Sanctify

Most of us don’t like waiting. We are annoyed with lengthy checkout lines at the store, frustrated by long red lights, and (if you live in northern Indiana like me) depressed with the lingering of winter temperatures in the middle of April. But we especially don’t...

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). There is a Latin maxim: ubi amor, ibi oculus. “We love to look at what we love.” When one of the scribes, seeking apparently...

Believers are called to holy living. This is the clear teaching of the Bible. As we continue our series on holiness, we want to consider the question, “How then does the believer cultivate holiness?” We will look at seven different ways. First, know and love...

Over the last few months, we’ve been walking our church through a study on spiritual disciplines. We’ve talked about Bible intake, prayer, giving, fasting, solitude, journaling, and reading. Along the way, we’ve tried to be practical, helping our people know how to...

In a world filled with sin, the flesh, and the devil, assurance of salvation is the soft feather bed on which the Christian rests. Assurance proves to be one of the greatest benefits of the Christian faith and the rightful inheritance of the child of God. In its...

Recently, after returning from a lengthy ministry trip to Europe, I was privileged to be reunited with our local church for corporate worship.  I preached from 1 John 3:11-24 in our ongoing series titled, “Know.” As you know, John the apostle used the word “know” some...

Waiting is often very difficult for many people. Whether it’s waiting on a pastor position, right now waiting for my house to sell, for a publisher to pick up one of my book projects; waiting is something I’m very personally acquainted with. It’s easy in seasons of...

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Righteousness! Is there any finer ambition, nobler aspiration, or loftier aim than this? God could have given us a Book...

John Owen (1616–1683) has a reputation for being hard on sin — and even harder to read. Nineteenth-century Scottish professor John Duncan is famous for assigning Owen to his students with the warning, “Prepare for the knife!” And theologian A.W. Pink said he found...

A two-year-old will never obsess about world economies. A three-year-old will never ask for lectures on totalitarian regimes. It is beyond them. If you think otherwise, just try and lecture them about it. They won’t pay attention. Their tiny minds can’t be filled with...