Tag: Christianity

Rest Reflections

On By BrianIn Rest Reflections

restofgodGod made us from dust.  We’re never too far from our origins.  The apostle Paul says we’re only clay pots – dust mixed with water, passed through fire. Hard, yes, but brittle too. Knowing this, God gave us the gift of Sabbath – not just a day, but an orientation, a way of seeing and knowing.  Sabbath-keeping is a form of mending. It’s mortar in the joints. Keep Sabbath, or else break too easily, and oversoon. Keep it, otherwise our dustiness consumes us, becomes us, and we end up able to hold exactly nothing.

– Mark Buchanan in The Rest of God

Q&A#9: God’s Creation

On By BrianIn PASSION Catechism

Q/A#9
Q: According to God’s Word, how did the world begin?
A: The world began by a direct act of God, who perfectly created all things to reveal his glory.

In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth….
And God saw everything that he had made,
and behold, it was very good.
– Genesis 1:1, 31a (ESV)

 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1 (ESV)

For Further Reflection
Read Genesis 1, Hebrews 11:3

Our Response
Enjoy God’s good creation
Praise God for his creation

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Why You’ll Never Be Free Until You Start Obeying God – Kevin DeYoung (Crossway)
We sometimes define freedom as the ability to do whatever we want to do, but that’s not really how the Bible understands freedom. Freedom is the ability to do what we ought to do—that’s real freedom.

God’s Hidden Purposes in Your Suffering – Leah Baugh (Core Christianity)
God is often working not just for our good but for the good of others through us. Sometimes in our American context, we can get a little wrapped up in our own little world. We can think that our suffering is just all about us and God, that God is only doing something in my life. But as Dr. Ferguson also points out in his sermon, the truth is that God is always working in multiple lives and in multiple ways all at once. ​

How Evangelism Is Kind of Like Fishing – Tim Challies
The great work God is accomplishing in this world is catching people for himself. He’s saving them by his grace and for his glory. What’s amazing is that he uses people like you and me to help accomplish that. He saves people through the good news of the gospel and he tells you and me to speak out that news. He calls us to be fishers of men, to catch people alive.

Desperately Seeking Transcendence – Own Strachan
When we gather for the weekly worship service, we gather as those starved for God, and starved for transcendence. We have been swimming all week in the normal, trivial, earthly, ordinary, and natural. We need the abnormal. We need the essential. We need the heavenly. We need the extraordinary. We need what is above nature. We need the supernatural. This is what weekly worship gives us. It does not fundamentally give us a little “touch from the Lord,” as if all we need is a divine pat on the shoulder, a quick grin from a hall-crossing deity. It gives us a brush with God. We hide besides Moses in the cleft of the rock, expectantly and reverently awaiting the passing-by of the radiance of the appearing of God’s glory.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day with the Lord!

Q&A#8: The Word of God

On By BrianIn PASSION Catechism

Q/A#8
Q: What does the Word of God teach us?
A: The Word of God teaches us about God, our purpose, our failure, and our only hope of salvation.

From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
– II Timothy 3:15-16 (ESV)

For Further Reflection
Read Isaiah 40, Matt. 22:37-40, Romans 3:10-25

Our Response
Receive Jesus as your Savior
Read God’s Word and follow it