Reasons for Worship through Suffering

If we again ask the question: "Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?" and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn't. It can't be that he doesn't love us. I can't be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.

~from Tim Keller's book, The Reason for God

White Horse Inn VIDEO

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/video/Selling_Jesus.mp4

I recommend that everyone check out the new White Horse Inn VIDEO. I believe this is the first ever video edition and as always the guys are great. Dr. Scott Clark is filling in for Kim Riddlebarger as the group talks about the problems with consumerism within Christianity.

God Will Heal My Faithlessness

Found this great little excerpt from the Desiring God blog...

(Author: Tyler Kenney)

Despite eight years of new life in Christ, my poor, guilty soul still becomes overwhelmingly anxious at times. A dark cloud comes and just sits over my head, not letting any hope from God's promises or past faithfulness get through and restore my joy.

And it's my fault. It's unbelief and sin.

God never intended for me to find my abiding joy in the circumstances of this life—"in this world you will have trouble"—but to hope in him and his salvation (Habakkuk 3:17-19; 1 Peter 1:13).

Nonetheless, I still let outward things determine my inward state, with the result that I have fickle joy, not Paul-like joy—the kind that would lead me to say,

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. (Phillipians 4:12)

So when this unhappy lack of sturdy joy leads me to pray (which it always does, and I thank God!), I don't want to pray primarily for my circumstances to change. I want to pray first for my unbelieving heart to change.

And then I take more comfort in the Father than ever before:

Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness. (Jeremiah 3:22

Loveliness of Christ

Thoughts for the Lord's Day...

-Whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what may soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee:and sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw the curtains, and say, Courage, I am thy salvation, than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong and never need to be visited of God.

-Let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love and world-worship, and infidelity, that he may make us stones and pillars in his Father's house (Rev. 3:12). Think ye much to follow the Heir of the crown, who had experience of sorrows and was acquainted with grief (Isa. 53).

-No pen, no words, no image can express to you the loveliness of my only, only Lord Jesus.

~Samuel Rutherford~