A Prayer for Mercy by John Piper

O Father, how we need mercy. We sin every day. We fall short of your command to love you with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. We are lukewarm in our affections. All our motives, even at their best, are mixed. We murmur. We are anxious about tomorrow. We get angry too quickly. We desire what ought not be desired. Keep reading...

'The Ultimate and Final Question" by Lloyd-Jones

There can be no doubt whatsoever that all the troubles in the Church today, and most of the troubles in the world, are due to a departure from the authority of the Bible. And, alas, it was the Church herself that led in the so-called Higher Criticism that came from Germany just over a hundred years ago. Human philosophy took the place of revelation, man's opinions were exalted and Church leaders talked about 'the advance of knowledge and science', and 'the assured results' of such knowledge. The Bible then became a book just like any other book, out-of-date in certain respects, wrong in other respects, and so on. It was no longer a book on which you could rely implicitly.

Keep reading...

"Light Thoughts of Sin Breed Light Thoughts of the Savior" -Spurgeon

A deep sense of sin is often a blessedly impelling power to drive us to the Savior. I desire never, in this world, to be free from a deep sense of the bitterness and guiltiness of sin. Even though freed from the guilt of sin by the precious blood of Jesus, I still desire to feel what an abominable thing sin is, that I may go, eagerly and passionately, to my dear Lord’s wounds, and get the one only effectual remedy for all my soul diseases. Light thoughts of sin breed light thoughts of the Savior.

Keywords: sin,cross,guilt,mourning,forgiveness,peace

I Have Done Something; I Created You by Mark Buchanan

An excerpt from a letter written by a missionary couple in Brazil:

Driving through the Christmas traffic, fighting the drizzling rain, I chanced on a four-year-old little girl. She was wet and cold and shaking. Her clothes were ragged, her hair was matted, and her nose was running. She walked between the cars at the stoplight, washing headlights because she was too short to wash windshields. A few gave her coins, others honked at her to get away from their vehicles.

As I drove away only some fifty cents poorer, I raged at God for the injustice in the world that allowed the situation. “God, how could you stand by, helpless?” Later that evening, God came to me softly with that still small voice and responded not in kind to my rage, but with tenderness, “I have done something. I created you.”

Keywords: love,poverty,poor,service,gospel,mercy

The Humanist by RC Sproul

The humanist exalts the dignity of man and the importance of various virtues while at the same time declaring that we are cosmic accidents. Slime has no virtue, and the humanist can give no compelling reason why any human being should have any rights because he has no justifying grounds for rights in the first place. He has only sentiment, which proves nothing except the emotional state of the avower.

Keywords: humanism

Relativists by RC Sproul

Most relativists are only relatively relativists. That is, they want to express their own rights of preference and will tolerate other people's preferences--until they bump up against their own.

Keywords: Relativism,post-modernism

"Blessed Are the Meek" by Lloyd Jones

When we realize truly what we have to be, and what we have to do, we become inevitably 'poor in spirit'. That in turn leads to that second state in which, realizing our own sinfulness and our own true nature, realizing that we are so helpless because of the indwelling of sin within us, and seeing the sin even in our best actions, thoughts, and desires, we mourn and we cry out with the great apostle, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But here I say is something which is still more searching -- 'Blessed are the meek'.

Now why is this? Because here we are reaching a point at which we begin to be concerned about other people. Let me put it like this. I can see my own utter nothingness and helplessness face-to-face with the demands of the gospel and the law of God. I am aware, when I am honest with myself, of the sin and evil that are within me and that drag me down. And I am ready to face both these things. But how much more difficult it is to allow other people to say things like this about me! I instinctively resent it. We all...prefer to condemn ourselves than to allow somebody else to condemn us. I say to myself that I am a sinner, but instinctively I do not like anybody else to say I am a sinner.

Keywords: Beatitude,meek

Sex And the Supremacy of Christ!

Piper said, based on the conviction that beholding, seeing, and savoring Christ as the blazing and glorious center to our solar system of existence, holding all of the planets—including the planet of our sexuality—in place in their perfectly designed orbits. We distort God’s gifts, especially our sexuality, when we do not consider Christ supremacy in all things. He claims in the first sermon that knowledge of God guards and guides our sexuality. He says that for a small heart satisfied with small things small lusts will have large power, but for a heart satisfied with the supremacy of Christ in all things, small lusts will have small power.
Therefore, in his second sermon on Sex and the Supremacy of Christ (the conference site can be found here; I strongly recommend that you go and get all of the sermons and prayfully listen to them) he says: Keep reading...

Keywords: Lust,Sexuality,Piper,Jesus,Christ

Meakness by William Hendriksen

Expounding Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are the meak for they shall inherit the earth" Hendriksen says,

"Yet meekness is not weakness. Meekness is not spinelessness, the characteristics of the person who is ready to bow before every breeze. It is submissiveness under provocation, the willingness rather to suffer than to inflict injury. The meek person leaves everything in the hand of him who loves and cares."

Keywords: Meak,Beatitude