How to Hear the Word Preached
Beloved, Have you ever failed to sufficiently prepare for an important meeting or event? I have—more times than I can count. Sometimes, it’s due to a lack of foresight. Other times, it’s the result of being stretched too thin. But…
Listening Diligently to Christ’s Voice
Beloved, The Puritan Thomas Watson once wrote, “Christ is said to speak to us from heaven now, by his ministers, as the king speaks by his ambassador. Such as wean themselves from the breast of ordinances [i.e., the public means…
“Death, Be Not Proud!”
Beloved, Next week we will pick up our exposition of Larger Catechism 160 as we think together about how God wills for His word to be heard. But in light of Ralph’s memorial today, I’ve decided to share an excerpt…
God’s Requirements for Our Hearing
Beloved, Our forefathers were convinced that God’s Spirit “maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means” of the salvation and sanctification of His people (Westminster Larger Catechism A. 155; emphasis mine). It is through the word…
Hymning His Grace In the New Year
Beloved, My friend Carl came on New Year’s Eve to hang the chandelier I told you about in last Sunday evening’s sermon (praise God for a friend who is an electrician!). He told me about a New Year’s Eve worship…
Unified Despite Our Eschatological Squabbles
Beloved, I was reminded after last Sunday evening’s sermon that not everyone shares my eschatological views. That is easy to forget since they seem so biblically straight-forward to me! While I wish all would come to espouse the already-not-yet, happy…
Hearing with Faith
Beloved, The Christian life is supernatural through and through. The apostle summarizes it beautifully: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). The sincere disciple is one who has been born…
Thanksgiving in Suffering
Beloved, I had intended to write some devotional thoughts on the grace of giving thanks today, but my lovely wife has said it much better than I ever could in a recent article for Ligonier. It seems especially fitting as…
Hard Texts Humble the Soul
Beloved, Have you ever wondered why God includes some incredibly difficult to swallow and hard to understand texts in the Bible? It’s a question I’ve been pondering this week as I have wrestled with my sermon text for Sunday morning…
God’s Design in Our Defects & Disabilities
Beloved, It was probably not the first time I had read the verse, but it was the first time I had really read it. God’s slew of questions to Moses were like a wrecking ball plowing into my understanding of physical disability. …
Keeping Our Hearts in a Crazy Election Week
Beloved, My parents’ pastor, Dane Ortlund, taught a Sunday school class last week titled “Biblical Wisdom in a Volatile Election Cycle.” The whole of the lesson was excellent, but I wanted to share with you the various applications of biblical…
Loving My Limitations
Beloved, Tomorrow at 3:00am I depart for presbytery (i.e, the assembly of the elders of the regional church). Don’t worry! I’ll have my thermos full of piping-hot bulletproof coffee. The anticipation of less-than-optimal sleep, the eight-plus-hour drive, and the deep…
Waters of Grace, Waters of Judgment
Beloved, I love a good cold plunge, and while it wasn’t exactly sub-zero temperature, I got a free one at Cloudland Canyon on Monday. The family hiked down to Cherokee Falls and to my great delight, there was actually a…
Homo Unius Libri
Beloved, As tradition has it, the Latin phrase homo unius libri was coined by Thomas Aquinas. It simply means “a man of one book.” Aquinas wrote that he feared such a person. Why? Because to devote one’s life to the study of…
Eliminating the B-word from My Vocabulary
Beloved, I did it again. One of you asked during Sunday’s fellowship lunch how my family was doing, and I responded by expressing how busy life is right now. It’s something I’ve really been trying to stop doing. But bad…
Commanding & Commending
Beloved, On Sunday we began a new Sunday school class titled Seeking Him: Liturgical Rhythms for a Worshipful Life and Family. We spent a good part of our first lesson wrestling with the distinction between commanding and commending. I was arguing…
Sunday Newness & Christ’s Renewing Grace
Beloved, This week I stumbled across a poem of George Herbert (a 16th century Christian poet) written for Trinity Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost), but I think it is a fitting poem for every Sunday (truly, for every day!). Listen…
Embracing Realism in Our Spiritual Fitness
Beloved, Last Sunday we considered Paul’s exhortation to be continuously exercising our souls unto the cultivation of Godlikeness (1 Tim. 4:6-10). The apostle is calling young Timothy and each of us to become spiritual athletes who have the strength and…
The Transforming Power of Thirty Seconds on Your Knees
Beloved, Have you ever woken up on the wrong side of the bed? It happened to me this morning after a bizarre dream about a gregarious priest who was drawing away Cornerstone members to join his church. I woke up…
Corporate Prayer & Fasting
Beloved,As an encouragement in the grace of fasting, here is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Restless Devotion, addressing the subject: The hungry soul that rouses itself to lay hold of God for restoration, often expresses that hunger by forgoing physical food.…
Humble Confrontation and Why the Medium Matters
Beloved, In last week’s evening sermon I emphasized Jesus’s command to go when we humbly confront a brother or sister about their sin (Matt. 18:15). Jesus assumed that before we can tell someone their fault, we first need to physically go to…
Digitized Church and the Coming Generations
Beloved, Addressing a similar theme from last week’s email, I thought I would share an excerpt from the final chapter of Sacred Streaming? that I wrote this past week. Be aware these words are a part of a much larger argument developed in…
On Helicopter Parenting, Stress Wood, and the Wisdom of God
Beloved, This past week I started wading through Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt may be an atheist and an evolutionist, but his book packs a punch that…
Sweat Before Sweet
Beloved, I love a good sweat. Of course, not all sweat is created equal. For example, today I was sitting outside at Niedlov’s waiting to meet someone for lunch and sweat began to drip down my arms thanks to the Tennessee…
Seeing with Both Eyes
Beloved, On Monday I took Vos for an eye exam at the recommendation of his pediatrician. The optometrist projected pictures of different shapes and sizes on the wall for Vos to identify. With both eyes open, he passed with flying…
Going Hard After God
Beloved, This morning in private worship, I read this words from John Piper about public worship: “The authenticating, inner essence of worship is being satisfied with Christ, prizing Christ, cherishing Christ, treasuring Christ. This is tremendously relevant for understanding what…
I Miss Our Building
Beloved, On Monday the EPA broke ground on the church property. Praise the Lord who rules over the hearts of government workers, and has led them to finally show up to deliver us from our lead-toxic soil! But I think…
Officer Nominations & Church Unity
Beloved, This past Sunday I mentioned Christ’s petition that His disciples reflect the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Jn. 17:21-23). In my morning devotions I’ve been studying the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and this morning…
How to Worship When the Lights Go Out
Beloved, Sorry for my delay in sending this! The high winds caused some power lines to fall on the ridge and our power has been out since Thursday (until roughly 3:30 this morning!). Christ has been ministering to us through…
Lessons From My New Study
Beloved, On Monday Tessa and I did a deep clean of our unfinished basement, preparing a corner to be my study during the soil remediation of the church’s property. In God’s kindness, the standup desk I ordered arrived on Monday…
An Eschatology of Suffering
Beloved, I’m almost certain I have never had an original thought in my life. Countless individuals and movements have shaped the way I think, speak, and live. But few living theologians have shaped my understanding of the Scriptures and the…
What Is the Church’s Mission?
Beloved, We are swiftly nearing the conclusion of Daniel, and what a journey it has been. There have been times when I have wondered if we would make it out alive, and there is still the very real possibility that…
The Deadly Illusion of Moral Autonomy
Beloved, Over the last month and a half, I have immersed myself in the book of Judges, writing a series of devotions to assist parents in family worship. This week I wrote on the final chapters which focus on two…
No Monologues Allowed
Beloved, All of us have been in a conversation that was a monologue. It is a pretty miserable thing, unless you are the one doing the talking! In a monologue, an individual talks and talks and talks, not even stopping…
Facetime, Facebook, and the Postmillennial Hope
Beloved, Jonathan Edwards was a postmillennialist who had a very optimistic view of the future, and it was a future that included expansive communication technology. Of those living in the millennium (which he believed to be a future golden age…
Naked Without My Wedding Ring
Beloved, I love my wedding ring. I sleep with it on. I do life with it on. There is nothing that I wear more perpetually than my wedding ring. In fact, there is only one activity that I tend to…
The Disciplined Devotion of Prayer
Beloved, One of Tessa and I’s goals for 2024 is to have a monthly date night in which we get out of the house to enjoy undistracted, focused conversation with one another over good food or coffee. It is nothing…
The Spiritual Benefit of Mouth Tape
Beloved, My family enjoys poking fun at how ridiculous I look while I sleep. I can’t blame them because though I have never seen myself sleeping, I can only imagine how silly I look. For one, after losing my neutral…
Politics in the Pulpit?
Beloved, This Sunday is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, a national “holiday” established during the Raegan administration on the 11th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (40 years ago now). It is a day to remember and reckon with the God-given…
Church Life Through the Lens of a Bathroom Renovation
Beloved, Pink it a great color. In the recent past, I have sported a pink button-down (salmon, to be exact). In the more distant past, I even had a pink mohawk (that is no joke!). So I don’t have anything…
“Dad, That Was Easier Than I Thought!”
Beloved, In between worship services last Sunday, my family hiked Guild Trail up to Sunset Rock. Though the distance is not far (roughly 2.5 miles), the incline is fit to wear you out. Tessa, Canon, Owen, and myself made the…
“Thank You For Coming!” Really?
Beloved, “If you are watching us on livestream, thank you for coming!” Those were the very words uttered during the announcements at the church we visited last Sunday morning. The sentence was revealing, and yet I wonder if anyone among…
Unition, Union, & Communion With Christ
Beloved, In Sunday school last week, Bob asked a great question: “Why must union with Christ precede regeneration?” There is a certain causal order to the application of our salvation, and I was arguing that in some sense union with…
“Why Am I So Stressed Out?”
Beloved, Last week I confessed my “off heart” revealed through an “off morning.” Since then, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the happenings of last Thursday morning were a gracious intervention of God. For they led me to take a closer…
An Off Morning & An Off Heart
Beloved, Have you ever had an off morning? Here is a sketch of my ideal morning: up at 4:25am, piping hot French Press, write for an hour, commune with God through the word and prayer, do a brutal work out,…
A Holy Heart Is a Prepared Heart
Beloved, Arguably, there is nothing we do that is more important than public worship. Every other vocation will pass away, but our vocation as priests of God will continue forever. One day our hearts will be perfected, enabling us to…
Preparing Your Heart for Worship
Beloved, Last week I shared some insights from a sermon preached by Jeremiah Burrough’s titled “The Importance of Preparing for Worship.” In it he impresses upon us the great necessity of heart preparation for public worship and sets before us what…
A Heart Ready for Worship
Beloved, In my morning devotions I’ve been working my way through an old Puritan book by Jeremiah Burroughs titled Gospel Worship: Worship Worthy of God. It is a three-hundred page exposition of God’s words in Leviticus 10:3: “Among those who…
The What and Why of Our Corporate Fast
Beloved, This week and the next, I plan to share with you four videos addressing some questions you might be having regarding our upcoming day of prayer and fasting. I encourage you to watch the videos and prayerfully consider participating…
Kinsey or Christ?
Beloved, As a pastor, I’m used to finding myself in awkward situations, but I still get uncomfortable at times! This morning I had the privilege of speaking to the staff of Choices (our local pregnancy resource center). I had originally…