Donald Macleod’s beautiful new book, Therefore the Truth I Speak, is an engaging look at Scottish theology that mines the past and brings it into the present. Part church history, part historical theology, this book introduces some fascinating figures and events.

Biographical Sketch of the Author
Donald Macleod was Principal of the Free Church of Scotland College in Edinburgh until his retirement in 2010. He also served as Pastor of Kilmallie Free Church for 6 years. His other works include The Problem of Preaching and Compel Them to Come In: Calvinism and the Free Offer of the Gospel.
Introduction
Donald Macleod’s wonderful new book, Therefore the Truth I Speak: Scottish Theology 1500–1700 began as a series of lectures he gave from 2001 to 2004 while teaching at Free Church College, which later became Edinburgh Theological Seminary (7). The book is composed of 13 chapters followed by a name and subject index. The author acknowledges that the book covers the narrow subject of Scottish Christianity from the 16th to 18th centuries, and yet in the process, it also addresses timeless concerns like the authority of Scripture, justification by faith alone, and what faithful Christian witness looks like. In other words, the book is about a specific time and place but also deals with vital subjects that every Christian in every age should concern themselves with.
Scottish Theologians
What were the distinctives of Scottish Christianity from 1500 to 1700? Macleod, firmly within the Presbyterian tradition, lays out what he sees as the two primary governing convictions that his Scottish theological forefathers held to (11). First, church polity should follow the apostolic model as much as possible. Second, the health of churches and their effectiveness in missions will increase when the apostolic model is followed.
The author shows appreciation for the historians who came before him, while also taking issue with those like T .F. Torrance, who he says have parted company with the stream of “Federal Calvinism” that characterized the Scottish theologians of that era (12–13). Macleod’s sympathies are with those historians who recognized diversity on issues of baptism and church governance, while also not denying the “remarkable consensus” grounded in Scripture and expressed in the great ecumenical creeds and Reformed confessions (13–14).
Macleod ably disproves the stereotype of Scottish theologians as uneducated dunces. These men were focused on bringing the gospel to the ordinary church goer, not on impressing the academy (16). The earliest Scottish Reformer was Patrick Hamilton, born in 1504. Hamilton was one of many who became inspired and impassioned by Luther’s rediscovery of justification by faith alone (19–20). His zeal to reform the church and irresistible desire to return to his Scottish homeland resulted in his arrest by the established church. In 1528, he was martyred by being slowly burned at the stake. Hamilton left readers his Patrick’s Places, in which he affirmed the teaching that works of the law cannot be fulfilled apart from divine grace (20). He also viewed the law’s purpose as the revealing of sin.
Echoing Luther (not to mention Paul), Hamilton wrote that “faith (alone) makes a man a member of Christ, an inheritor of heaven, and a servant of God (21).” Saving faith grasps Christ alone as its object. Like Calvin before him, Hamilton would say that faith alone justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone (22). When the established church contemplated more executions by burning to quell the spread of Reformed doctrine, John Lindsay counseled against the idea, saying that “the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton hath infected as many as it blew upon (22).”
Rutherford’s Lex, Rex and the American Revolution
The Lex, Rex was a political manifesto by Samuel Rutherford in response to John Maxwell’s Royalist treatise (239). He argued that when human society organizes into a form of government, by common grace they are affirming natural law. Rutherford, contra the monarchy of his day, believed that Romans 13 does not teach an absolute, de facto obedience to whomever happened to be in power at any given time. A lawful magistrate is God’s minister for the commonwealth’s good, such that unjust, murderous magistrates who persecute the church are no longer ministers of God and should be resisted (241). Rutherford drew from Scripture, the Old Testament in particular, as well as natural law or what the Reformed called “the light of nature (240).” The impact of the Lex, Rex was far reaching and it enabled Scottish Presbyterians to defend their views during the English Civil War.
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Pray that the Lord would protect our neighbors a world away, especially those of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). Pray that as God delivered Paul from the sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:8-10) he would deliver those who have entrusted their souls to him in faith by any means necessary. Pray that the Lord would wondrously convert the wicked (Acts 9:1-7) and if not, that he would restrain or destroy them for the sake of His bride, the church (Psalm 139:19).

I was sitting in Mr. Scott’s 10th grade English class when the principal’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker: “Attention teachers and students, I’ve just received word of a terrible accident at the World Trade Center in New York City.”  No doubt, many of you remember where you were on September 11, 2001, when you first heard the dreadful news. In the days and weeks that followed, America and her allies declared war against the al-Qaeda terror network responsible for the attack and the Taliban regime who harbored them in Afghanistan.
Now, 20 years later, our lives are being flooded again with unsettling images of people falling, not from burning buildings but from swarmed airplanes, men in truck beds toting AK-47s, and women and children running for their lives. In the wake of the withdrawal of remaining American troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban surged, retaking cities previously liberated from their barbaric tyranny. In just days, the capital city of Kabul fell and the country has since slipped back beneath the dark waters of fear and oppression. Only this time the Taliban are armed to the teeth with billions of dollars in American weapons left behind in the evacuation.
The situation is dire. Once again, women have been stripped of their humanity and civil rights, being required to veil themselves from head to toe and forbidden from pursuing education, employment, or leaving their homes alone. Once again, girls are being tortured, kidnapped, and sold into sexual slavery. Once again young men and boys are being conscripted into military service at gunpoint. And once again, our Christian brothers and sisters will be forced to choose: renounce Christ and live or confess him and die.
Even after the liberation in 2001, Christianity remained illegal in Afghanistan. But over the past twenty years, thousands have come to faith in Jesus Christ, worshipping secretly in their homes. Now, under the Taliban’s ruthless Sharia Law, conversion from Islam is a capital crime, punishable by death. We are already receiving disturbing reports from Afghan church leaders of soldiers gathering intelligence, checking the roles at local mosques, and going to the homes of suspected Christians. As footage of public beatings and executions surfaces, believers are being encouraged by their leaders to flee the country or remain hidden indoors. Unless the Lord intervenes with a mighty hand, the worst is yet to come for Afghan Christians.
In the face of such evil what can American Christians do? We can pray! Pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ facing persecution around the world knowing that the prayers of the righteous have “great power” in their working (James 5:16), not because the prayers of the righteous are great but because the one who has made them righteous and promised to hear them is great! Pray in light of Hebrews 13:3 “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body.”
But how should we pray? Pray that the Lord would protect our neighbors a world away, especially those of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). Pray that as God delivered Paul from the sentence of death (2 Corinthians 1:8-10) he would deliver those who have entrusted their souls to him in faith by any means necessary. Pray that the Lord would wondrously convert the wicked (Acts 9:1-7) and if not, that he would restrain or destroy them for the sake of His bride, the church (Psalm 139:19). Pray that God would pour out the Holy Spirit upon his people to galvanize their faith and give them the right words in the crucial hour (Luke 12:12). Pray that, if God has sovereignly decreed the deaths of Afghan Christians, that they would face their end with courage, clinging to Christ, “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41). Pray that the blood of the martyrs would be the seed of a thriving Christian church in Afghanistan and spark a revival around the world. Pray that God would keep us ever mindful of and grateful for the delicate liberties we enjoy as Americans able to worship freely and without fear. Pray that the Lord would expand our capacity to sense the bigness of his kingdom and our union with Christians around the world, especially those facing persecution for the sake of his name. Pray that “in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:11).
Pray as those whose own souls depend upon the prayers of another, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, who “ever lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25).
Jim McCarthy is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Senior Pastor of First PCA in Hattiesburg, Miss.

True Christianity offers you something different than the world does, but true Christianity will cost you. And there will be consequences. What you saw from most of the professing church was a fearful and cowardly display of the fear of man and the love of this world. 

DC Talk’s 1995 hit “What If I Stumble?” starts with someone reading these lines: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Like it or not, true Christians have to deal with the consequences of the professing church. Many unbelievers look at the professing church’s lack of faithfulness and conclude that such is what true Christianity is.
As such, for many a true follower of Jesus, the response of the professing evangelical and even Reformed church during the coronavirus has been one of the most discouraging and disheartening parts of this whole year. Dealing with government overreach, media-induced fear, and hysteria without end would have been bad enough. But the one place where Christians should have been able to find refuge was in the church. There, believers should have found a different spirit—a spirit of faith and trust and courage. A spirit of freedom and peace. Believers should have been able to point to the church—the called out ones—and said to a watching world, “Behold, there is something otherworldly, something different from the world.” Sadly, that wasn’t the case for most churches. Uncertainty, fear, cancellations of fellowship, mask requirements, and social distance regulations thrived in the church just as much as in the world.
I’ve entitled this “A COVID Apology to America, on Behalf of the Evangelical Church.” This is what I believe the professing evangelical and Reformed church should say to America. And, of course, she should not only say it, but change course accordingly.
The Apology (7 parts):
America, we’re sorry. We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show you how different Christianity is from the world. And we failed.
Years ago, Leonard Ravenhill said, “The world out there is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity; it’s waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.” The COVID debacle of 2020-2021 was the perfect opportunity for us to give you that new demonstration of Christianity. We could have shown you what it means to live a life free from fear. We could have shown you what it means to value spiritual things more than material things. We could have shown you that Christians are different. Instead, most evangelical churches acted just like the world. Our profession of faith made little difference in our lives. Our churches closed their doors just like the Lion’s Club and community BINGO night. It’s too late for us now to change how we responded. But the least we can do is say that we’re sorry.
We’re sorry we contradicted so much of what we had told you previously.
Prior to the coronavirus, we told you that it was vital for Christians to gather together and fellowship. We preached about passages such as Hebrews 10:25: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” We told you about Christians throughout church history who were willing to meet despite the dangers of persecution, oppression, and even death. We held these men and women up as examples of faithfulness. And then, when the coronavirus struck us, we scattered like sheep without a shepherd. Forgive us.
Prior to the coronavirus we told you that living for Christ was worth more than anything this world could offer, including safety, health, and prosperity. We told you about Christians—going all the way back to the apostles—who truly understood the gospel and were willing to give up everything to follow Jesus. We told you about the missionaries and housewives, preachers and plowboys, who were willing to die if they could only read the Scripture. We told you that obedience to Christ was not an optional part of discipleship, but the very essence of following Jesus. And then, when it was going to cost us something to stand for Jesus and stand against the world, we crumbled like a house of cards. Forgive us.
We’re sorry we perverted the glorious and beautiful blessing of Christian fellowship.
We neglected fellowship. For some of us, it didn’t even take one week for us to cancel fellowship. We dressed it up with a lot of explanations and qualifications, but the bottom line is that we told everyone to stop meeting together as a church body. We did not accurately demonstrate the doctrine of Christian fellowship. We made Christianity to look no different than a social club or sports league, willing to cancel gatherings on the word of a pagan tyrant.
But even worse than abandoning Christian fellowship, we perverted fellowship. We encouraged you to think that Christians view “online” events as gatherings, fellowship, or services. This is all a gross perversion of what God intended for the church. We know that none of these things are fellowship, but we continued to act as if they were. To our shame, when we finally found some courage to meet (or, if we’re honest, when the state allowed us to meet), we continued to enforce mask and distancing mandates. We showed that we really don’t care if true fellowship occurs—where believers can interact with one another, see each other’s faces, and act as family—we really only cared about continuing to present a façade of Christianity. We did have good motives and intentions. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Truth be told, we caved to the pressure. Our actions are a stain upon the true church’s testimony concerning the doctrine of Christian fellowship.
We’re sorry we conformed to the world.
Christians are supposed to look different from the world. The fear that characterizes so much of our world, amplified to the extreme during the coronavirus, is unbecoming for a true Christian church. We know that we have been charged to not be conformed to this world (or “age,” see Romans 12:2). However, we found the temptation too strong and the potential cost too high for us to have our minds transformed during the coronavirus. Instead of standing as a city upon a hill as a light for a lost, confused, and scared world, we acted just like everyone else. Just like the pagans in the plagues of the second and third century, we encouraged you to stay away from others.
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I sometimes wonder if such experiences didn’t play a major role in my seeking something or someone in life that accepted me warts and all, loved me, and gave purpose to my individual life.  I’m here to say I believe such experiences prodded me to find such a one, such a person.  I met that person not for the first time—as I was already acquainted with him—but when I was 19 years old and received him into my life, heart, and spirit.  That Person was Jesus Christ who became my Lord and Savior.

A question recently posted on Facebook asked if you remember your most humiliating experience as a child.  It took me by surprise how fast two experiences came to mind.  Both took place in elementary school coming at the hands of adults—a teacher and principal.  Memories came to the fore; pain was felt immediately.  Those experiences weren’t forgotten but rather had scarred me and followed me through life.  They accounted for some of my most prominent and constant insecurities.
The first took place in third grade.  Coming from a poor family situation, I did not receive allowance money as other children received.  I did not have the freedom to buy candy or gum.  One day, a student who was friendly with me offered me a stick of gum.  I took it and unwrapped, it sticking it in my mouth.  The teacher espied me chewing gum and came to me, made me stand up, she walked me to the front of the class and made me stand there for what seemed an interminable amount of time with the gum on my nose.  I was humiliated.  When the class ended, I went to the restroom to remove the gum that had hardened on my nose.
The second experience occurred in sixth grade.  We were in the auditorium. Some boys grabbed the stage velvet curtains and leaped off the stage to the floor crying out like Tarzan’s hoarse bark, flying through the air on a jungle vine.  As a tomboy, I felt I could do whatever they were capable of doing.  I grabbed the curtain, cried out like Tarzan and leaped to the floor.  The principal came and caught us.  She scolded us and went on to say to me in front of all the students, “. . . but you, a girl!  I can’t believe you did it too.”  The curtain had torn. We were all told our parents would have to pay for the repair.  I cringed that I would have to report this to my parents who struggled financially.  I went to my class, sat in the back of the room and silently cried in humiliation.  I was eleven years old
Such experiences as a child lastingly impacted that child—in fact, any child.  The first experience is recognizable today as abusive action by a teacher against a child who normally never had gum or candy at school.  To stand in front of the class with gum on one’s nose until the end of class was abusive humiliation.  I later recognized how deeply it scarred me causing almost a self-hatred and sense of rejection.
The second experience represented a childish prank of a child doing something foolish to prove herself.  The principal’s rebuke was valid, but the action of singling out one child due to her gender put her in a more vulnerable position.  Later as I stood waiting on a corner to cross the street, my brother in an upper grade came behind me and said: “I heard what you did.  Boy!  Are you ever going to get it when you get home”!  I trembled crossing the street fearing what was in store for me.  My mother scolded me and said, “Wait until your father comes home.”  I did not receive a spanking but rather a strong rebuke and “How could you do that?”  Both parents discouraged my tomboy ways, as they wanted their daughter to be all-girl. We waited with dread for how much the bill would be to repair the curtain.  When it came, my parents paid it immediately.  Since I didn’t receive an allowance, I couldn’t pay them back.
Why am I sharing this story?  It’s because children are very fragile emotionally and mentally.  Discipline can cross a line that goes beyond correction to permanently scarring them.  Back then, educators probably didn’t study child psychology.  Some children who experience abuse become abusers.  Others become dysfunctional.  All experience brokenness to some extent.  Those scars remain hidden or latent, but they do remain; and to think more than seventy years later they still cause pain reveals how powerful they are in a child’s life.
A second reason for sharing this story is a reminder to me and, I hope to others, to never forget children are fragile and vulnerable.  Discipline with love, sensitivity, and limits.  It’s not just actions that matter, but words also matter.
Lastly—but not least—remember and give thanks to God who can enable us to be healed even if scars remain and to forgive those who either abused or humiliated us at any time in life, not just as children.
I sometimes wonder if such experiences didn’t play a major role in my seeking something or someone in life that accepted me warts and all, loved me, and gave purpose to my individual life.  I’m here to say I believe such experiences prodded me to find such a one, such a person.  I met that person not for the first time—as I was already acquainted with him—but when I was 19 years old and received him into my life, heart, and spirit.  That Person was Jesus Christ who became my Lord and Savior, who brought pardon and redemption, who brought real purpose and even confidence to my life, and has steadfastly been faithful to me despite moments of unfaithfulness to Him.  I didn’t seek Him; He sought me.  As the African American Spiritual articulately reveals, “He never failed me yet.”   I am nothing more than a debtor to God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.

If the church has hurt you, or if Christians have hurt you, that is bad news indeed. And I am sorry that has happened. But Christ is in a different category altogether. His love for you is constant, His support of you is unending, and His fulsome commitment to you is unwavering.

It is quite common for those who reject Christianity to point to scandals, abuses and the like among Christians, or in the churches, or in Christian cultures or societies. They will point to such things and say they want nothing to do with Christianity.
These folks can be atheists or secularists who look at the faith from without, or they can be those from within — those who once claimed to be believers themselves, but who have now opted out, because of whatever thing, real or imagined, that has offended them, disturbed them, or turned them off about Christianity.
Personal Disappointments
Several things can be said about all this. First, let me explain more fully what I mean by “real or imagined.” Yes, real abuses, real scandals, and real corruption can be found in churches and in individual believers. But sometimes a person may — for whatever reason — be bitter or angry or upset with the faith for rather dubious reasons.
Any number of reasons might be raised here. Perhaps a young person was attending a church, not so much out of devotion to God or concern for religion, but as a way of finding a partner to form a relationship with. Maybe he finds a nice gal there, but the relationship breaks down after a while. He gets hurt and upset, and ends up taking all this out on God or the church.
So that is the first thing that can be said about rejecting the faith: what are your reasons for doing so? Are they valid reasons? Or are you just bearing grudges or taking offence, when God or the faith itself has nothing really to do with it?
Weeds Among the Wheat; Wolves Among the Sheep
And yes, some real bad things can happen: a trusted church leader may have been found out to have been abusing or molesting children in his care. That is a much better reason to want to lash out at the church. But even here, we need to take some care in this.
It is always terrible when any adult abuses a person in his or her care. But should that mean then that the entire edifice must be rejected as well? We all know that abusive schoolteachers exist. Does that mean we should reject all schools and all forms of education as a result? Most people would not think so.
We all know that abusive policemen exist. So should we ditch the police entirely because of them? Should we tar and feather every police officer because of a few bad apples? Should we therefore argue that law enforcement is inherently evil in itself and must be eliminated? Most people would not think so.
We all know that abuse, scandals, corruption and criminal activities can take place anywhere — be it in a childcare centre, a hospital, a library, a grocery store, or a petrol station. Should we therefore reject all of these entirely and want nothing to do with them?
I think you get the message. Yes, whenever someone claiming to be a Christian does some decidedly unchristian or anti-Christian things, that is always a real problem. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not usually the wisest way to proceed here.
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It is too early to tell whether Orbán’s agenda will ultimately be successful—but it is indisputably true that he is one of the only conservative leaders who is actually attempting to fight back in any significant way. He is funding conservative institutions, working to spread conservative ideas, fighting to keep LGBT propaganda away from children, seeking to reduce abortions and promote families, and refusing to back down in the face of elite opposition.

If there is to be a backlash to the cultural revolution that has conquered the West, what might it look like, politically speaking? Many writers have been considering what it means for Christians to live in a post-Christian world, but outside of the United States, where every federal election has taken on a frenetic and frantic tone, there is little discussion about what political leaders seeking to turn the tide might actually do to accomplish that—if it is even possible.
One example of what it might look like is the Viktor Orbán agenda in Hungary. I’ve been fascinated with the ongoing government project to reduce abortion, boost the birthrate, and encourage marriage for some time, and have interviewed both Hungarian ambassador Eduard Habsburg (yes, from that Habsburg family) as well as Family Minister Katalin Novák for The American Conservative to discuss this agenda. We don’t yet know how the Hungarian agenda will play out in the long-term, but there have been some encouraging short-term results.
Rod Dreher of The American Conservative has been writing from Hungary for several months while he works at the Danube Institute, and it has been interesting to see him become a full-throated supporter of Orbán (while admitting that it is obviously not all roses.) Most conservative leaders tend to conserve whatever status quo they get handed when achieving power. Thus, progressives utilize their time in office to move the ball down the field; conservatives do nothing to turn back the clock, and we go from debating same-sex marriage to whether or not minors can get castrated in two decades without any meaningful opposition from conservatives. Especially in the Anglosphere countries (Canada being a particularly egregious example), so-called conservative politicians have shown little to no appetite for fighting back even when it comes to minors getting sex changes. Cultural surrendur is the standard.
Viktor Orbán, perhaps due to his past as an anti-Communist, understands how progressives won (and win) in the first place. Interestingly, when Orbán does precisely what progressives do—appointing like-minded people, funding conservative outfits, and launching a right-wing long march through the institutions—he gets called an authoritarian. The New York Times, for example, recently reported that Orbán’s government has granted a total of $1.7 billion to Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) “with the aim of training a new generation of conservative elite across Europe.” That is precisely what conservatives should have been doing for decades, instead of ceding one field after another to those who hate Western civilization. Progressives, of course, don’t care for being beaten at their own game.
Hungary has even modeled one potential method of pushback to the LGBT agenda. Over the last several years, an internecine fight broke out amongst American conservatives over the limits of the use of government power, with David French representing the libertarian wing and Sohrab Ahmari making the case that conservatism has conserved almost nothing over the past several decades. I think Ahmari was being hyperbolic, but then again, French did refer to Drag Queen Story Hour as one of the “blessings of liberty” in his insistence that there was nothing conservatives could do in response to these new cultural cancers. Over at his blog, Rod Dreher describes how Hungary has responded to the explosion of LGBT propaganda targeted at children:
Hungary is being punished severely by the European Union for having passed a law this summer that restricts the presentation of LGBT content to children and minors. Hungarians are not religious, but they are culturally conservative. The government, seeing how the constant stream of LGBT propaganda aimed at children is changing Western societies (e.g., a 4,000 percent increase over a decade in the number of UK minors referred for transgender treatment), chose to fight back in a modest way. Every society chooses what is appropriate for its youth to experience, and usually codifies that in law. Not every society agrees on these points, but every society sets these rules. There is a reason why our laws set the age of sexual consent at a certain point. Societies differ on what that age is, but all societies recognize that children must be protected from the sexual desire of adults. Societies also set restrictions on whether or not minors can receive certain kinds of sexualized information — porn, I mean. Unlike the countries of Western Europe, Hungary believes that children and minors should not receive information normalizing LGBT. They are trying to protect their youth from the cultural revolution that has consumed the West. They are trying to protect their kids from decadent propaganda.
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Where’s the power? It’s in the Word, and we’re looking for it everywhere else. I doubt if any of us have relic collections, but some churches seek power in adding a coffee shop to their church or pursuing the latest trendy church-growth method. These things don’t have power. There is a formula for a prosperous and successful ministry, and that formula is in preaching the Word of God in season and out of season.

The last sermon Martin Luther preached was in the second week of February 1546 in his hometown of Eisleben. Two days later, he would become ill and soon after perish. In this last sermon, Luther preached with passion about his concern for Germany. He observed that after the gospel had been rediscovered—after light had dawned and pushed aside the darkness that had eclipsed it during the Middle Ages—people were now becoming somewhat jaded to the gospel. They could hear it from virtually every pulpit in Germany, but it was no longer something that ignited fire in their bones. Instead, peasants were journeying to see relics throughout various villages in Germany, which signified a return to the system of medieval Roman Catholicism.
The peasants were going to these villages because in one town, they boasted the possession of the trousers of Joseph, and another one had a vial of milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. And so, people flocked to these places just to get a glimpse of the pants of St. Joseph and the milk of Mary the Mother of Jesus. Luther was very upset about this. He wondered, “Why in the world would peasants anywhere make an arduous journey just to see a piece of cloth that was worn by Joseph?” The answer was very simple: they were looking for power. They believed that the relics of the saints contained power—power to heal, power to forgive, and power to transform their lives.
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God waited to save you. He waited, like a parent who waits to give a birthday gift. He waited to cover you in grace, mercy, and love. He waited because he cared. He even waited through your sin and shame. He waited through your rebellion and anger. He didn’t punish you immediately. He didn’t strike you dead. He waited. 

Are you a gracious person? When you show grace to others, do you do it with joy or do you perhaps show grace begrudgingly? Truthfully, when we show grace, we often have a predetermined limit to our grace. And, even if the limit isn’t predetermined, you will know it when you reach the limit But, regardless of how gracious you are or are not, very few of us would say that we wait to show grace–that showing grace to others is something we look forward to doing. And yet, that is precisely how Isaiah describes the Lord:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you. Isaiah 30:18

God isn’t gracious to us out of requirement. He doesn’t show us grace to satisfy someone else or out of a sense of responsibility. God waits to be gracious. He wants to be gracious. He finds pleasure in extending grace toward us.
I don’t often appreciate this aspect of God’s character the way I should. It rarely occurs to me that I am undeserving of God’s love, but he desires to be gracious to me anyway–to overlook my sins and my shortcomings–and to welcome me in.
God lavishes his grace upon us. In Romans 5:20, Paul writes, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Should we continue in sin? By no means, but know this, wherever there is great sin, God’s grace is greater.
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Properly understood, The Common Rule is not about self-denial or asceticism for its own sake; it is an expression of joyful willingness—the desire to embrace a new way of life in which we don’t sacrifice what is best for what is easiest. 

We underestimate the power of habits, especially those we adopt unconsciously, as a result of our busy and hurried lives. We like to think of ourselves as spontaneous and authentic in our worship and work, when in reality we’re enslaved to habits and patterns that dominate our waking moments. As a consequence, we are wonderless in an age of wonders. Our technology has only freed us up . . . to live like slaves.
In This Is Our Time, I tried to apply insights from each chapter to our everyday lives, so that Christian faithfulness would take shape in habits, both individually and communally. One of the recommendations I made was that we prompt ourselves to give priority to God’s Word by making our bedrooms “phone free” and by opening the Bible in the morning to read and pray before we grab the phone and check in. Out of all the practices I recommended in This Our Time, the “Scripture before phone” application has come up in conversation with readers more frequently than anything else.
A recent reader of my book, Justin Whitmel Earley, has developed a website called The Common Rule and is writing a book on the power of “habits of love for an age of chaos.” I was excited to see the “Scripture before phone” practice recommended there, as well as the daily habit of “kneeling prayer” (in which our bodies and hearts are united in inclining ourselves to God). Justin includes other habits as well, both daily and weekly, and the patterns he recommends are intentional in turning us outward to loving God and the people around us. He writes:

If we are going to live lives shaped by the love of God and neighbor, we need to think about our habits. The vast majority of our lives are governed by habit. We are not formed simply by our deepest beliefs and greatest aspirations, but also the most ordinary of habits that guide our everyday lives. We usually don’t think about these habits, and that’s why they matter so much.

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Written by Kyle E. Sims |
Sunday, August 29, 2021
The antidote is to look beyond this world to Jesus. He is the one who can bring real, genuine, and lasting joy, even in a world of illogical fear and growing Godlessness. See what the Lord has done and is doing. Take the time to stop and count these blessings.

Where is your joy? To be honest, I struggle with joy. I know it is a facet of the Fruit of the Spirit. But it is just hard to be joyful when the world is turned upside down. Why is this? We are Christians. We know the Lord is in control. But yet, we live in fear and depression. Why is this?

We do not keep our eyes on the Lord. I mean this in the greater sense. The Lord needs to be our compass, our filter, our bell-weather. We must see all of life in the light of his power and providence. If we are only looking at men to make changes and build our culture, we are in trouble. There will be no joy because man cannot do it.
We expect the things of this world to bring us absolute joy. As a tall teenager, I dreamed about winning a basketball championship and playing in a national tournament. I still remember that night in early March. We won our district and were going to the National tournament. It was funny, I was happy. But it was not the deep-down joy I thought it would be. I imagine many people reach a goal and find a similar feeling. They marry the love of their life. They get their dream job or live in their dream city. It is excellent, but it is not that joy we long for in our souls. Only Jesus brings this joy.

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