The Lord bless you and keep you on this fine day.

“Self-control is a Fruit of the Spirit, which means that we depend upon God’s grace to receive it, but we can’t be passive. Self-control is a discipline, too. It is a muscle we exercise or we don’t. We each have an obligation to mortify our flesh and resist sinful temptation in all forms. Given the powerful currents of our society, we must be intentional about practicing self-denial.”

Betty-Anne Van Rees points out that when we are afraid we are often afraid of the wrong thing. “One mystifying aspect of the spiritual battles we face as followers of Jesus is the almost universal tendency to be afraid of the things that are helpful for us and unafraid of those that are harmful.”

Selah means pause. Reflect. Meditate. Consider. Take a breath. See God for who he is. Can you feel the weight lifted from David’s shoulders? Do you feel your own heartbeat slowing down at this beautiful change in his perspective? Yes, Saul was still pursuing him, and he and his men would need to move camp again. But they could handle these things with the confidence of faith in their God. (Sponsored)

Doug will help reaffirm in your mind just how dumb it is to sin.

This article is a celebration of sorts—a celebration of the various kid noises you tend to hear on a Sunday morning.

“Unbelievers, even though their hearts and minds are opposed to God’s truth, sometimes have more spiritual insight than we give them credit for.” Let Robert Rothwell explain what he means and why it matters.

We know the death of a saint is precious in the eyes of the Lord. But do we know why? Jim McCarthy offers three good reasons.

Of all the mysteries in this universe, few are more perplexing than the mystery of God’s sovereignty over life and death…Why does God call some early to heaven who surely could have done so much good on earth? Why God, we ask? Why?

God’s eternal, heavenly story doesn’t obliterate my earthly, painful story; it gives it meaning.
—Robert Kellemen

We have a natural tendency to attempt to understand what we don’t know by extrapolating from what we do. This works well in much of life, but not so much when it comes to theology, for God comes before comparisons and supersedes them all. When it comes to Christ, he is more unlike than like what we know. This quote from the old preacher De Witt Talmage celebrates how Christ was “the great unlike.”

All good men have for centuries been trying to tell whom this Substitute was like, but every comparison, inspired and uninspired, evangelistic, prophetic, apostolic, and human falls short, for Christ was the Great Unlike.

Adam a type of Christ, because he came directly from God;
Noah a type of Christ, because he delivered his own family from the deluge;
Melchizedek a type of Christ, because he had no predecessor or successor;
Joseph a type of Christ, because he was cast out by his brethren;
Moses a type of Christ, because he was a deliverer from bondage;
Joshua a type of Christ, because he was a conqueror;
Samson a type of Christ, because of his strength to slay the lions and carry off the iron gates of impossibility;
Solomon a type of Christ, in the affluence of his dominion;
Jonah a type of Christ, because of the stormy sea in which he threw himself for the rescue of others.

But put together Adam and Noah and Melchizedek and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and Samson and Solomon and Jonah, and they would not make a fragment of a Christ, a quarter of a Christ, the half of a Christ, or the millionth part of a Christ.
He forsook a throne and sat down on His own footstool. He came from the top of glory to the bottom of humiliation, and exchanged a circumference seraphic, for a circumference diabolic. Once waited on by angels, now hissed at by brigands.
From afar and high up He came down; a-past meteors, swifter than they; by starry thrones, Himself more lustrous; past larger worlds to smaller worlds; downstairs of firmaments, and from cloud to cloud, and through the treetops and into the camel’s stall, to thrust His shoulder under our burdens and take the lances of pain through His vitals, and to wrap Himself in all the agonies which we deserve for our misdoings, and stood on the splitting decks of a foundering vessel, amid the drenching surf of the sea, and passed midnights on the mountains amid wild beasts of prey, and stood at the point where all earthly and infernal hostilities charged on Him at once with their keen sabres—our Substitute!

What does it mean to have faith? What does it mean to believe in God’s promises? What does it mean to have confidence that God is who he says he is and that God will do what he says he will do? What is the nature of that faith, that belief, that confidence?

There are times during this long and wearying pilgrimage when we undergo severe tests of our faith—tests that are often related to our losses and bereavements. Even if we are never tempted to cast off all allegiance to Christ or to throw away all desire to follow in his ways, we may still be challenged to believe—or not believe—that what God says is true—true about life and death, true about earth and heaven, true about time and eternity. We may face the kind of challenge that calls us to live in one way if we believe and to live in another if we do not.
There are days when we believe as an instinct, as the natural impulse of the heart and mind. In such days we easily and immediately regard it as unassailably true that heaven is real, that Providence is kind, that God is working all things for good, that even our deepest griefs will someday prove to be light and momentary afflictions when measured against an eternal weight of glory.
But then there are days when we believe as a decision, as an act of the will. While some days the most instinctual words out of our mouths are confident, other days they are hesitant. Some days we have all the boldness of Peter and other days all the hesitation of Thomas. On some days we proclaim, “I believe” but on others we plead, “please help my unbelief.” Or perhaps the best we can do is pose our faith as a question, a kind of self-interrogation: “I do believe, right?”
While we prefer the former days, we have to learn to embrace the latter, to learn that faith is not passive but active, not always an instinct of the heart but often an act of the will—and to learn that faith is no less real when it comes as a decision rather than a compulsion. Faith is often choosing to believe in the face of grief, the face of adversity, the face even of doubt. Faith is not less than intellectual, but is certainly far more: it is grasping and reaching toward divine promises, taking hold of what God has said to be true, clinging to it with whatever conviction we can muster, and pleading—pleading earnestly—that God will be powerfully present in his grace and comfort.
Trusting God, we learn, is not just a matter of recalling knowledge in a moment of need, but applying the whole heart, soul, strength, and mind to accept and believe it—even when the heart is broken and the soul weary, even when strength is sapped and the mind bewildered. Faith is complicated, not simple, and difficult, not easy. Like so much else in life, faith takes practice and rewards diligence. Faith brings us far beyond the end of ourselves and leaves us utterly dependent upon the goodness and mercy of a loving God.
What does it mean to trust God? It means that in our lowest moments we will resolve to believe that what God says is true. It means that even in our darkest valleys we will determine to take God at his word. It means that even when we don’t know what to do or where to go, we will look to God with faith and, as either an immediate instinct or a deliberate act of the will, anchor ourselves on the One who has promised that his every word proves true and reliable, that he will shelter and protect all those who run to him for refuge.