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The last few weeks I wrote about things we ought to pursue like godly ‘ordinariness’ and self-sacrificial love. But in order to embrace and say “yes” to good things we often have to let go of and say “no” to lesser things. This week’s message will be about saying “no” to things that divert us. […]

Last week I wrote about why we should ‘embrace the ordinary’; this week I will write about how we can pursue that by embracing rest, work, and gratitude. Rest is an important part of life. When we rest we prove that we mean it when we say that we trust that God has wisely ordered

Last week I wrote about how Christ did not come to simply save us from the guilt of our sins, He also freed us from the power of sin. In following Christ we are asked to kill our sin. This does not make us right with God; salvation is a free gift. But part of

Last week I wrote about how God not only saves us from sin, death, and damnation but for righteousness. Titus 2:11-12 shows this: the first verse talks about how God has saved us from damnation and the second about the righteousness God has saved us for. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation

Last week I wrote about how God not only forgives our sins and saves us from our sins, He also frees us from the power of sin. Without God’s grace we are slaves to sin, slaves to our flesh and worldly desires. God’s sanctification of us produces the virtues that direct what we are meant

Last week I wrote about how Christ is the only true and fully trustworthy one. An essential step in walking with Him is to recognize this and to trust Him. However, in our love for worldly things we don’t want to admit that clear things are clear—we don’t want to see the truth because then

Last week I wrote about how love is a summary of the law (Romans 13:10). If this is true, then to understand what love is we need to understand God’s written revelation to us; love is not an open category that we get to define. Rather love is a virtue, a habit grounded in a

Last week I wrote about how we need to “say goodbye” to worldliness. To use Christ’s words, “no man can serve two masters.” We cannot both seek Christ’s approval and the approval of men; we cannot simultaneously grow in Christ-like character and mange our image. Yet one of the challenges of growing in worldliness is

Last week I wrote about how the world has become more “worldly”. This is in large part due to the fact that technology addicts us to the shallowest experiences of human instinct and self-gratification. Yet if we are to follow Jesus we need to say goodbye to all other paths, to all the lesser things

In last week’s post I wrote about the seeming contradiction between what Christ promises and many of us feel like we are experiencing. Christ promises that ‘His burden is light and His yoke is easy and yet life seems really hard! He calls us to be “oaks of righteousness”, but we often feel weak. According