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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Beloved, Tomorrow marks the first day of September, and if all goes as planned, we will finish our sermon series on knowing God before the month is through. As we wrap up this series, I want to flesh out a…

Beloved, In the last two sermons on Matthew 7:1-12, I have sought to demonstrate the unity of Christ’s teaching as He calls us to deal with sin before our Father’s throne of judgment (vv. 1-6) and to pray before our…

Beloved, As I was sitting and listening to J.G. and Noah share during the Sunday school hour, I was freshly struck by how kind God has been in hearing and answering prayer. What were their testimonies but the fruit of…

Beloved, Thank you again for generously providing me with two weeks of study break every year! It is a tremendous gift to have undistracted time to devote to seeking God and working on projects that I otherwise might not get…

Beloved, Last Sunday evening, we looked at our Lord’s final contrast between hypocritical religion and sincere religion in Matthew 6:16-18. It brought us to a somewhat uncomfortable subject: fasting. Looking at the biblical data, we defined fasting as a voluntary abstaining…

Beloved, I had intended to grade a licensure exam and to do some reading for sermon prep, but my mind and heart were racing. Tessa was in surgery, and I had no idea what the outcome would be. Prior to leaving…

Beloved, This Sunday will mark the twenty-sixth message in our AM sermon series on knowing God. What a joy it has been to fix the eyes of our hearts upon the glory of God, attempted to grasp something of who He…

Beloved, Last Sunday morning, we looked at Jeremiah’s prayer to God which began with an, “Ah!” This was a prayer erupting from heartfelt desire. Few have written more on prayer than the Methodist minister by the name of E.M. Bounds. While…

Beloved, We are continuing to contemplate our fourth core principle as a church, God-exalting leadership. We have seen that at the heart of presbyterianism is the conviction that local churches are not islands unto themselves but formally interconnected in mutual accountability, dependency,…

Beloved, Corporate prayer is a vital element of the church. It was God’s will for His holy temple under the old covenant to be “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Is. 56:7). It is God’s will for His holy temple…

Beloved, Prior to seminary, Tessa and I were members of a Reformed Baptist church. They would have affirmed nearly everything we have said up to this point about God-exalting leadership in the church (the exception being their denial of the distinction…

Beloved, Technology is not neutral.  Carl Trueman writes in his The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, “Technology affects in profound ways how we think about the world and imagine our place in it” (41). Trueman is, of course, speaking…