As pastors, we must devote time to understanding the primary means by which God communicates to his people. We ought to be adept in our understanding of, appreciation for, and facility with words. And yet not just any words. Our competency should be in the sacred use of sacred words.
—Peter R. Schemm Jr. | Themelios
Graeme Goldsworthy on the unity of the Bible:
The unity of the Bible is matter of biblical revelation, not of empirical investigation. Put simply, I believe that the Bible gives me a single, accurate, and coherent picture of reality principally because Jesus tells me that it does. The unity of the Bible is an article of faith before ever it is arrived at empirically. The empirical discovery of the unity is governed by the presupposition of divine revelation. If I have difficulty in understanding how that unity exists in the face of certain phenomena, or apparent phenomena, that is a problem in my understanding, not in the biblical text.
Living fish may go with the stream at times, but dead fish must always do so. There are plenty of such in all waters: dead souls, so far as the truest life is concerned, and these are always drifting, drifting, drifting as the current takes them. Their first inquiry is — what is customary? God’s law is of small account to them, but the unwritten rules of society have a power over them which they never think of resisting.
—Charles Spurgeon, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden
If a man does not [live to] please God, he inevitably brings upon himself sorrow and suffering in this life; he puts a worm and a rottenness in the core of all his joys; he fills his death-pillow with thorns, and he supplies the eternal fire with faggots of flame which shall for ever consume him.
—Charles Spurgeon
Merciful God and Father
Loving us like no other
Hear our prayer, the cry of our hearts
As we come to You
We acknowledge our transgressions
We confess to You our sins
Show us mercy and compassion
Touch our lives with Your healing grace again.
HEALING GRACE, Donnie McClurkin
The reason [arrogance is] so dangerous, especially for those of us in ministry positions, is that it can become a cancer to our ministry. I could, and I guess you could as well, name dozens of pastors whose arrogance and pride led them to a very public, very shameful, fall.
Arrogance stifles mission. It redirects the focus of our ministry to us instead of to a kingdom focus. And if left unchecked, our ministry will begin to exist for its purpose, not God’s purposes.
Jojo Agot 