Inspiration...September 22, 2012

How comforting it is to know the Bigness of God in the times of our deepest pain. What a blessed salve it is to our broken and wounded hearts to know that the Creator of the universe, he who holds all the stars in his hand, carries us in his heart. He knows us by name, he is intimately acquainted with every thought, he hears every heart cry and understands every motive of our heart and he loves us still. ...Katherine Walden image

Words on Wisdom and Sabbath Rest
Thus Sabbath is about more than external rest of the body; it is about inner rest of the soul. We need rest from the anxiety and strain of our overwork, which is really an attempt to justify ourselves—to gain the money or the status or the reputation we think we have to have. Avoiding overwork requires deep rest in Christ’s finished work for your salvation (Hebrews 4:1–10). Only then will you be able to “walk away” regularly from your vocational work and rest...

A Convenient and Relaxing Kind of Christianity
Loving God is not as simple as we sometimes think. Christians are fond of reminding one another that in a biblical sense love is a verb, not just feeling but action. This is true, but there is far more to it than that. Jerry Bridges came to this realization and began to reflect on the command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” In The Discipline of Grace he describes how he came to see that love is rooted in obedience to God’s commands. “Whatever else might be involved in loving God with all my heart, obedience to His law was certainly a major part of it.” (Note that when he speaks of God’s law as it applies to us today, he refers to the permanent moral law, not the Old Testament ceremonial law). To put it another way, “Our love to God will always manifest itself in obedience to Him.”...

Shopping and False Intimacy
"For instance, when a pastor preaches to a crowd of a few hundred (or thousand – or even a few million now with podcasts) week after week, those who hear the sermons can develop a certain familiarity with the pastor. They think they know the pastor. After all, they know the names of the pastor’s kids, where the pastor went on vacation, and how the pastor likes his coffee. But sermons are one-way. The congregant knows a lot about the pastor, but the pastor knows next to nothing about the congregant.

The inverse is often true in smaller churches, where the pastor is expected to know the intimate details (ailments, relationships, and back story) of each church member, but few church members really know or want to know the pastor. In these cases, the pastor can serve almost as a hired hand – or better said: a hired ear, a hired heart, and hired soul"...


321-The Story of God the World and You

The role of singing in the life of the church
...Now there are all sorts of reasons why Christianity is a singing faith; for the practice of making melody to the Lord, and of hymn singing in particular, has many purposes. My intention in this article is to focus specifically on congregational singing (rather than Christian music generally), and to open up its three principal purposes; the three main reasons why, according to Scripture, God has given us this ability and called us to engage in this activity. These reasons are: (1) to help us praise, (2) to help us pray, and (3) to help us proclaim. So let’s look at each of these in turn...

The Boy They Couldn’t Kill
Go read Sports Illustrated’s “The Boy They Couldn’t Kill.” It is far and away the best magazine story I’ve read all year and I’m pleased that we get to talk about it here at GetReligion. It’s long and I can’t begin to excerpt it in any way that gives it justice but the subhed to the piece is “Thirteen years ago, NFL receiver Rae Carruth conspired to kill his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn son. The child has not only survived but thrived—thanks to the unwavering love of his grandmother.”...