Articles

Beloved, We are incredibly complex creatures. I’ve been arguing in recent weeks that, as humans, we exist as “psychosomatic unities,” meaning there is an intimate and inseparable connection and communication between our bodies and souls. But up to this point,…

Beloved, Our bodies are not a divine afterthought. The human body actually preceded the human soul in creation: “then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and…

Beloved, I shared last week the way God graciously delivered me from an overactive thyroid, an underactive liver, and an unrelenting cloud of depression. This season of pursuing restored physical and psychological health has led me to read widely on…

Beloved, Below you will find a family worship devotion for question 8 of the Shorter Catechism. Praise the Lord for the wisdom and power displayed in the execution of His eternal plan in creation and providence! Yours in Christ, Pastor…

Beloved, Below you will find a family worship devotion for question 7 of the Shorter Catechism. What a blessing it is to know and serve the Sovereign of the universe! Yours in Christ, Pastor Nick Recite Q. 7. What are the…

Beloved, Below you will find a family worship devotion for question 6 of the Shorter Catechism. If you are desirous to explore this theme more deeply, check out the four sermons on the Trinity in our Knowing God sermon series…

Beloved, In my last sermon on James, I emphasized that we must be careful not to project the deceit of one person onto all people. It’s very easy to do this when we’ve been blindsided by lies—to start believing that…

Beloved, Below you will find a family worship devotion for question 5 of the Shorter Catechism. On a different note, applications for Discipleship 101 are now open. You can access the application HERE. More information about this new course can…

Beloved, Last Friday, we had a rough night with Vos. He was complaining of pain in his legs when he went to bed, and then he woke up an hour later crying. Tessa, being the gracious mama that she is,…

Beloved, Below is a family worship devotion for question 3 of the Shorter Catechism. It is a fitting theme for us to consider as we continue to look at God’s revealed will for Israel in Exodus 21:1-11 this coming Sunday.…

Beloved, We come this week to the second question of the Shorter Catechism which in God’s providence serves to prepare us for both sermon texts for this coming Sunday, each of which draws our attention to the central place of…

Beloved, We are beginning our exposition of the 107 questions and answers of the Shorter Catechism today. I’m designing these weekly devotions to be read aloud and to be comprehended by children (with the goal of eventually compiling them into…

Beloved, After the evening service last week, the session approved the small book I wrote during this year’s study break to be distributed to the members of our church. Prepared to Partake: Discipling Our Children Toward the Table is a unique resource,…

Beloved, It is unfortunate that when most American evangelicals hear the word “catechism” today, they either scratch their heads in confusion or assume we are capitulating to Roman Catholicism. This shows just how far we have departed from our roots. Historically, it…

This week I started working through an amazing book in private worship by John Owen titled The Reason of Faith. I’ll spare you from its longer title which, in typical Puritan fashion, is fifty-two words in length! It is a treatise…

The last two decades have given rise to a proliferation of books on burnout and self-care. There is much help to be found in some of these works, particularly those written from a Christian perspective. We need reminders like the…

Beloved, As I was mapping out my week on Monday morning, I was freshly struck by the incremental gains of daily discipline. At the top of my planner for the week, I always write out my “top three.” These are…

Beloved, The week after Emma’s death, one of you kindly gave us a rosebush to plant in her memory. One day, it will bloom with beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers that will remind us of that beautiful and sweet little girl. But…

Beloved, This week marked the beginning of our church-wide study of Ecclesiastes. As the men gathered Tuesday night to discuss the opening verses—most of which focus on the vaporous vanity of work—the word pessimistic kept coming up. The reality of our near-approaching death…

Beloved, Please excuse me over the next couple of weeks as I continue to process Emma’s death. Her funeral was last Thursday, and I had hoped it would bring some closure and respite from the grief. But it has done…

Beloved, It goes without saying that husbands don’t particularly like when their wives become the objects of flirtatious behavior from other men. After all, one typically flirts with someone when seeking their attention and attraction. I’ve been reflecting this week…

Beloved, I was thankful that my hotel at presbytery had a small gym. After all, presbytery involves nearly endless sitting, so it was good to be able to sweat a little in the early mornings before our meetings. Since my…

Beloved, I wonder how often you consider what a tremendous privilege it is to be a Christian. How easy it is to grow cold and accustomed to the fact that, through Christ, we have been reconciled to God. God belongs…

Beloved, Over the last few weeks, Vos has been on a rhyming kick, asking me daily questions like, “Dad, does finger rhyme with singer?” He’s inspired me to set aside my alliterative tendencies and give rhyming a shot as we consider…

Beloved, Last week, our President and Vice President met with the President of Ukraine to sign a deal that was proposed as a path to ending the war. But to everyone’s surprise, the deal wasn’t signed. Whatever you think about Trump…

Beloved, Since the beginning of 2025, sickness has been making its rounds through our church in a peculiarly potent way. In light of that, I thought I would share what the Lord has been teaching me through my prolonged respiratory illness. At…

Beloved, Last Sunday morning, I had the experience of preaching to a room full of people suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Some of the winter camp participants had not gone to bed until 7:00 a.m. that morning, having snuck out…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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. …

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…

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…

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…