English, Christianity, 1 seasons, 374 episodes, 3 days 10 minutes
Articles by Desiring God
English, Christianity, 1 seasons, 374 episodes, 3 days 10 minutes
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Articles from the Teaching Team at Desiring God.
He Did Not Revile in Return: Following Jesus in an Age of Anger
David Mathis | In Christ, we do not sin in response to sin. When insulted, we endure. When reviled, we bless. When slandered, we pray, forgive, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
26/11/2023 • 13 minutes 33 seconds
Find Your Fathers in Christ: Advice for Younger Men
Marshall Segal | If you are a younger man, you need the example and encouragement of men who are further along in faith. You need the firm love of spiritual fathers.
24/11/2023 • 12 minutes 30 seconds
Give Thanks Against Temptation: The Spiritual Power of Gratitude
Scott Hubbard | Christians are an unusual people who don’t wait until after the fact to thank God. No, we thank him every step of the way.
23/11/2023 • 13 minutes 16 seconds
Bring Order to the Chaos: The Calming Force of Good Pastors
David Mathis | Good pastors don’t just work hard to preach to their people; they help them through conflicts with a calm force that brings order to the chaos of life.
19/11/2023 • 14 minutes 6 seconds
Order and Beauty: A Little Theology of Christian Writing
Greg Morse | The craft of Christian writing obsesses over reality, arranges truth with care, quests for fitting phrases — and stands ever enthralled by the One above all words.
18/11/2023 • 14 minutes 29 seconds
Romance Can Ruin You: How a Relationship Becomes a God
Marshall Segal | Romance can be a friend and an ally, or an enemy and a terror. It can point us to the Love we were made for, or it can leave us lovesick forever.
15/11/2023 • 12 minutes 47 seconds
Apologetic of the Heart: Why Costly Love Captures Us
Jon Bloom | Even when arguments don’t win the mind, love may win the heart. Dying sacrifices speak to our deepest hopes and draw out our highest admiration.
12/11/2023 • 10 minutes 14 seconds
Single Men with Many Sons: How to Be a Spiritual Father
Scott Hubbard | What might happen in the church if even single men increasingly thought of themselves as spiritual fathers for younger men?
11/11/2023 • 13 minutes 56 seconds
Children Caught in the Crossfire: The Tragedy of Same-Sex ‘Adoption’
Greg Morse | When a society makes room for homosexual lust, the disorder ripples throughout that society, even to the youngest and most vulnerable.
08/11/2023 • 13 minutes 2 seconds
We Have Sinned and Grown Old: Seeing Through Six-Year-Old Eyes
Marshall Segal | What does it say about us that as we grow older, we often lose our ability to notice and enjoy the brilliance and creativity of God in all that he’s made?
05/11/2023 • 11 minutes 2 seconds
Jesus Is Better Than Working for Jesus
David Mathis | What joy could be greater than seeing the lost saved, the saints sanctified, and the kingdom of darkness destroyed? The joy of having your own name written in heaven.
04/11/2023 • 12 minutes 10 seconds
The Spiritual Discipline of Sky: How the Heavens Shape a Heart
Scott Hubbard | When was the last time you stopped, looked up, and stared at the sky? A song of glory resounds. A heaven of wonders awaits.
01/11/2023 • 12 minutes 22 seconds
Real Protestants Keep Reforming
David Mathis | The Reformation began in 1517, but you will search in vain for an end date. The work continues as each generation, standing upon the shoulders of others, comes to drink for themselves at the headwaters of God’s own word.
31/10/2023 • 13 minutes 37 seconds
‘The Shadow Proves the Sunshine’ How to See God in Spiritual Darkness
Jon Bloom | “The shadow proves the sunshine.” Those lyrics are a profound window into reality, and might help lead someone out of the shadows of spiritual darkness.
28/10/2023 • 8 minutes 35 seconds
The Ache of ‘If Only’
Greg Morse | Maybe we say “if only” to protect us from the disappointment of dreams fulfilled and longings still unmet. Maybe the grass is always greener — and we prefer to have it so.
25/10/2023 • 9 minutes 28 seconds
The Dangers of Alone: Five Questions for Single Men
Marshall Segal | If you want to live your single years well, find good answers to five crucial questions: Who’s over you? Who’s ahead of you? Who’s beside you? Who’s behind you? And who’s against you?
21/10/2023 • 15 minutes 36 seconds
Counseling for Normal Christians
Scott Hubbard | How can normal Christians grow in counseling others? Learn from the Wonderful Counselor. Listen — really listen — to others. And then pray, discern, and respond.
18/10/2023 • 12 minutes 53 seconds
Preach to Comfort and Disturb: A Plea to Pastors
Greg Morse | We need men in pulpits who will preach the whole counsel of God — the promises and warnings, the mercies and conditions, the comforting and the discomforting.
15/10/2023 • 13 minutes 29 seconds
A Brief Life Still Burning: The Unlikely Impact of Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Jon Bloom | What makes the brief life of Robert Murray M’Cheyne so compelling? He lived to the hilt. He burned with love for Christ. He was a truly holy man.
14/10/2023 • 9 minutes 7 seconds
How to Love a Sister in Christ: A Guide for Single Men
Scott Hubbard | How does a godly young man relate to his sisters in Christ? By diligently cultivating purity, clarity, courage, and community.
11/10/2023 • 12 minutes 29 seconds
The Successful and Worthless Husband: Five Marks of Foolish Men
Marshall Segal | One way to grow as a husband is to learn from a bad one. Here are five marks of a foolish man.
08/10/2023 • 15 minutes 42 seconds
Act Like Men
Greg Morse | Live for something. Stand for something. Die for something. If God has made you a man, then rise up and act like one.
07/10/2023 • 14 minutes 59 seconds
The Use and Abuse of Scripture: How Christian Preachers Wield the Word
David Mathis | Christ calls his preachers to “use Scripture.” It is the pastor’s tool belt, his staff, his weapon, his wand, his scalpel for the most delicate and exacting of surgeries.
04/10/2023 • 12 minutes 22 seconds
Stepping Through Darkness: Obedience on the Hardest Days
Scott Hubbard | When it seems like night may never end, keep obeying your Lord in the darkness, and dare to believe that he will bring the dawn.
30/09/2023 • 8 minutes 48 seconds
Until You Get to Pastor: Seven Ambitions for Aspiring Men
Marshall Segal | Unwanted waiting can be the best preparation for future ministry. Here are seven ambitions for aspiring men who feel stuck behind a closed door.
27/09/2023 • 16 minutes 4 seconds
His Majesty Lifts the Lowly: The Attractive Force of God’s Mercy
David Mathis | Our God is majestic, both in his greatness and might, and his grace and mercy. In silence we wonder, What is man that you would care for us? Who are we that your Son would die for us?
23/09/2023 • 13 minutes 13 seconds
Wander Away to Her
Greg Morse | When was the last time you got lost thinking about your bride? Have you let life rob you of the radiant, ever-changing beauty beside you?
20/09/2023 • 15 minutes 11 seconds
A Faithful Man Who Can Find?
Jon Bloom | Where can we find a man true to his word — not just for a moment or some big occasion, but over a lifetime?
19/09/2023 • 9 minutes 59 seconds
Where’s the Lion Now? Making Hard Decisions with Aslan
Marshall Segal | When faced with big life decisions, we may find surprising wisdom from a simple question, drawn from Narnia: Where’s the lion now?
17/09/2023 • 13 minutes 18 seconds
Attack at Dawn: The Spiritual War Against Ordinary Devotions
David Mathis | Satan knows the devastating power of our early morning devotions. He will do whatever he can to disrupt them. But we need not be ignorant of his schemes.
16/09/2023 • 10 minutes 32 seconds
Get Behind Me, Sluggard: Four Lessons Against Laziness
Scott Hubbard | The sluggard can find a home in any soul, however hardworking. Have you found weapons for putting your laziness to death?
13/09/2023 • 11 minutes 48 seconds
The Severe Kindness of Jesus: Hearing Mercy in His Hard Words
Jon Bloom | The same Jesus who invited the weary and heavy laden also called his followers to hate their families. How do we understand the hardest words of Christ?
10/09/2023 • 11 minutes 43 seconds
How to Read a Book by God: Eight Questions for Better Understanding
Marshall Segal | God wrote a book — the greatest book ever written. Because he decided to reveal himself in human words and phrases, we should want to read as well as humanly possible.
09/09/2023 • 16 minutes 7 seconds
‘Oh Slay the Wicked’: How Christians Sing Curses
Greg Morse | Should Christians pray the imprecatory psalms? Did these curses die at the cross, or do they have a counterpart in the new-covenant religion?
06/09/2023 • 20 minutes 14 seconds
Habits of Grit: Athletics, Grace, and the Christian Work Ethic
David Mathis | The Christian work life is founded squarely on Christ’s finished work and aimed at his eternal glory.
03/09/2023 • 13 minutes 31 seconds
‘Just Not Feeling It’: How Routine Awakens Devotion
Scott Hubbard | The next time “not feeling like it” tempts you to keep your Bible closed or pass a morning without prayer, remember all the good God can bring through routine.
02/09/2023 • 12 minutes 18 seconds
Rediscovering the Joy of Writing: Six Lessons for a Lifelong Habit
Scott Hubbard | Maybe you used to write but fell out of the habit. Maybe you’ve never written much of anything outside of school. Either way, you might consider what a pen might do for your joy in God.
30/08/2023 • 17 minutes 5 seconds
Wrestling with What Won’t Be: The Meaning of Midlife Melancholy
Greg Morse | Why do so many hit a wall in their early forties, wondering who they are and what they should be doing?
28/08/2023 • 12 minutes 42 seconds
Greet with a Holy Kiss? Applying an Uncomfortable Command
David Mathis | The call to “greet one another with a holy kiss” may strike us as odd and outdated. But what lessons might God have for us in this uncomfortable command?
26/08/2023 • 9 minutes 43 seconds
The Wilderness of the Little Years: How Satan Tempts Tired Parents
Marshall Segal | Though Jesus was not a father or mother, he sympathizes with the lies parents face in the wilderness of the little years. And he can overcome them.
23/08/2023 • 14 minutes 10 seconds
The God We Can Kiss
David Mathis | Biblical kissing may seem foreign and uncomfortable today. But press through the discomfort, and the kiss is a stunning window into the glory of Christ.
20/08/2023 • 10 minutes 38 seconds
Loud and Quiet Women: The Portrait God Finds Beautiful
Scott Hubbard | More than once, the Bible encourages quietness in women. What kind of quietness pleases God, and what kind of loudness defies him?
16/08/2023 • 11 minutes 25 seconds
How to Build (or Break) a Habit
Jon Bloom | Is there a godly habit you really want to start? Or an ungodly habit you really need to break? These four steps might help you press through.
15/08/2023 • 16 minutes 1 second
Uncomfortably Limited: The Frustrating Beauty of Finitude
Marshall Segal | Like blades of grass, we are here today, gone tomorrow — frail, fragile, finite. But those who fear and follow God know a steadfast love that will outlive the mountains.
12/08/2023 • 12 minutes 36 seconds
Almost Saved: Four Reasons to Examine Yourself
Greg Morse | Many come to the end of life almost saved, almost rescued from God’s wrath, almost in possession of joy forevermore. But only almost.
09/08/2023 • 15 minutes 56 seconds
The Godliness of a Good Night’s Sleep
Scott Hubbard | On occasion, God may call us to renounce sleep for the sake of something greater. But on most nights, he welcomes us to embrace the godliness of a good night’s sleep.
06/08/2023 • 12 minutes 38 seconds
When Sharp Disagreements Separate: Lessons for Churches in Conflict
Jon Bloom | Sometimes fellow pastors have such strong, diverging convictions that they cannot continue together. What can we learn from the splitting of Paul and Barnabas?
05/08/2023 • 12 minutes 33 seconds
Fasting, Feasting, and Our Daily Bread: Following the Diet of Jesus
David Mathis | God made us to fast, and to feast. But on most days, he made us to enjoy a modest portion of daily bread, received with thanksgiving and self-control.
02/08/2023 • 15 minutes 19 seconds
The Rare Courage of Real Friends: Why Love Will Sometimes Wound
Marshall Segal | Ask God for the kind of friends who love your soul more than your feelings, who will prize your eternal destiny even above the friendship itself.
31/07/2023 • 11 minutes 48 seconds
The Pro-Child Life: Three Ways We Love the Littlest
Scott Hubbard | If we want to oppose the anti-child forces in this world, we will need more than a pro-life position, a high view of motherhood, and a robust Sunday school program.
29/07/2023 • 11 minutes 47 seconds
Uncomfortably Affectionate: Toward a Theology of the Kiss
David Mathis | It says something profound about our God that his people, in ancient Israel and the early church, are a kissing people.
26/07/2023 • 12 minutes 2 seconds
For Fathers of Young Children: Lessons from the Last Graduation
Jon Bloom | The years of fatherhood are few and precious. The days may seem long, the sleep short, and the seasons tiring, but in the end, you’ll look back and wish to have much of it again.
24/07/2023 • 12 minutes 36 seconds
Live for Days You Will Not See: The Beauty of Christian Legacy
Scott Hubbard | Live for yourself, and your life will mean little to those beyond you. But spend your life on others, and it will grow a harvest in due time.
20/07/2023 • 11 minutes 49 seconds
O Me of Little Faith
Greg Morse | Sometimes we settle for weaker faith because we fear what greater faith might cost us in this life.
19/07/2023 • 10 minutes 1 second
How to Love an Immortal
Marshall Segal | What might it look like to study and work, to date and marry and parent, to disagree and forgive, like you’ll live forever?
15/07/2023 • 13 minutes 12 seconds
Did Jesus Pursue His Own Glory? The God-Centeredness of the God-Man
David Mathis | We might assume the God-centeredness of God would lead to the Christ-centeredness of Christ, but the Gospels present a more complex and wonderful picture.
11/07/2023 • 20 minutes 29 seconds
That Kind of Happy: The Wide Eyes of a Psalm 1 Man
Marshall Segal | Some men read the Bible assuming they’ve seen it all before. Others open the same book always expecting to find some new reason to treasure God.
09/07/2023 • 10 minutes 26 seconds
Imagine Lust: A Lost Weapon in the Fight for Purity
Scott Hubbard | Many in the battle against lust try to shut off the imagination, but what if God means for you to win the battle through imagination?
08/07/2023 • 11 minutes 27 seconds
Stabbed by Joy: The Longings That Led Me to Christ
Greg Morse | Some joy does not leave you satisfied, but still aching for a pleasure barely glimpsed, hardly heard. The longing is inconsolable, until it leads our hearts to Christ.
05/07/2023 • 15 minutes 32 seconds
Gentleness Made Him Great: Learning from the Strongest of Men
David Mathis | The world has its own visions of manly strength. In Scripture, what sets godly strength apart is its added ability to be gentle.
01/07/2023 • 11 minutes 58 seconds
Your Life of Unlikely Courage
Marshall Segal | ‘The Hobbit’ resonates with us so deeply, all these years later, because the tension in Bilbo is a tension in all of us. We love comfort, but we were made for mountains.
28/06/2023 • 13 minutes 44 seconds
A Problem in Prayer: Learning to Ask as We Ought
Greg Morse | Jesus says, “Ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” Did he really mean that? If so, what would that prayer sound like today?
27/06/2023 • 13 minutes 11 seconds
No One Who Abides in Him Keeps on Sinning
Scott Hubbard | The born again are not perfect, but they are new — irrevocably, eternally, mightily new. And new people can’t keep peace with old sins.
24/06/2023 • 12 minutes 40 seconds
What Does God Sound Like? Hearing the Voice of Majesty
David Mathis | The people of God perceive his majesty not only with the eye, but by the ear — in the greatness, power, and surprising glory of his roaring, thunderous words and his still, small voice.
21/06/2023 • 12 minutes 20 seconds
Goats in Sheep’s Clothing: Why We Warn the Lukewarm
Greg Morse | A professing Christian may live years in the church, even decades, yet in the end still hear those haunting words of Jesus: “I never knew you.”
17/06/2023 • 13 minutes 49 seconds
‘My Kingdom Is Not of This World’: The Lordship of Christ and the Limits of Government
John Piper | The New Testament opposes Christians looking to the state to teach, defend, or spread ideas or behaviors as explicitly Christian. The sword is not to be the agent of religion.
15/06/2023 • 53 minutes 28 seconds
Entrusted with Agony: How to Love a Suffering Soul
Jon Bloom | What qualities make someone the kind of person suffering people seek out and trust? He offers judicious counsel with discernible humility and kindness.
14/06/2023 • 11 minutes 36 seconds
When God Sets Sunsets Free: Imagining the World to Come
Marshall Segal | One day soon, God will make all we know unmistakably new. Have you learned to long, and pray, for the wonders of a better world to come?
10/06/2023 • 12 minutes 29 seconds
Good Leaders Fail Well: How Mistakes Become a Staircase
Scott Hubbard | As men step into leadership, many expect the burdens of responsibility, decision-making, and initiative. Fewer are prepared for just how often they may fail.
07/06/2023 • 12 minutes 58 seconds
Confrontational Christlikeness
Greg Morse | Faithfully following Jesus will put us at odds with those who ignore or refuse him. Does anyone in your life dislike how Christian you are?
06/06/2023 • 13 minutes 9 seconds
When Was I Born Again? How ‘Regeneration’ Blossoms in Reformed Theology
David Mathis | You must be born again, says Jesus, to receive his saving grace, but how does ‘regeneration’ relate to predestination, justification, and the rest of salvation?
04/06/2023 • 14 minutes 13 seconds
Reversing Romans 1: A Glimpse of the Godward Life
Joe Rigney | Do you want to catch a clear and beautiful vision of the Godward life? Take a text about the ugly futility of mutiny against God and turn it on its head.
03/06/2023 • 8 minutes 58 seconds
Mercy Swallows Any Sorrow: Struggling Beside a Sea of Blessing
Marshall Segal | Are you weighed down with the burdens and sorrows of life? Despite all of your afflictions, if you’re in Christ, his mercy is more.
31/05/2023 • 11 minutes 28 seconds
Assurance for the Unassured: Finding Hope in the Names of God
Scott Hubbard | Those who often deal with doubts over their own salvation may find deeper assurance from a surprising source: God’s infinite commitment to his name.
28/05/2023 • 11 minutes 41 seconds
Train Them Up in Jesus: The One-Verse Vision for Dads
David Mathis | What does it mean to raise children in the “discipline and instruction” of the Lord? These two concepts represent indispensable facets of faithful Christian fatherhood.
25/05/2023 • 11 minutes 59 seconds
Find Your Way to Help the Hurting
Marshall Segal | When suffering comes to those around you, don’t assume someone else will step up and help. Assume God plans to meet one of their many needs through you.
23/05/2023 • 12 minutes 32 seconds
Grumbling Obedience: Resisting a Common Temptation
Joe Rigney | How often is there a hitch in your obedience, or an edge to your obedience, or self-pity in your obedience?
21/05/2023 • 9 minutes 55 seconds
Roast What You Kill: Becoming a Man Who Follows Through
Greg Morse | Meet the sophisticated sloth: he dates but never marries, attends church but never joins, works hard only when others watch — and rarely finishes what he begins.
18/05/2023 • 12 minutes
Slow to Chide, Swift to Bless: Vision for Earthly Fathers
David Mathis | As sinful as we are, our heavenly Father is “slow to chide, and swift to bless.” How much more should earthly fathers aspire to be the same with our children?
15/05/2023 • 11 minutes 33 seconds
Wise Women Build Homes: Motherhood’s Lasting Influence
Scott Hubbard | As an imperfect but God-fearing woman builds her house, she becomes for her children Wisdom’s first face, first voice, first touch.
14/05/2023 • 9 minutes 41 seconds
Not All Obedience Is Christian
Joe Rigney | Christians do not work for our salvation, but we do work out our salvation as God powerfully works within us. All Christian obedience, then, begins on the inside.
12/05/2023 • 8 minutes 33 seconds
Flee the Gospel of Me
Marshall Segal | The greatest news in the world is that, through Jesus, people made by God, and who have rejected God, may still get to have God.
11/05/2023 • 13 minutes 49 seconds
We Travel to a World Unseen
Greg Morse | The ground beneath our feet, the hills around our house, the sky above our heads — these seem as real as real can be. But another world is still more real.
08/05/2023 • 12 minutes 21 seconds
Love the Place You Want to Leave
Scott Hubbard | If today you woke up in a place you don’t like, dare to believe that God has purposes for you here, however much you may want to leave.
05/05/2023 • 12 minutes 13 seconds
The Forgotten Habit: Fellowship as a Means of God’s Grace
David Mathis | Fellowship is an irreplaceable means of grace in the Christian life and offers us two priceless joys: receiving God’s grace through the helping words of others and giving his grace to others through our own.
30/04/2023 • 13 minutes 15 seconds
Sleep Beneath His Promises: Learning Rest from the Psalms
Scott Hubbard | How did the psalmists fall asleep on the most unlikely nights? They laid every care and sorrow before the Lord who is our shield, shepherd, comfort, and life.
28/04/2023 • 11 minutes 1 second
Appointed and Disappointed: Four Lessons for Passing Leadership
Jon Bloom | Every earthly calling you accept will be one you eventually have to release. Have you thought about how to do that well?
27/04/2023 • 11 minutes 45 seconds
God So Loved Himself
David Mathis | God created the world to glorify himself. But does this truth diminish his love for his people in Christ? Consider Jonathan Edwards’s enduring answer.
24/04/2023 • 0
The Ministry of the Pew: Sunday Morning for Normal Christians
Greg Morse | How many of us arrive on Sunday mornings, sing, listen, and then leave?
23/04/2023 • 12 minutes 51 seconds
Why Do Christians Struggle to Love?
Jon Bloom | If God gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Jesus, why do we still have such a hard time walking in love?
21/04/2023 • 11 minutes 42 seconds
Join That Church: Why God Made You for Membership
Marshall Segal | In an age of independence and suspicion of authority, becoming a church member is a loud, arresting statement of our devotion to Christ and our need for his body.
20/04/2023 • 0
Raw Passion and Messy Missiology: A Tribute to George Verwer (1938–2023)
John Piper | On April 14, 2023, one of the greatest missions leaders of the last hundred years passed into glory — and only glory can measure the global influence he left behind.
19/04/2023 • 9 minutes 41 seconds
The Art of One-Anothering: How the Church Loves Like Christ
Scott Hubbard | To love another well, we need to put on Christ himself. We need to have his mind, offer his welcome, speak his words, show his love, and give his grace.
16/04/2023 • 16 minutes 6 seconds
Beware of the Birds: How Satan Sabotages Sermons
Greg Morse | What if the distractions keeping you from listening to sermons are an act of spiritual warfare?
14/04/2023 • 12 minutes 17 seconds
The Syntax of Sacrifice: Introduction to Leviticus
Joe Rigney | The book of Leviticus can seem as mystifying as a foreign language — until we learn the basic nouns, adjectives, and verbs of the sacrificial system.
10/04/2023 • 32 minutes 10 seconds
The Easter Yet to Come
Marshall Segal | How pitiful would your life seem if Jesus did not rise? How promising and thrilling is it if he really did?
09/04/2023 • 9 minutes 53 seconds
Tree of Shame: The Horror and Honor of Good Friday
David Mathis | Jesus endured the cross, Hebrews tells us, “for the joy that was set before him.” What joy did Jesus see on the other side of Good Friday’s shame?
07/04/2023 • 0
The Most High on His Knees: Learning Humility from the Last Supper
Greg Morse | Before Jesus gave his hands to the nails, he used them to wash the dirt from his disciples’ feet. What thoughts caused one so high to go so low?
06/04/2023 • 12 minutes 36 seconds
Redeeming Discipline: How Grace Reforms Our Effort
Scott Hubbard | When the apostle Paul lost his legalism, he did not lose his discipline — not even a little. So what did he know about discipline that we may not?
02/04/2023 • 11 minutes 57 seconds
Does Alcohol Still Sober You? Five Warnings About Abuse
Marshall Segal | A healthy, godly use of alcohol remains vigilant against at least five great dangers of alcohol.
30/03/2023 • 15 minutes 33 seconds
The Father’s Way: When Good Parents Say Yes and No
Joe Rigney | If we love our children, we sometimes must say no. But we would do well to think carefully about how, and how often, we say no.
27/03/2023 • 11 minutes 7 seconds
He Comes Quickly: Are You Still Waiting?
Greg Morse | The last picture of the church in Scripture shows a bride looking up to heaven, crying out, “Come!” Do we still look and long for our Lord’s return?
26/03/2023 • 0
Still on the Throne: The Glories of a Seated Christ
David Mathis | Jesus rose and ascended, then his Father seated him on heaven’s throne. But what is he doing right now up there where he’s been sitting for centuries?
23/03/2023 • 11 minutes 45 seconds
What God Can Make from a Shattered Life
Scott Hubbard | In the midst of suffering, it can be hard to imagine how all this heartache could possibly end in glory. That’s why God didn’t leave us to our imaginations.
20/03/2023 • 10 minutes 46 seconds
What Will Make You Resilient? Learning from a Living Miracle
Jon Bloom | Any Christian who lives in a cursed world like ours will need to learn resilience, and God hasn’t left us without staggering examples to follow.
19/03/2023 • 11 minutes 31 seconds
Should We Get Married? How to Find Clarity in Dating
Marshall Segal | If you want to pursue greater clarity in a dating relationship, look carefully in three directions: your desire, your community, and your opportunity.
16/03/2023 • 18 minutes 10 seconds
My Son, Give Me Your Heart: The First Desire of Fruitful Parenting
Joe Rigney | An ancient proverb teaches us that we are to aim at more than just our children’s obedience. More than anything, we want their hearts.
13/03/2023 • 7 minutes 54 seconds
The Shadow We Cannot Shake: What to Do When Darkness Remains
Scott Hubbard | “Up and be doing.” It’s not the only wise counsel to give to someone walking through doubt or spiritual darkness, but it might be the counsel some need to hear most.
12/03/2023 • 0
God of Ages Past: The Awakening We Need Today
Greg Morse | Though our experience may tell us to expect few conversions, few baptisms, and no grand spiritual movements, the God who revives and awakens is still our God today.
10/03/2023 • 11 minutes 56 seconds
Thirty Days of Easter: Invitation to Enjoy the Risen Christ
David Mathis | Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter — the best stories reward re-reading. And none matches the one we rehearse each spring as Easter approaches.
09/03/2023 • 11 minutes 5 seconds
Losing Christ in Christianity
Greg Morse | Christianity without Christ is a sunless solar system, a waterless ocean, an airless sky. Yet how subtly and easily we who name Christ can lose sight of him.
06/03/2023 • 12 minutes 26 seconds
Do You Want to Die Well?
Marshall Segal | What would life be like if you were unafraid of death? If you knew death would really be gain, what kind of life might you be free to live?
05/03/2023 • 10 minutes 51 seconds
A Holy Conspiracy of Joy: The Heart of Healthy Pastors and Churches
David Mathis | In the healthiest churches, we find a holy conspiracy between pastors who gladly care for the sheep, and sheep who do what they can so that the pastors might serve joyfully.
03/03/2023 • 10 minutes 43 seconds
Sit at the Feet of Loss: What Endings Teach the Living
Jon Bloom | The wisdom we need in this world often wears black. Painful as they are, all our deaths and endings hold lessons we cannot live wisely without.
02/03/2023 • 10 minutes 8 seconds
Man Enough to Weep
Greg Morse | When was the last time you cried over someone’s soul? Do you ever ask God to make the tears flow again?
26/02/2023 • 11 minutes 43 seconds
Four Marks of Faithful Teaching
Scott Hubbard | In Paul’s final meeting with a group of pastors, he gives them four marks of faithful teaching — the kind of teaching God uses to win the world.
23/02/2023 • 10 minutes 49 seconds
Live Against the Drift: Refocusing the Distracted Soul
Marshall Segal | For many Christians, our greatest danger is not that we will suddenly run from Jesus, but that we will slowly, subtly drift away.
20/02/2023 • 11 minutes 3 seconds
The Stable Presence: Five Traits of Resilient Fathers
Joe Rigney | Our homes need men who see with clarity, stand with stability, and act with wisdom. We need resilient, sober-minded fathers.
19/02/2023 • 9 minutes 32 seconds
Move the Body, Renew the Mind: A Christian Use for Exercise
David Mathis | To think seriously about Christ and his word, you will need to push your brain. And if you want to push your brain, you may need to push your body.
17/02/2023 • 11 minutes 47 seconds
Friends Who Fell Away: When Apostasy Comes Close to Home
Greg Morse | They sang with us in church, confessed to be Christ’s, renounced the world and Satan — and later walked away. How can we make sense of such painful apostasies?
15/02/2023 • 11 minutes 56 seconds
Suffering Proves We Are Real
Marshall Segal | No one asks for suffering. But when it comes through the hands of our wise and loving Father, we can do more than tolerate it. We can rejoice, even in this.
12/02/2023 • 12 minutes 27 seconds
The Living God: What Makes Him Different and Satisfying
Joe Rigney | Have you considered how wonderful it is to draw near to the God who now and always lives?
10/02/2023 • 8 minutes 34 seconds
Faith in the Wilderness of Waiting
Scott Hubbard | The gnawing ache of hopes unmet and prayers unanswered tries our faith. But God is with us in our waiting. None who trust in him to the end will be disappointed.
09/02/2023 • 11 minutes 19 seconds
Beneath the Mountain of Smoke: Recovering the Awe of Worship
Greg Morse | Does Sunday morning feel like a gathering before almighty God? We can far too easily lose sight of what we’re doing when we come together to worship.
06/02/2023 • 11 minutes 44 seconds
Christ Did Not Please Himself: The Joy of Bearing with Others’ Failings
David Mathis | Christians know ourselves called to love (and keep loving) difficult people. Fewer of us may realize that this hard path is also the path of joy.
05/02/2023 • 13 minutes 25 seconds
Every Marriage Needs a Mission: Three Steps for Husbands
Scott Hubbard | How can a husband lead his marriage into God-glorifying mission? He might begin by taking three modest steps: dream, draw, and do.
03/02/2023 • 11 minutes 58 seconds
Does Technology Help or Hurt Dating?
Marshall Segal | Technology can help dating relationships, and technology can hurt them. Unfortunately, many assume the former, while living the latter.
26/01/2023 • 14 minutes 59 seconds
Be Still, My Soul: A Hymn for the Hardest Losses
Jon Bloom | Some three centuries ago, a hymn appeared that has comforted countless hearts in the deepest pain of grief and loss: “Be Still, My Soul.”
23/01/2023 • 14 minutes 37 seconds
The Light and Momentary Success of the Wicked
Joe Rigney | Many see how the wicked prosper and abandon the costly path of faith and godliness. If only they could see where each path leads.
22/01/2023 • 8 minutes 40 seconds
How Not to Pray: Learning from Pharisees and Pagans
Greg Morse | The look-at-me prayer of the Pharisee and the say-more prayer of the pagan both find their cure in the simple Godward sincerity of the Lord’s Prayer.
20/01/2023 • 10 minutes 53 seconds
The Spiritual Power of Staying Put: Why Christians Are Slow to Leave
Scott Hubbard | In one sense, it’s never been easier to move — to find a new job, a new home, a new church. In another sense, it’s never been better to stay.
19/01/2023 • 13 minutes 37 seconds
Lovers of Good: Eyes of Hope in a World Gone Bad
David Mathis | Christians believe in good. They look for good. And they do good because, at bottom, they are lovers of good.
17/01/2023 • 10 minutes 50 seconds
Forgive Me and Help Me Forgive: The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Sin
Marshall Segal | Many Christians pray at every meal and often thank God for giving them daily bread. But how many pray as often about forgiveness?
15/01/2023 • 11 minutes 11 seconds
Begin Where You Are: How to Renew Your Prayer Life
Joe Rigney | C.S. Lewis wrote a book on prayer in which he pens four words that might change your prayer life: “Begin where you are.”
12/01/2023 • 11 minutes 31 seconds
Do the Will You Know: The First Step for Further Guidance
Scott Hubbard | How can you walk in God’s will for your life? Do the will you already know. Discern the will you don’t.
10/01/2023 • 12 minutes 43 seconds
The Curse Under Our Breath: What Grumbling Sounds Like to God
Greg Morse | If we could hear all that our grumbling says, we would be slower to murmur and quicker to seek more joy in God.
08/01/2023 • 13 minutes 32 seconds
You Can Understand the Bible
Marshall Segal | God gave us the Bible to reveal himself, not to hide himself. So whoever you are, you can understand the Bible.
05/01/2023 • 12 minutes 25 seconds
Pray This First
David Mathis | Few prayers are more familiar than “Hallowed be your name,” yet few prayers also are less understood. What do we mean when we ask God for the hallowing of his name?
04/01/2023 • 12 minutes 5 seconds
Sin Is Never Inevitable: How to Escape Overwhelming Temptation
Scott Hubbard | Do you want to overcome temptation? Remember how others have fallen. Be prepared for escape to be hard. And trust that God won’t flee.
02/01/2023 • 11 minutes 15 seconds
We Call Him ‘Father’: The Privilege of Christian Prayer
Jon Bloom | God wants us to relate to him not as mere subjects to a king, nor as mere sheep to a shepherd, but also as children to a loving, generous Father.
01/01/2023 • 10 minutes 40 seconds
The Pleasure of God in Ordinary Work
Marshall Segal | If you could see your “ordinary” work through the perspective and pleasure of God, it might not feel so ordinary anymore.
31/12/2022 • 9 minutes 55 seconds
Don’t Check the Boxes: My Breakthrough in Morning Devotions
David Mathis | For some, checking the boxes in Bible reading could put the focus and emphasis in the wrong place. Daily devotions are not about completing a task, but encountering the risen Christ.
27/12/2022 • 10 minutes 41 seconds
Born Between God and Man: Welcoming Our Long-Awaited Priest
Jon Bloom | The king Israel wanted was not the king Israel needed. The king they wanted would have exacted justice; the King they received purchased them mercy.
25/12/2022 • 9 minutes 8 seconds
We Long to Be Ruled: The Messianic Hopes in Every Heart
David Mathis | Christmas still enchants our unbelieving society because even as democratic as we may pretend to be, deep down we cannot shake our longings to be ruled — by the supremely benevolent King.
22/12/2022 • 11 minutes 19 seconds
The Starving Eyes of Man: Why We Ache to See Glory
Greg Morse | Of all the sights in heaven and earth, only one can satisfy the ravenous eyes of man: Jesus Christ in all his glory.
20/12/2022 • 12 minutes 16 seconds
Mercies at Midnight: Seeking God Through Sleeplessness
Scott Hubbard | God “gives to his beloved sleep,” Solomon says. So how do we respond when, despite our prayers and best efforts, God takes from his beloved sleep?
19/12/2022 • 12 minutes 44 seconds
Wisdom Above Came Below: How Christmas Speaks to Our Confusion
Joe Rigney | Wisdom from above is not merely about knowing what is true but knowing how to live. It addresses the head, heart, and hands.
15/12/2022 • 8 minutes 55 seconds
A Time to Say Goodbye: A Father’s Gratitude as Children Leave Home
Jon Bloom | What does it feel like to watch children leave the home? One father of five mourns with joy over what was — and gladly receives what is now and will be.
11/12/2022 • 10 minutes 16 seconds
The Secret Failure of Many Leaders
Greg Morse | Even good leaders and pastors can grow self-reliant over time and need the reminder that no ministry can succeed without their Lord.
08/12/2022 • 13 minutes 7 seconds
A Rest for Any Restlessness
Scott Hubbard | If you wrestle with restlessness, you’re not strange. You’re human. And your restlessness can lead you to the rest you long to enjoy.
07/12/2022 • 0
Awesome and Fearsome: God’s Majesty in the Eyes of His Friends and Foes
David Mathis | When God flashes the glory of his great size and strength, his people stand in awe and declare his majesty, while his foes cower in fear and feel terror.
05/12/2022 • 11 minutes 11 seconds
You Can Be Forgiven: What Christmas Says to Our Sins
Marshall Segal | Deep down, we long for forgiveness — to be washed clean from our sins and welcomed home to our God. And Jesus lived, died, and rose to make that forgiveness possible.
04/12/2022 • 13 minutes 41 seconds
The Joy of Christian Duty
Joe Rigney | Is there a good, wise, and Christian Hedonistic way of celebrating the value of duty in the Christian life?
02/12/2022 • 12 minutes 45 seconds
Disorient, Distort, Deceive: Satan’s Core Strategy Against Us
Jon Bloom | If you have no battle plan in the war against temptation, you give Satan the advantage. Take time to learn from the only one who never sinned.
01/12/2022 • 11 minutes 8 seconds
Two Kinds of Pastors
David Mathis | Should pastors be paid or unpaid? Scripture shows that both come with benefits, and a blend of both can be vital to healthy churches.
28/11/2022 • 0
Honor an Old Face: The Lost Art of Respecting Our Elders
Greg Morse | In a day that prizes technology, beauty, and youth, we easily neglect a command once taken for granted: honor the elderly among you.
27/11/2022 • 14 minutes 15 seconds
How to Keep Praying: Four Lessons from the Master
Scott Hubbard | Before you close your eyes to pray, take a moment to remember what prayer really is. Let Jesus reawaken you to the wonder of having God’s ear.
25/11/2022 • 10 minutes 48 seconds
The Sweetness of a Godward Meal: Dad’s Wisdom for Thanksgiving Day
Joe Rigney | “My son, eat honey, for it is good.” On Thanksgiving Day, a father and son discuss taste buds, honey, and the sweetness of wisdom to the soul.
24/11/2022 • 12 minutes 51 seconds
Can Christians Date Nonbelievers?
Marshall Segal | Should Christians date nonbelievers? God says no. And you might too if you could see all it might mean in marriage.
21/11/2022 • 13 minutes 4 seconds
Lead Me, O Lord: Ten Prayers for Christian Leaders
Jon Bloom | Good leaders are good followers first. They depend on God for wisdom, guidance, courage, and everything else they need.
20/11/2022 • 12 minutes 41 seconds
Screen Sabbaths: A Modest Proposal for a Digital World
Scott Hubbard | As we seek to resist the gravitational pull our phones exert, we might find help from an ancient Israelite practice: Sabbath.
17/11/2022 • 12 minutes 37 seconds
The Current State of Complementarity: Five Years After Nashville
John Piper | As lovers of God’s revealed truth, we confront the cultural perversions of the day — and more. We apply the truth to all of life.
16/11/2022 • 14 minutes 52 seconds
How to Fail a Wife: Learning Marriage from a Bad Husband
Marshall Segal | It’s a lot easier to be a bad husband than a faithful one — even in paradise. So what can men learn from the first husband’s failure?
15/11/2022 • 14 minutes 6 seconds
How to Care for a Pastor: Five Ways to Uplift Your Shepherds
Greg Morse | Many of us want to bless our pastors better, but don’t know how. Here are five ways to love the men entrusted with watching over your soul.
14/11/2022 • 12 minutes 53 seconds
To Groan Is Human — And Christian: Learning from the Emotions of Jesus
David Mathis | Some of the more stunning glimpses into the humanity of Jesus are the moments when he expresses sadness or grief. What might we learn from the groans of Christ?
13/11/2022 • 11 minutes 44 seconds
How a Head Loves a Body: Watching Husbands and Wives Dance Well
Joe Rigney | In the church and in marriage, the head and body are profoundly interdependent. You can’t have one without the other.
12/11/2022 • 9 minutes 48 seconds
Why Don’t We Have Good Friends?
Marshall Segal | It’s never been easier to make new friends and connect with old ones, so what’s keeping us from having more meaningful friendships?
07/11/2022 • 13 minutes 58 seconds
Am I Ready for Ministry? Three Tests for a Man’s Aspiration
Scott Hubbard | How can a man discern if he genuinely aspires to pastoral ministry? He can begin by asking where his aspiration comes from, where it aims, and what shape it takes.
06/11/2022 • 12 minutes 39 seconds
The Pastors We Didn’t Expect: Four Contours of Christian Leadership
David Mathis | We might expect Jesus to appoint world-class executives or entertainers to lead his church. Instead, he adopts a comparatively quiet plan: local teams of sober-minded teachers.
03/11/2022 • 12 minutes 20 seconds
The Five Not-Points of Calvinism
Scott Hubbard | To grasp both the offense and the comfort of Calvinism, we would do well to consider what the five points do not mean, what TULIP never taught us.
31/10/2022 • 15 minutes 36 seconds
The Indispensable Lives of Ordinary Christians
Greg Morse | When the world judges us as unimpressive, and we see ourselves as expendable, Jesus turns to us and speaks one word: “indispensable.”
30/10/2022 • 9 minutes 5 seconds
Messy, Late, and Happy: How to Survive Sundays with Small Kids
Marshall Segal | Young families have some good reasons to stay home on Sunday morning. But we have even better reasons to gather the kids, pile in the car, and see God’s people face to face.
27/10/2022 • 10 minutes 19 seconds
How Can God Forget My Sins? What We Remember at the Table
Jon Bloom | When we take the Lord’s Supper, we hear God the Father say, “Because my Son has shed his blood for the forgiveness of your sins, I will remember your sins no more.”
25/10/2022 • 10 minutes 38 seconds
Living Among Majesties: The Grandeur of the People of God
Joe Rigney | “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” The Bible sees a majesty in believers that believers themselves often miss.
23/10/2022 • 8 minutes 1 second
King Over Kin: The Warm Danger of Earthly Loves
Greg Morse | If your wife or husband or child or parent left the faith and tried to pull you away with him or her, would you?
20/10/2022 • 14 minutes 9 seconds
The Inner Man of Pastors: Six Glimpses into God’s Design
David Mathis | The apostle’s charge to a team of local elders in Acts 20 gives us six glimpses into the mature masculine soul and its particular fitness for Christ’s pastoral calling.
16/10/2022 • 16 minutes 38 seconds
You Will Be Breathtaking: Why God Clothes Us in Glory
Marshall Segal | The glory due to God alone is not kept by God alone. Amazingly, God not only frees sinners to enjoy his glory, but he also gladly glorifies them.
13/10/2022 • 11 minutes 36 seconds
Shades of Grace: Catholics and Protestants in Conversation
Greg Morse | Both Catholics and Protestants may love words like justification, righteousness, and grace, but the realities they see in those words expose two very different religions.
11/10/2022 • 17 minutes 35 seconds
To the Uttermost: How Jesus Keeps Us Day by Day
Scott Hubbard | Three words are enough to silence the objections, calm the fears, and resurrect the hopes of Christ’s believing people: to the uttermost.
09/10/2022 • 12 minutes 2 seconds
Not by Head Alone: The Warm Heart of Justification
David Mathis | The beloved Reformed slogan of “faith alone” does not make good works optional in the Christian life. Nor does it mean that saving faith involves the intellect alone and not also the heart.
06/10/2022 • 13 minutes 41 seconds
The Beautiful Roots of Courageous Submission
Joe Rigney | God describes feminine courage very differently from how the world does. So what makes a godly woman brave, and how might that change her marriage?
03/10/2022 • 9 minutes 21 seconds
Give Me More of God: Why Spiritual Intimacy Can Feel Elusive
Jon Bloom | The path to intimacy with God can sound so simple, yet those who follow this path often find intimacy with God more elusive than they expected.
02/10/2022 • 12 minutes 14 seconds
What Is the Lord’s Supper?
David Mathis | This is a family meal ordained by Jesus Christ himself, meant to be enjoyed by his gathered church, in order to remember him and nourish our souls.
29/09/2022 • 9 minutes 32 seconds
The Hands That Made the Meal: What the Supper Says About Ordinary Work
Marshall Segal | When Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup, he blessed the ordinary work of ordinary hands like ours.
26/09/2022 • 10 minutes 7 seconds
Doubt: A Personal History
Scott Hubbard | One of the more disorienting parts of facing doubt is that so few talk about their own struggles with doubt. Part of overcoming temptation is realizing you’re not alone.
25/09/2022 • 16 minutes 27 seconds
My Flesh Is True Food: The Meaning of an Offensive Image
Jon Bloom | “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Few words of Jesus have been more misunderstood and misapplied.
19/09/2022 • 10 minutes 55 seconds
Humbled, Whole, and Honorable: What to Look for in a Pastor
David Mathis | As our lists grow longer of what to beware in a leader, do we have any corresponding clarity on what to pursue?
18/09/2022 • 13 minutes 15 seconds
How to Squander Your Spiritual Gifts
Marshall Segal | Are you wasting your God-given abilities? God builds the church through ordinary, everyday members taking the capacities he has given and gladly using them for the good of someone else.
15/09/2022 • 11 minutes 21 seconds
Better to Have a Burden
Scott Hubbard | Don’t assume that the burdens you’re bearing in this season are somewhere outside God’s good plans for you. Assume they’re one of God’s plans for you. Because they are.
12/09/2022 • 10 minutes 2 seconds
What Spoils the Lord’s Supper? How Not to Come to the Table
Joe Rigney | In many churches, the Lord’s Supper feels somber, heavy, and introspective. But is that what Jesus intended when he broke the bread and poured the cup?
11/09/2022 • 10 minutes 51 seconds
We Work with You: How Pastors Serve Their People’s Joy
David Mathis | Pastors, remember your people want to be happy. Dignify your people as partners, not just recipients. And embrace ministry that is harder, not easier.
09/09/2022 • 11 minutes 41 seconds
Escape from Every Temptation
Jon Bloom | How does Jesus help us in temptation? He gives us all his promises. He delivers us from the fear of death. He always intercedes for us.
08/09/2022 • 10 minutes 26 seconds
The Dark Side of Equality
Greg Morse | Equality can be a gift and mercy in an unjust world. But when cries for sameness rise up against God-established authority, we see equality’s dark side.
05/09/2022 • 11 minutes 41 seconds
The Messy Home of Blessing: Why Children Are Worth the Chaos
Marshall Segal | Does parenting feel trivial? Does it feel unrewarding? Does it feel futile? Let God remind you of the giant blessings buried in the chaos.
04/09/2022 • 10 minutes 20 seconds
Why Bread and Wine? Enjoying the Meal Above All Meals
Scott Hubbard | If you want to taste more of Jesus’s love in the Lord’s Supper, take a closer look at the meaning of the bread and the wine.
01/09/2022 • 10 minutes 47 seconds
Be Comforted in Your Smallness
Joe Rigney | Does one of your callings in life feel overwhelming? Let C.S. Lewis help you take comfort in your smallness.
31/08/2022 • 9 minutes 23 seconds
Breakfast of Pastors: How God Feeds and Keeps Spiritual Leaders
David Mathis | How do you find your legs for life and leadership each day? God has given us a golden, well-worn, surprisingly ancient path for daily stability, clarity, and strength.
28/08/2022 • 11 minutes 1 second
A Little Theology of Dinosaurs
Scott Hubbard | If dinosaurs could preach, what might they say? Trust the God of wisdom. Fear the God of power. Praise the God of wonders.
25/08/2022 • 10 minutes 33 seconds
O Beard, Where Art Thou?
Greg Morse | Beards are no prerequisite for godly manhood. In days like ours, though, they can be a symbol for it.
22/08/2022 • 11 minutes 13 seconds
The Spiritual Gift of a Closed Door: How Waiting Serves Ministry
Marshall Segal | Why might God give a man an ambition to lead, and the character to lead, and yet withhold certain opportunities to lead? Because unwanted waiting can be some of the best preparation for ministry.
21/08/2022 • 9 minutes 55 seconds
Other Billy Graham ‘Rules’? The Modesto Proposal
David Mathis | The infamous “Billy Graham Rule” is not actually a rule, but a resolution — and just one of four that the evangelist made in 1948.
19/08/2022 • 11 minutes 40 seconds
What Does Disunity Say? Three Common Types of Division
Jon Bloom | Not all divisions are created equal in the church. Some arise from the flesh. Some enter through differences in maturity. Others are necessary to distinguish the false from the real.
17/08/2022 • 11 minutes 57 seconds
Our Gentle and Terrifying God: How Justice Holds Out Mercy
Marshall Segal | We will not feel the full weight of God’s mercy toward us if we downplay or ignore the fury of his justice.
15/08/2022 • 0
Martyr or Madman? The Unnerving Faith of Ignatius
Greg Morse | What person would not only submit to martyrdom, but would embrace it, relish it, and even eagerly long for it? Ignatius of Antioch.
14/08/2022 • 10 minutes 9 seconds
The Lost Awe of Majesty: Why I Love an Overlooked Attribute
David Mathis | Our God is not only great, but good. Not only big, but beautiful. Not only strong, but stunning. He is, in a word, majestic.
11/08/2022 • 13 minutes 21 seconds
Slow to Anger: The Beauty of God’s Perfect Patience
Scott Hubbard | The patience of God is not like our shallow, short-lived patience. It is deep and long, wide and high. And in the perfection of his patience, we find great hope.
08/08/2022 • 12 minutes 32 seconds
Put Your Anger to Bed: Five Lessons for Young Couples
Marshall Segal | Feeling angry over a spouse’s sin may not be wrong. But staying angry is.
07/08/2022 • 11 minutes 20 seconds
Are You Not Provoked? The Jealousy of Godly Men
Greg Morse | Too many men sit around and watch the world burn without stepping up to tell someone about Jesus.
04/08/2022 • 11 minutes 32 seconds
Everything in God Is God: How to Think About His Attributes
Joe Rigney | How might we think in an orderly way about God’s attributes? Here’s often overlooked help from Jonathan Edwards.
01/08/2022 • 13 minutes 43 seconds
A Rest Sweeter Than Sleep: Nighttime Prayer for a Troubled Conscience
Scott Hubbard | Even the most faithful Christians end some days deeply wishing we had walked more worthy of our God. How do we find rest when our conscience keeps us awake?
31/07/2022 • 0
Calm Under Pressure: Recovering the Grace of Equanimity
David Mathis | Our families, churches, and communities need leaders who have learned to keep their heads when others are losing theirs.
30/07/2022 • 0
You Still Need Good Friends
Marshall Segal | Few realities in human life are as captivating, fulfilling, and elusive as friendship.
29/07/2022 • 0
Do Infant Baptisms Count? Reconsidering Open Membership
Joe Rigney | If a Christian wants to join your baptist church but they tell you that they were baptized as a child, what do you do?
27/07/2022 • 0
Where Do We Find Unity Now? The Surprising Path to Real Peace
David Mathis | Many today may feel afresh that true unity is rare and precious. But do we know from where that kind of unity comes?
24/07/2022 • 10 minutes 50 seconds
The Progressive Pilgrim: Allegory for an Easy Age
Greg Morse | The world, the devil, and your flesh will tell you there is surely an easier way to heaven than the narrow way, a more comfortable burden than the cross, and a more reasonable spirituality than self-denial requires.
22/07/2022 • 13 minutes 56 seconds
We Need More Holy Fools: How God Awakened Me to Eternity
Scott Hubbard | This world needs more people willing to look foolish in the eyes of the world so that more in the world might be saved.
21/07/2022 • 11 minutes 16 seconds
Some Conflict Is Healthy: How Division Can Serve Churches
Marshall Segal | Sometimes God allows conflict in a church so that the body might finally heal and be whole again.
18/07/2022 • 11 minutes 9 seconds
Tenacious Grace: How We Become and Stay One
Jon Bloom | As Christians, we can build unity, protect unity, and maintain unity because Christ has already made us one.
17/07/2022 • 10 minutes 47 seconds
Chapter-and-Verse Protestants: The Reformation Legacy of Little Berea
David Mathis | Faithful confessions, creeds, and commentaries provide crucial insights into Scripture. And they never replace the words of God.
15/07/2022 • 10 minutes 57 seconds
The Prudence Bucket: Applying the Bible to Gray Areas
Joe Rigney | Many of the most difficult decisions churches face are ones the Bible does not clearly address. This means pastors have to regularly practice humble, Bible-saturated prudence.
14/07/2022 • 9 minutes 20 seconds
If Your Brother Sins Against You: How to Forgive and Let Go
Greg Morse | When we are the victim of another’s sin, we are often in danger of becoming a culprit in how we respond.
13/07/2022 • 10 minutes 50 seconds
Triage in the Trenches: When Do Second-Tier Issues Divide?
Joe Rigney | If sexuality and baptism are both second-tier issues, why is the former often more divisive in the wider church today?
10/07/2022 • 16 minutes 4 seconds
Of Mountains and Molehills: How Much Should Doctrine Divide Us?
Scott Hubbard | All biblical doctrine is important, but not all biblical doctrine is equally important. So how do we discern which doctrines should divide us?
08/07/2022 • 13 minutes 14 seconds
Why Is Christian Unity So Hard?
Jon Bloom | Unity is often harder in our relationships and churches because we assume it should be easy.
06/07/2022 • 10 minutes 21 seconds
Jellyfish Christians: The Costs of Thin Christianity
Greg Morse | The deepest, fullest, most vibrant unity is found in embracing, not a few favorite verses, but everything God has said in his word.
05/07/2022 • 12 minutes 13 seconds
American Prodigal: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Alexander Hamilton
David Mathis | As the United States celebrates 246 years of independence, and Americans newly remember the ten-dollar founding father, what lessons might we learn from the rise, fall, and redemption of a prodigal son?
04/07/2022 • 21 minutes 34 seconds
The Quiet and Crucial Work of Deacons
Marshall Segal | Deacons are not only handy, administrative, or good at meeting needs. They are also holy, humble, and unusually sacrificial. Deacons are spiritual giants who bow low.
03/07/2022 • 0
‘In Faithfulness You Have Afflicted Me’
Jon Bloom | In his faithfulness, God promises not only that he will deliver us from affliction, but that we will do something good through the affliction.
29/06/2022 • 12 minutes 31 seconds
A Wife No Man Would Want: Lessons from the Hardest Marriage
Marshall Segal | The moments when marriage feels most challenging are often the moments with the most potential to say something profound about Jesus.
27/06/2022 • 11 minutes 38 seconds
Harry Potter Turns 25: What I Saw While Reading to My Sons
David Mathis | Today marks 25 years since the first Harry Potter book released. What Christian lessons might we take away from the bestselling series?
26/06/2022 • 10 minutes 37 seconds
Casual Church: What Happened to Christian Reverence?
Greg Morse | Where reverence withers, worship suffers.
23/06/2022 • 12 minutes 30 seconds
Immersed into Mission: Why Jesus Commands Us to Baptize
Joe Rigney | Being baptized into the church means being immersed in its mission. The old has passed and a new life now begins.
21/06/2022 • 7 minutes 18 seconds
God Makes War with Words: Why Teaching Will Win the World
Scott Hubbard | Satan knows the power of words — he’s been undoing souls with them from the beginning. And wherever Christ is faithfully taught, the devil is undone by them.
17/06/2022 • 8 minutes 58 seconds
Some Answered Prayers Hurt: The Hidden and Faithful Love of God
Jon Bloom | If God’s answer to your prayers hurts, don’t assume he doesn’t love you. Assume his love is working something good you cannot now see.
16/06/2022 • 9 minutes 48 seconds
Do Not Fear to Leave This World
Greg Morse | Want to measure your growth in grace? Consider how deeply you long for heaven.
15/06/2022 • 9 minutes 42 seconds
Find a Storm to Stir You
Marshall Segal | The friends we need will not always be the friends we want. They’ll often be the brotherly storm that wakes us back up to God.
12/06/2022 • 9 minutes 45 seconds
Do Unto Authors: Four Principles for Reading Well
Joe Rigney | The best readers gladly observe the Golden Rule: they read others as they would want to be read.
10/06/2022 • 12 minutes 58 seconds
Your Darkness Is Not Dark to Him
Jon Bloom | The hardest part of many trials is how far away God can feel. But he’s not far at all, and if we trust him, he will, in time, flood our dark nights with light.
08/06/2022 • 13 minutes 4 seconds
Because They Are No More
Greg Morse | If a pitiless culture will not mourn for the missing, she will.
06/06/2022 • 8 minutes 37 seconds
Jesus Shall Reign: The Remarkable Story of the First Missionary Hymn
Scott Hubbard | On Pentecost 1862, some five thousand men and women, many of them former cannibals, gathered in the South Pacific to sing the hymn “Jesus Shall Reign.”
05/06/2022 • 9 minutes 1 second
Your Home Is a Hallway Out of Hell
Marshall Segal | Those who have been invited into heaven become people who love to open their front doors. They know that ordinary hospitality is often how the lost are found.
03/06/2022 • 8 minutes 36 seconds
How Did Jesus ‘Make Disciples’?
David Mathis | He didn’t just give the Great Commission; he lived the Great Commission. What might we learn from Jesus’s own life about what it means to “make disciples”?
02/06/2022 • 12 minutes 11 seconds
How to Watch for Wolves: Three Signs of False Teachers
Jon Bloom | False teachers may look like sheep, talk like sheep, and even act like sheep for a time. But eventually, they will show themselves to be the wolves they are.
31/05/2022 • 14 minutes 29 seconds
Seeing Is Not Believing: Why We Miss God in Daily Life
Greg Morse | Some imagine they would believe in God if he would simply write his message in the clouds. But what if he actually did?
29/05/2022 • 11 minutes 32 seconds
Do Not Despise the Day of Small Groups: Four Marks of Daring Community
Scott Hubbard | Small groups may feel unremarkable, but again and again, God has struck revival with small matches. Here are four marks of the small but daring community.
28/05/2022 • 0
The Psalms Know What You Feel
Marshall Segal | No matter what situation you’re in, the psalms know what you feel. And the psalms can help you feel as you ought.
23/05/2022 • 7 minutes 45 seconds
The Happiest Family of All: How Father and Son Glorify Each Other
David Mathis | An astounding and holy contest runs through the pages of Scripture, as the Father and Son seek to “outdo one another in showing honor.”
22/05/2022 • 0
Submit Your Felt Reality to God
Joe Rigney | Our own sense of reality is not the same as reality itself. And simply recognizing that distinction can be the first step toward aligning our thoughts and emotions with God’s word.
19/05/2022 • 9 minutes 5 seconds
Face Your Fear of Man: How Christ Delivers from Human Approval
Greg Morse | Jesus could love people like he did because he did not fear them like we do.
16/05/2022 • 11 minutes 1 second
The Beast I Become: How to Bring Bitterness to God
Scott Hubbard | Sometimes, God seems to be answering a longtime prayer or fulfilling a deep desire — until it all crumbles before our face. How do we receive such painful turns from the hand of God?
15/05/2022 • 11 minutes 11 seconds
The Pillar in the Pews: How the Church Upholds the Truth
Marshall Segal | What makes the church a pillar and buttress of the truth? She holds up and lives out what God has said — whatever God has said, however he has said it, whatever it means for us.
13/05/2022 • 11 minutes 30 seconds
Midlife Clarity: Five Proverbs for Men in Crisis
David Mathis | A midlife crisis, disorienting as it may be, is not only a trial to be endured, but an opportunity for Christian maturity. New cracks in our soul may allow our theology to sink deeper than ever before.
11/05/2022 • 13 minutes 27 seconds
A Most Harmful Medicine: How Subjectivism Poisons a Society
Joe Rigney | The surest way to give the world over to evil is to begin to deny such evil exists. And this is exactly what we have begun doing.
09/05/2022 • 10 minutes 37 seconds
When My Mother Became Annie’s Mom: A Tribute to a Woman’s Great Love
Jon Bloom | “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” For Mother’s Day, Jon Bloom obeys this verse and honors his mother’s beautiful love for the least of these.
08/05/2022 • 11 minutes 20 seconds
Stuck Between the World and God: How I Almost Died in Indecision
Greg Morse | God is not honored by mere checked boxes. He’s honored by a life that says he can be trusted, obeyed, and treasured above all else.
06/05/2022 • 10 minutes 10 seconds
The Word of God Is Worth the Work
Scott Hubbard | If you want more joy, more warmth, more life from your devotions, don’t bypass the hard, necessary work of thinking.
05/05/2022 • 10 minutes 17 seconds
We Stand for Truth Himself
David Mathis | Christians stand for truth, but not in the way the world might. Truth, for us, is unavoidably and irreducibly personal.
02/05/2022 • 11 minutes 45 seconds
You Have Put More Joy in My Heart
Marshall Segal | The joy God gives is not a fragile joy, ready to vanish in painful circumstances. It is strong enough to sustain fragile people through them.
01/05/2022 • 8 minutes 41 seconds
How to Entertain the Holy Spirit
Scott Hubbard | How do we show hospitality to the Holy Spirit? We hear his voice, heed his motions, hate his enemies, and receive his grace.
27/04/2022 • 0
Me, Myself, and Lies: The Spiritual Dangers of Isolation
Marshall Segal | One of Satan’s favorite strategies is isolation, and smartphones and social media have made his work that much easier.
26/04/2022 • 11 minutes 47 seconds
Invisible and Unmistakable: How Scripture Pictures the Holy Spirit
Joe Rigney | If you want to understand the Holy Spirit better, you can begin by grasping the images of the Spirit given in Scripture: wind and breath, spirit and river, oil and bird.
21/04/2022 • 9 minutes 8 seconds
All-Sufficient, All-Satisfying: What Saving Faith Sees in Christ
John Piper | How does saving faith honor Christ? By seeing him as not only all-sufficient, but all-satisfying. Not only efficacious, but glorious. Not only trustworthy, but a treasure.
20/04/2022 • 15 minutes 23 seconds
The Love in His Grief: How the Spirit Responds to Our Sin
Greg Morse | The Spirit can be grieved with us. But if we are in Christ, the Spirit will never leave us.
18/04/2022 • 9 minutes 57 seconds
The Son Must Rise: What Made Easter Inevitable
David Mathis | Jesus did not merely rise from the dead — he had to rise from the dead. His resurrection was not optional. Do you know why?
17/04/2022 • 11 minutes 5 seconds
Behold the Man Upon the Cross
Jon Bloom | Why do Christians call this Friday, of all Fridays, good? Because we would have no good apart from the horrors of the cross.
15/04/2022 • 10 minutes 33 seconds
When the Dawn Seems to Die: How Jesus Keeps Us from Falling Away
Scott Hubbard | When hope flees, and faith feels weak, and the dawn seems to die, what will keep us from falling away? Jesus prays for us.
14/04/2022 • 8 minutes 59 seconds
I Have No Good Apart from You: Prayer of the Satisfied Heart
Joe Rigney | Many of us struggle to experience contentment because we look for it in the wrong places. The satisfied heart prays, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
11/04/2022 • 7 minutes 21 seconds
The Best Sermon for Marriage: Seven Lessons for Lasting Love
Marshall Segal | The best marriages take their cues not only from the romance of the Song of Solomon, but from the daily, unspectacular faithfulness of the Sermon on the Mount.
10/04/2022 • 18 minutes 56 seconds
What God Can Do in One Conversation: Recovering the Power of Personal Evangelism
Greg Morse | In all the emphases on slow, patient, relational evangelism, have we forgotten just how much God can do in a single conversation?
09/04/2022 • 12 minutes 16 seconds
Did Jesus Need the Spirit? Pondering the Power of the God-Man
David Mathis | Jesus’s miracles certainly show that he is God — but the New Testament’s answer as to how he performed those miracles is not quite as simple.
08/04/2022 • 13 minutes 57 seconds
Our God-Sized Ordinary: Six Ways to See the Holy Spirit
Marshall Segal | If you belong to Christ, God has flooded every familiar and unremarkable corner of your life with his Spirit.
04/04/2022 • 12 minutes 1 second
Roses Grow on Briers: Unsentimental Love in a Sentimental World
David Mathis | When you think about the love of God, how much has your imagination been shaped by the sentimental age in which you live?
03/04/2022 • 11 minutes 48 seconds
Sympathy Without Distress: The Exalted Compassion of Christ
Greg Morse | The risen Jesus remembers us, loves us, intercedes for us — and not in a way that diminishes his heavenly joy. That is really good news.
02/04/2022 • 13 minutes 50 seconds
The Joy of God in Us: Why the Spirit Produces Happiness
Jon Bloom | Why is the Holy Spirit so often connected to joy in Scripture? Because he is the Joy at the center of reality.
01/04/2022 • 11 minutes 30 seconds
How to Pray Like Jabez
David Mathis | Twenty years ago, ‘The Prayer of Jabez’ became one of the bestselling Christian books of all time. What made it so popular, and how might we learn from Jabez today, without throwing away Scripture?
30/03/2022 • 18 minutes 17 seconds
The Prayer to End All Prayers
Marshall Segal | In the world to come, we will have nothing to fear, nothing to mourn, nothing to endure, nothing to confess. Can you imagine?
27/03/2022 • 11 minutes 30 seconds
Some Kindness Stings: Why Love Uses Hard Words
Jon Bloom | The most loving people do not delight in wounding others, but they are willing to, for the sake of real healing. They know that soft words can sometimes be cruel, and hard words kind.
25/03/2022 • 11 minutes 52 seconds
The Subtle Way to Waste Your Life: Confessions of a Sophisticated Sloth
Greg Morse | Life is rarely wasted all at once, but rather through thousands of small, seemingly insignificant moments.
24/03/2022 • 11 minutes 30 seconds
Kneeling Among Lions: Learning to Pray Like Daniel
Joe Rigney | Before Daniel courageously survived the lions’ den, he courageously knelt before his God. What can we learn from his brave prayer?
20/03/2022 • 11 minutes 56 seconds
Live Closer to Home: How Proximity Shapes Responsibility
Scott Hubbard | The best place to live today is the place you already are. And the best people to give your attention to are those already near you.
18/03/2022 • 11 minutes 33 seconds
After Two Whole Years: Have We Humbled Ourselves Yet?
David Mathis | The question isn’t whether God’s humbling hand descended over these last two years, but have we acknowledged it, and humbled ourselves before him?
15/03/2022 • 11 minutes 54 seconds
The Strange Sounds of Praise: A Sufferer’s Introduction to the Psalms
Jon Bloom | Why do we love the psalms? In part because we know, deep down, that real worship sometimes means weeping.
14/03/2022 • 10 minutes 55 seconds
Lord, Let Me Die: Mercy for Those Tired of Living
Greg Morse | Some walk through the valley of the shadow of death and long to just lie down. How does God respond to those who pray for life to end?
13/03/2022 • 14 minutes 33 seconds
The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Questioning How We Frame Reality
Joe Rigney | Are you ever perplexed that two people can experience the same event and come to very different conclusions about what happened?
12/03/2022 • 9 minutes 46 seconds
Did We Kiss Purity Goodbye?
Marshall Segal | The pursuit of sexual purity always goes awry when we try to enforce the laws of God without extending the heart of God.
11/03/2022 • 15 minutes 41 seconds
The Power of a Praying Mother
Scott Hubbard | Many of the greatest victories and advances God has worked in history have been answers to a mother’s persistent prayers.
09/03/2022 • 10 minutes 23 seconds
As for Me and My House: The Delightful Duty of Family Religion
Greg Morse | God doesn’t want worship to be a tiny corner of family life. He wants worship to touch every room, closet, and hallway.
07/03/2022 • 9 minutes 13 seconds
Talking Back to God: How His Promises Provoke Our Prayers
David Mathis | God means for prayer to be more dynamic and relational than an employee petitioning his boss for a raise, or a slave requesting some provision from his master.
06/03/2022 • 14 minutes 19 seconds
The Safest Man for Women: A Guide Toward Sexual Purity
Marshall Segal | How Christian men treat sex, whether married or not, sheds light on Christ for all to see, or obscures and slanders him.
04/03/2022 • 14 minutes 35 seconds
Will I Trust God? Simple Prayer in a Desperate Moment
Jon Bloom | The power of a man who believed, in the face of the humanly impossible, has had a ripple effect that will touch every soul in heaven. Will you, like him, trust God?
03/03/2022 • 11 minutes 19 seconds
Pastors Are Only Matchmakers: The Humble Heart of Faithful Ministry
Scott Hubbard | In their heart of hearts, all Christians ask their pastors, “Would you show me Jesus?” And in their heart of hearts, all faithful pastors say, “Gladly.”
02/03/2022 • 10 minutes 24 seconds
The Blissful and Trivial Life: How Entertainment Deprives a Soul
Marshall Segal | What, if any, of your entertainment might need to be curbed or redirected for the sake of your soul?
27/02/2022 • 11 minutes 55 seconds
What Does a Faith Crisis Feel Like?
Jon Bloom | For some Christians, common doubts build up over time to produce a serious faith crisis. How can we care for those who feel lost in the storm?
25/02/2022 • 13 minutes 28 seconds
The Contagion of Cowardice
Greg Morse | God requires a lot of men in the church. The enemies are real, and the risks are great. Will we trust God enough to lay aside our fears?
22/02/2022 • 14 minutes 6 seconds
Am I Real? A Basic Guide to Christian Assurance
Scott Hubbard | How can you know your faith is real? The enemies of Christian assurance are great. But for all who are in Christ, the God of assurance is greater.
20/02/2022 • 16 minutes 42 seconds
The Sin-Defying Power of Words
David Mathis | Temptation thrives, and grows, when unacknowledged and unaddressed. But with the help of the Spirit, and through the power of words, we can say “No!” and drive it away with God’s better promises.
18/02/2022 • 14 minutes 15 seconds
Walk the War Before You: What It Means to Live by the Spirit
Joe Rigney | If the Spirit lives in you, you do not need to give in to sinful desires anymore. You will not be perfect, but you can be increasingly free.
17/02/2022 • 9 minutes 55 seconds
What Does ‘Deconstruction’ Even Mean?
Jon Bloom | What some voices today mean by “deconstruction” is not what the word has meant — and it’s not what it means for all. So what does it mean?
15/02/2022 • 16 minutes 59 seconds
Sons of Lionhearted Saints: Recovering Our Lost Lineage
Greg Morse | The pages of Scripture are filled with the stories of brothers and sisters meant to stir up your heart and keep you following Jesus.
13/02/2022 • 9 minutes 14 seconds
Leave Your Imperfections with God: How Remaining Sin Inspires Holiness
Marshall Segal | The strength to endure imperfection comes from treasuring the one who died for our imperfection.
10/02/2022 • 11 minutes 58 seconds
We Wish to See Jesus
David Mathis | “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” would be a happy refrain to echo at all key junctures of the everyday Christian life.
09/02/2022 • 12 minutes 3 seconds
Lord, Deliver Me from Me: A Daily Prayer Against Unbelief
Joe Rigney | When doubts assail and fears prevail, run to your Father in prayer: “Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in you.”
07/02/2022 • 8 minutes 43 seconds
The Light We Need to See: How Christ Dispels Spiritual Darkness
Jon Bloom | The Light of the World shows us the way we should go, reveals what’s true about our spiritual surroundings, and gives us spiritual life.
06/02/2022 • 10 minutes 46 seconds
Let Tragedy Find Us Living
Greg Morse | The story of Job reminds us that our world can be undone in an afternoon. Have you prepared your soul for the worst that may come?
04/02/2022 • 12 minutes 2 seconds
Patience Will Be Painful: How to Love the Hard-to-Love
Marshall Segal | Patience won’t look the same in every relationship, and it will be especially painful at times, but God still means for patience to color and enrich how we love.
02/02/2022 • 12 minutes
Can I Be Holy Without Happiness?
David Mathis | True holiness in the world begins with true happiness in God. And anyone truly happy in him will, inevitably and increasingly, become like him.
01/02/2022 • 12 minutes 15 seconds
In Love with the Life You Don’t Have
Greg Morse | Discontentment comes subtly, easily, naturally. Contentment comes slowly, deeply, supernaturally.
30/01/2022 • 8 minutes 44 seconds
Holy Distractions: When God Interrupts Our Productivity
Jon Bloom | Distractions take us away from more important work. Interruptions can be fresh callings from God. How do we tell the difference?
27/01/2022 • 10 minutes 25 seconds
‘Your Will Be Done’: The Glory of Christ’s Human Choices
David Mathis | As man, Jesus had a mind like us, emotions like us, and made decisions like us. Which makes his choice to embrace the divine will, and the cross, all the more glorious.
23/01/2022 • 11 minutes 55 seconds
Life at the End of Roe: Recovering the Sanity and Wonder of Wanted Pregnancy
Marshall Segal | Wherever the Dobbs case leads, and however long Roe stands, our country desperately needs to recover the sanity and wonder of wanted pregnancy.
22/01/2022 • 14 minutes 20 seconds
The Deepest Part of You: How Feelings Relate to Choices
Joe Rigney | How much do our feelings reveal who we are? What might we learn from a seeming disagreement between John Piper and C.S. Lewis.
20/01/2022 • 12 minutes 30 seconds
The Other Side of the Race Debate: Four Ways to Disagree Christianly
Scott Hubbard | Improving our conversations will not heal all our divisions, but it may soften prejudices, nurture understanding, and lead us toward a less fragile unity.
17/01/2022 • 0
Parable of an Unhealthy Soul: Why ‘Faith’ Dies Without Action
Jon Bloom | If the continual and costly effort of holiness feels like the enemy of our faith in Jesus, then it may not be Jesus we’re following.
16/01/2022 • 11 minutes 51 seconds
Why I Read Aloud to My Children
David Mathis | If you’re looking for a way to gather the kids, turn off the screens, and enjoy God’s gifts together, consider developing the age-old practice of reading aloud.
14/01/2022 • 11 minutes 53 seconds
The Difficult Habit of Quiet
Marshall Segal | As hard as quiet might be to come by in this age, it’s still a life-saving, soul-strengthening habit for the human soul.
13/01/2022 • 10 minutes 3 seconds
Desperate for Distraction: Why We’re Bad at Being Alone
Greg Morse | For many, “quiet time” is anything but quiet. Distractions, diversions, and notifications fill the room. How can we learn to get alone with God in our brave, new world of distractions?
09/01/2022 • 10 minutes 32 seconds
Trials Prove True Joy: What Jesus Says About Happiness
Joe Rigney | Joy is not always a sign of spiritual vitality and strength. Some joy wears away quickly and easily, while other joy endures, even through difficult days.
08/01/2022 • 11 minutes 9 seconds
Who Really Has Your Ear? The Re-Forming Power of Words
David Mathis | Anytime we listen to others — on TV, on YouTube, on a podcast — we let their voices shape and direct us. Whose voices will shape and direct you this year?
06/01/2022 • 12 minutes 30 seconds
A Father’s Good Pleasure
Jon Bloom | A father has the distinct and rare gift of giving good gifts to his children because God loves to give good gifts to his.
05/01/2022 • 8 minutes 41 seconds
Endangered Attention: How to Guard a Precious Gift
Scott Hubbard | If you’ve not thought much about how you spend your attention, you’re likely spending it poorly. Here are four lessons for stewarding your attention in a new year.
04/01/2022 • 11 minutes 57 seconds
Repentance for a New Year
Greg Morse | When you hear God’s summons to repent, do you hear an invitation to misery, or a doorway to joy?
02/01/2022 • 10 minutes 57 seconds
A New Year Worthy of God
Marshall Segal | Before you start a reading plan, or choose a diet, or buy a journal, or step on a treadmill, find a why worth changing for.
01/01/2022 • 9 minutes 20 seconds
The Most Wonderful Books on Earth: Gospel Reading for a New Year
Scott Hubbard | Whatever your goals are for Bible reading next year, resolve, God helping you, to catch as much of Jesus as you can.
30/12/2021 • 10 minutes 25 seconds
More of Jesus: ‘Maximalist Christianity’ for a New Year
David Mathis | Christ can handle our down seasons, but he doesn’t call us to settle for scraping by year after year. He invites us to more.
28/12/2021 • 11 minutes 55 seconds
Confessions of a Former People-Pleaser
Marshall Segal | Whoever we are, we live to please either people or God. And if we think it’s possible to serve both, we likely live to please the former, not the latter.
27/12/2021 • 11 minutes 7 seconds
The Good War Against Moods: How Stubborn Faith Overcomes Feelings
Joe Rigney | Saving faith is a stubborn thing. It holds onto Christ even when our emotions and moods bid us to let go.
26/12/2021 • 9 minutes 44 seconds
The Most Stubborn Day of the Year: Why the World Stops for Christmas
David Mathis | Two thousand years later, no single day marks as many calendars, determines as many schedules, pauses as many businesses, and draws together friends and families like Christmas.
25/12/2021 • 12 minutes 53 seconds
He Is, He Was, He Will Be: Adoring the Alpha and Omega
Jon Bloom | Who is this baby born in Bethlehem? He is Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He is the great I Am.
24/12/2021 • 12 minutes 8 seconds
Christmas with an Empty Chair: When the Holiday Just Isn’t the Same
Greg Morse | We need not hide or suppress the pain of loss at Christmas. God means for the pain to deepen our joy and hope in him.
23/12/2021 • 10 minutes 4 seconds
The Wedding at the End of Marriage
Marshall Segal | Marriage doesn’t exist just to remedy the loneliness of singleness; marriage exists to tell us that we need Jesus.
19/12/2021 • 9 minutes 26 seconds
Our Tongues (and Fingers) of Fire: What Words Reveal About Us
Jon Bloom | Some wear their hearts on their sleeve — but we all wear our hearts in our words. If you want to know the condition of your own heart, listen carefully to what you say.
16/12/2021 • 10 minutes 24 seconds
Worthless Conversation: How God Weighs Our Words
Greg Morse | Few thoughts should make us slower to speak than this one: on judgment day, every word we speak will stand before the throne of God.
13/12/2021 • 10 minutes 13 seconds
A Son Worthy to Be King
Scott Hubbard | Many expected the coming Christ to be the Son of David. No one expected that he also would be David’s Lord.
12/12/2021 • 8 minutes 46 seconds
The Perils of a Passive Man
Marshall Segal | Sin in men can open the door to passivity — and passivity opens the door to more sin.
09/12/2021 • 14 minutes 21 seconds
Who Wrote Hebrews? Exploring a New Testament Mystery
David Mathis | Of the New Testament’s 27 books, we know who the author was for 26 of them. What can we say about the unnamed, unknown author of Hebrews?
06/12/2021 • 19 minutes 57 seconds
More Shocking Than Christ: Why We Call Jesus Lord
Joe Rigney | When the New Testament writers call Jesus “Lord,” they often mean much more than “ruler” or “king.” They mean Yahweh himself.
05/12/2021 • 7 minutes 18 seconds
Someone Is Listening to Your Suffering
Scott Hubbard | Why can Christians always sing, even in the hardest days? Because our God always reigns, because our God will deliver, and because someone is listening.
03/12/2021 • 10 minutes 45 seconds
Labor to Give (or Take) No Offense
Jon Bloom | The world and the church have been deeply fractured by controversies of various kinds, which makes now as good a time as ever to stand apart by our love for one another.
02/12/2021 • 10 minutes 52 seconds
Indescribable: The Many and Marvelous Names of Jesus
Greg Morse | Why so many names for Jesus? Because God wanted us to know that we will always have more to see and love in him.
28/11/2021 • 10 minutes 52 seconds
We Were Made for Thanksgiving: A Father’s Gratitude for a National Holiday
David Mathis | God made us to honor him — and few realities tap so deeply into our purpose and joy as humans as giving him thanks.
25/11/2021 • 9 minutes 21 seconds
Men of Faith Are Men Who Fight
Marshall Segal | To fight the fight of faith means not only that you keep trusting Jesus, but that you do so even as others walk away.
24/11/2021 • 11 minutes 16 seconds
Give Thanks and Give More: A Guide to Joyful Generosity
Joe Rigney | Generosity isn’t first about giving more, but about receiving better. If you want to be a more generous giver, ask God to make you a more grateful receiver.
23/11/2021 • 7 minutes 21 seconds
There Is a Name: Our Exclusive and Precious Christ
Scott Hubbard | While so many get offended that Jesus claims to have the only name that saves, Christians stop and wonder that there’s any name at all.
21/11/2021 • 9 minutes 21 seconds
When Darkness Veils His Lovely Face
Jon Bloom | We store up God’s word in our hearts now, so that when the unthinkable happens and our lives begin to crumble, we still have somewhere safe to stand.
20/11/2021 • 12 minutes 6 seconds
Victory That Lasts: Where to Begin Against Lust
Greg Morse | Many fail to gain victory in sexual purity because they begin with how and not with why.
18/11/2021 • 9 minutes 43 seconds
Do You Insult Your Savior’s Bride? What Jesus Thinks of His Church
David Mathis | In a day when it’s popular to be cynical and broad-brush “the church,” what if we remembered Jesus’s heart for his bride and how he talks about her?
16/11/2021 • 15 minutes 31 seconds
The Hardest Word to Obey
Jon Bloom | Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Could any two commands be simpler and more beautiful, and yet so difficult to practice?
14/11/2021 • 8 minutes 59 seconds
Impatience Is a War for Control: How God Prepares Us to Wait
Marshall Segal | Nothing outside of us makes us impatient, and nothing in us can make us more patient. To wait well, we need a miracle from God.
12/11/2021 • 12 minutes 21 seconds
Take the Hill: How Mission Brings Men Together
Greg Morse | The apostle Paul labored shoulder to shoulder with men in such a way that he could call them “fellow soldiers.” Do we have such men beside us?
11/11/2021 • 11 minutes
Kindness in a World Gone Mad
David Mathis | It’s only human to respond in kind. But Christ calls his church to something more: respond in kindness.
10/11/2021 • 13 minutes 23 seconds
Food Rules: How God Reshapes Our Appetites
Scott Hubbard | Some indulge their appetites, some deny their appetites, and some learn to follow Jesus in directing their appetites.
08/11/2021 • 10 minutes 4 seconds
Courage for Normal Christians
Joe Rigney | Courage is not the character trait of super-Christians; it is the God-empowered gift of every child of God.
07/11/2021 • 12 minutes 48 seconds
What Love Is Not: Four Ways We Avoid the Costs
Marshall Segal | What if we fail to love because we fail to see what love is? God shows us four subtle counterfeits we often seek.
05/11/2021 • 13 minutes 37 seconds
Laziness Ruins Happiness: What Makes Diligence a Virtue
Jon Bloom | Diligence is not just about our self-discipline, our self-esteem, or our self-satisfaction. Diligence is about our joy in God.
04/11/2021 • 9 minutes 24 seconds
Two Truths About the One Percent: How Important Is Corporate Worship?
David Mathis | The Sunday gathering may be the most important hour of the week, but it is also only one in 168. We are the church every hour of every day.
03/11/2021 • 9 minutes 38 seconds
Sin Is Not Who You Are
Greg Morse | If you could see yourself how God sees you in Christ, you would have all you need to overcome any temptation.
02/11/2021 • 9 minutes 13 seconds
The Reformation of English: How Tyndale’s Bible Transformed Our Language
Scott Hubbard | Not only did William Tyndale bring the word of God into English, but he brought English into the form we know and use today.
31/10/2021 • 17 minutes 24 seconds
A Strange and Holy Calm: Holding Our Peace in an Age of Outbursts
David Mathis | If God, by all accounts and remembrances, is indeed slow to anger, how can his people not seek to be like him?
28/10/2021 • 14 minutes 33 seconds
For God So Warned the World: How He Keeps the Ones He Loves
Greg Morse | When you come to a warning in the Bible, do you ignore it because of grace, or do you look for the grace in it?
26/10/2021 • 12 minutes 57 seconds
Disrupt Your Dullness: Rekindling the Flame of Earnestness
Marshall Segal | In our shallow and distracted age, we desperately need friends whose lives pierce through all the worldliness with earnestness.
24/10/2021 • 13 minutes 57 seconds
Live Like You’ll Live Forever
Greg Morse | How might it change us if we really believed that we, and every soul we meet, will live forever?
23/10/2021 • 9 minutes 13 seconds
Bible Memory Brings Reality to Life
Jon Bloom | For many, Bible memory conjures up feelings of futility, fear, and past failure, but Bible memory is about so much more.
22/10/2021 • 11 minutes 48 seconds
You Are and Will Be Justified: The Future Promise of a Finished Work
Scott Hubbard | If you are in Christ, you are and always will be justified. But one day God will unveil that justification for all to see.
21/10/2021 • 12 minutes 18 seconds
A Reason to Be Vaccinated: Freedom
John Piper | The decision to be vaccinated (or not) need not be a political decision, whether left wing or right. It can be a Christian decision — informed by Scripture and free from the fear of man.
19/10/2021 • 16 minutes 21 seconds
Beware the Anger of Your Soul: How to Restrain Ungodly Passion
Joe Rigney | As we feel the temperature of our souls rising, we need to stop and remind ourselves that ungodly anger will only add iniquity to our injury.
17/10/2021 • 11 minutes 6 seconds
Can Anything Mend Our Conflict? How Cynicism Dies in a Divided Church
Jon Bloom | Many of us today need to learn what love means, and looks like, when we’re faced with a difficult, complex issue.
16/10/2021 • 11 minutes 27 seconds
Every Other Way Leads to Death: Why We Keep Sharing Christ
Greg Morse | No matter how many rejections you’ve received, no matter how much fruit hasn’t come, no matter how discouraged you feel, do not grow weary in sharing Christ.
14/10/2021 • 10 minutes 13 seconds
Don’t Miss the Marriage: Why the Justified Love Holiness
Marshall Segal | Justification is the gate, but not the garden. It is the door, but not the palace. It is the wedding day, but not the marriage.
13/10/2021 • 12 minutes 55 seconds
Feed His Sheep: Whom Does Christ Call to Preach?
David Mathis | We cannot well answer the question of whom should preach on Sunday without coming to grips with the nature of preaching in the local church.
10/10/2021 • 13 minutes 4 seconds
Encouragement for Beginners: How to Strengthen a Soul in God
Marshall Segal | How might you strengthen someone’s soul in Christ? How might God use you to stir confidence in him?
07/10/2021 • 13 minutes 17 seconds
Our Lives in His: How Justification Leads to Holiness
Joe Rigney | Does our right standing before God depend on our becoming more like Jesus, or does our becoming more like Jesus flow from our right standing before God?
05/10/2021 • 11 minutes 54 seconds
The Sluggard in Me: Four Lies That Lead to Lazy
Scott Hubbard | A life of laziness usually does not grow overnight, but through day after day of little excuses, trivial indulgences, small defeats.
04/10/2021 • 11 minutes 20 seconds
Feed the Sheep by Any Hand: Fighting Envy in Pastoral Ministry
Greg Morse | The best shepherds know they aren’t the best shepherd. And so they gladly lead their sheep to him.
03/10/2021 • 8 minutes 39 seconds
The Real Protestant Ethic: How ‘Faith Alone’ Sparks Industry
David Mathis | Justification by faith alone marks the end of our work to secure God’s favor — and the beginning of our work to secure others’ good.