverance
“I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.” (Psalm 119:106) While salvation is wholly of grace, God’s children are called to diligently follow Christ, obey His Word, and pursue holiness. David's words in this psalm express such a...
Envy That Resents God’s Mercy
"But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:12) Christ interjects this warning into the conversation recorded in Matthew 8:12 while answering the request of a Roman centurion to heal...
Fear That Guards the Soul
"Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel." (2 Chronicles 28:3) The valley of the son of Hinnom became associated...
Gratitude for a Perfect Saviour
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.” (James 2:10-11)...
Every Deed Accounted For
"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God;...
False Peace and True Fellowship
“If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” (1 John 1:6) The human heart possesses a remarkable ability to persuade itself that all is well when all is not well. In fact, one of the most dangerous conditions we read...
Neglecting the Means of Grace
“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42) Those early believers referenced in this second chapter of Acts realized that the ordinances of Christ were essential means through which...
God’s Response to Pride
"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible." (Isaiah 13:11) The dominion of ancient Babylon, referenced often in the Old...
The Greater One Within
“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) The world tends to portray the Christian life as burdensome and restrictive, as though obedience to Christ robs a person of joy...
The Work of God Alone
“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.” (1 Peter 1:23) Just as a newborn infant cannot effect its physical birth, believers cannot effect their “new birth.” Scripture makes it clear that...
The Danger of an Unconverted Heart
“Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit...
Christ Our Unshakable Rock
“He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.” (Psalm 62:2) Throughout Scripture, God is repeatedly referred to as the Rock of His people. He is the refuge to which sinners flee and the sure foundation on which faith rests. Just...
Learning From the Lord’s Rebukes
"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred; Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut...
The Weight of Sin and Need for Satisfaction
"I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself?" (Job 7:20) Job’s anguished cry pierces through the centuries and speaks directly to the human condition. When sin is...
The Word That Instructs and Guides
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) The sufficiency of...
The Sins God Hates
“These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies,...
So Great Salvation
"How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him." (Hebrews 2:3) The gospel of Christ is the greatest message ever proclaimed because it reveals the eternal love...
Hearing Without Hearing
"Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand." (Matthew 13:13) In this verse in Matthew 13, Christ explains that there is a difference between exposure to truth and spiritual understanding....
To the Praise of His Glory
“That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:12) The great design of God in saving sinners is not only that they might escape wrath, but that they might live to the praise of His glory. For when God effectually calls a...
Humbled and Lifted by His Grace
“I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.” (Job 42:2) Job, one of the oldest books in the Bible, recounts the life of a godly man by the same name who, after a long period of suffering, questioning, and humbling,...
The God Who Cannot Lie
“In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” (Titus 1:2) Our hope of eternal life, as this verse in Titus so beautifully reminds us, rests on one of the most comforting truths revealed in Scripture... that God cannot lie. We...
Natural Reason and Spiritual Truth
"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) In the second chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains...
The Power of Hearing
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Faith is a gift of God, a product of His Word and His Spirit working together in our hearts. This divine process occurs when the Spirit of God plants the truths of God in hearts that are...
The Blessing of Abraham Through Christ
“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Galatians 3:14) The gospel fulfills one of the greatest wonders of God's redemptive purpose, which is that the blessing...
Gathered Forever with Christ
"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matthew 24:31) The return of Jesus Christ is the great hope of every believer, allowing us to direct our...
Not Your Own
“If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Corinthians 3:17) Scripture teaches that all true Christians belong entirely to God. What an amazing truth, indeed, that every Person of the Trinity...
The Gift of the Son
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Among all the declarations of God’s amazing grace found in Scripture, few are as well known or as rich in...
The Kingdom That Sin Cannot Inherit
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor...
The Sanctifier Who Calls His People Brethren
"For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." (Hebrews 2:11-12)...