Category: PASSION Points

Passion Points

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Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Anselm’s Prayer for Fullness of Joy in God (via Justin Taylor)
I pray, O God, that I may know you and love you,
so that I may rejoice in you.

The Joy of Living in Jesus’s Shadow– Marshall Segai (DG)
What we learn from John the Baptist is that the greatest glories in this life are not in receiving attention or fame, but in funneling it all to Jesus.

Five Steps to Meditating on the Bible – Colin Smith
To meditate, then, is to think deeply about what God has said to us in the Bible and to prepare our minds and hearts for prayer. Scripture is the foundation of our praying; meditation readies us for it by helping us focus, understand, remember, worship, and apply.

The Sunday Worship Killer – Jason Helopoulos
Donning the robes of the critic maims and kills many would-be worshipers in churches every single Sunday morning.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our great God!

Passion Points

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Here are some good posts on Bible reading and study for your weekend reading:

Five Strategies for Daily Bible Reading – Gavin (Soliloquium)

Re-ignite Bible Reading That’s Become Boring – David Murray

Four Prayers for Bible Reading – David Mathis (Desiring God)

4 Tips for Using a Study Bible Well – Justin Taylor

7 Great Study Bibles (Infographic) – Tim Challies

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day studying God’s Word with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Exceptionally Ordinary – Borrowed Light

4 Things to Remember When Reading the Bible – Matt Tully (Crossway)

4 Really Good Money Questions – Tim Challies

Prepare for Corporate Worship – Geoffrey Kirkland

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day prepared to worship our great King!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

3 Helpful Instructions on Keeping a Journal – Tim Challies
…a simple plea to Christians to maintain a journal that records specific instances of God’s compassion and care.

How I Started Praying the Bible– Donald Whitney
I simply spoke to the Lord those things prompted verse-by-verse in my reading of the psalm. If a verse didn’t suggest anything to pray, I would go to the next verse. 

3 Compelling Reasons Why We Must Deal with Our Sinful Anger – Robert Jones (BCC)
Why should we seek to uproot our sinful anger and replace it with godly fruit? In one sense, we must deal with it simply because God commands it…

How Should Christians Comment Online?– Jon Bloom (DG)
…we must heed Jesus’s warning: “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36). This caution makes commenting serious business to God.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

It has been a busy week with VBS, so I haven’t had time to blog.  But I’m back, and here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

What We Need Is More Knowledge – John Stott (via Tim Challies)

Breaking Free from the Spell of Fantasy – Jon Bloom (DG)

Well-Planned, Hard, Sweat-Inducing Prayer and Work – Joel Beeke (via Tim Challies)

12 Questions for a Six-Month Spiritual Checkup – Chuck Lawless

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our Great King!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts primarily aimed at young adults, but with some good wisdom for all of us:

Students! Seize the Summer to Grow in Godliness, Not Decline in Laziness – Geoff Kirkland
If you don’t plan you’ll fail. If you don’t busy yourself with the right things you’ll make yourself busy with time-wasters.

Letter to Teens Unboxing Their First Smartphone – Tim Challies (DG)
It is an incredible piece of technology that can be used in many different ways. It can be used to do so many good things, but if you are not wary, it can also be used to do an awful lot of bad things. So before you power it on for the first time, I think it would be wise to invest just a few minutes in thinking and planning.

Lessons For Young Men – Geoff Kirkland
Our world desperately needs men. Real men. Manly men. Godly men. Holy men. Courageous men. Men who fear no one because they fear their God more.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

God Is an Inexhaustible Fountain of Love – Jonathan Edwards (via Trevin Wax)
And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love.

Fountain of Love, Fill Our Souls – E. B. Pusey (via Trevin Wax)
O God, Fountain of love, pour your love into our souls,
that we may love those whom you love with the love you have given us…

Conflicts: Our Laboratories of Love – Jon Bloom (DG)
Here’s the good news: Conflict is the laboratory in which love (agapē) grows. Conflict is the construction area where humility is built. Conflict is the radiology department where pride is exposed. Conflict is the field where our treasure is unearthed. Conflict is a discipline God uses to make us holy and bear the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:10–11).

Worship God as Our Father – Stephen Miller (DG)
Worship is responding to God — who he is and what he has done. And the truth that God would give his own Son that he might make us his sons and daughters ought to produce awe and wonder and amazement in us. It ought to make us stop for a second — or for a Sunday morning — and say, How great is the love of the Father! How could we not sing? How could we not shout? How could we not respond, with all that we are, to all that he has done for us?

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our Father and loving his people!

Passion Points

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Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Five Things Every Christian Should be Doing with God’s Word – Michael J. Kruger

17 Ways to Meditate on Scripture – Donald Whitney (via Justin Taylor)

Of Justice and Generosity – Kevin DeYoung

3 Choices in How We Respond to God’s Kingdom Agenda – Trevin Wax

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

How Do I Know I’m a Christian? – Kevin DeYoung
Whenever counseling Christians looking for assurance of salvation, I take them to 1 John. This brief epistle is full of help for determining whether we are in the faith or not. In particular, there are three signs in 1 John given to us so we can answer the question “Do I have confidence or condemnation?”

It’s Not a Blind Faith – Tim Challies
Faith is trusting in someone who has the answers we lack. Faith is trusting in the goodness, in the character, of God.

The Heresy of Indifference – Burk Parsons (Ligonier)
When people tell me they are into Jesus but not into doctrine, I tell them that if they are not into doctrine, they are, in fact, not into Jesus. We cannot know Jesus without knowing doctrine, and we cannot love God without knowing God, and the way we know God is by studying His Word. Doctrine comes from God, it teaches us about God, and by faith it leads us back to God in worship, service, and love. Indifference to doctrine is indifference to God, and indifference to God is indifference to our own eternity. 

Four Ways To Fight the Fear of Missing Out – Jon Bloom
The Thing. It’s a strange thing, because it’s there and not there at the same time. What I’m talking about is The Thing that you don’t have that you think you need in order to be happy. And you know when The Thing is there because you begin to feel a low-grade panic that you don’t have it. The Thing makes you afraid that by not having The Thing you’re missing out.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Cheap Grace Isn’t Grace – Ricky Stark (YMRT)
…genuine faith requires repentance—and that a call to grace is a call to holiness. 

Living Well in a Digital World – Tim Challies
I am thrilled to live in this time, and eager to use all of these new technologies for good. But I know, and you know, that we need to use them well, and to use them for God’s glory.

Preaching the Ten Commandments – Ray Ortlund
When I preach through the Ten Commandments, each sermon has four points, because each commandment does four things at once. [Not just for pastors – good thoughts on the Ten Commandments]

Two Ways To Ruin Your Relationship With The Giver – Mike Wittmer (via Tim Challies) We must see God’s gifts of creation as windows into his glory and opportunities to praise him. But we must also find pleasure in them.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with your local church!