Month: October 2015

Why is it so hard for us to believe that God truly loves us – with all of our faults, weaknesses and failures?

Nothing helped me to begin to “feel” God’s love for me more than when my wife and I had our first child…a daughter. I still remember feeling this overwhelming sense of love that was going to explode out of my chest. And for the first time I felt like I understood what the Psalmist wrote when he said…

“As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.” 
(Psalm 103:13-14 NIV84)

One of my favorite Christian musicians is Andrew Peterson. He writes beautiful music with profound lyrics.

One of his newest songs, Be Kind to Yourself (from his latest album The Burning Edge of Dawn), was written to his soon-to-be teenage daughter (who sits next to him at the piano).

He writes as a compassionate father to his daughter who is struggling with all of the common pre-adolescent struggles. He sees that she is so hard on herself – far harder than any loving father would ever want for their child.

This song is a metaphor for our relationship with God.

I have found throughout my years in ministry that many followers of Christ are so hard on themselves – they beat themselves up over every small mistake, every failure – no matter how small or insignificant. They expect perfect sanctification from the moment they come to Christ – without exception. They don’t allow themselves to rest in the “finished work of Christ” (Hebrews 7:25-28) – out of which flows their growth in Christ!

They allow the “accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10 KJV) to slay their heart and bring on profound discouragement. They often wonder and doubt God’s “everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he remove our transgressions from us.”
(Psalm 103:11-12 NIV84)

As you watch and listen to this song, I pray that it would be an encouragement to your soul. Selah!

Be Kind to Yourself (Lyrics)

You got all that emotion that’s heaving like an ocean

And you’re drowning in a deep, dark well

I can hear it in your voice that if you only had a choice

You would rather be anyone else

I love you just the way that you are

I love the way He made your precious heart

Be kind to yourself

Be kind to yourself

I know it’s hard to hear it when that anger in your spirit

Is pointed like an arrow at your chest

When the voices in your mind are anything but kind

And you can’t believe your Father knows best

I love you just the way you are

I love the way He’s shaping your heart

Be kind to yourself

Be kind to yourself

How does it end when the war that you’re in

Is just you against you against you

Gotta learn to love, learn to love

Learn to love your enemies too

You can’t expect to be perfect

It’s a fight you’ve gotta forfeit

You belong to me whatever you do

So lay down your weapon, darling

Take a deep breath and believe that I love you

Be kind to yourself

Be kind to yourself

Be kind to yourself

Gotta learn to love, learn to love, learn to love your enemies

Gotta learn to love, learn to love, learn to love your enemies too

by Paul Madson

“Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“Your faith will not fail while God sustains it; you are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.” (J.I. Packer)

“Human beings are hope-shaped creatures. The way you live now is completely controlled by what you believe about your future.” (Timothy Keller)

“The Bible simultaneously pictures God as utterly sovereign, and as a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.” (D.A. Carson)

“The greatest evil is not done now in sordid dens of crime. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.” (C.S. Lewis)

“We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“Mark it down—your progress in holiness will never exceed your relationship with the holy Word of God.” (Nancy Leigh DeMoss)

“What will really save the lost world? Let me tell you: none of our complaints against it.” (Jared Wilson)

“Men would rather be ruined than change.” (W.H. Auden)

“No one has ever come to Christ because they lost a debate on Twitter.” (Russell Moore)

“People tell me ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ I always tell them, ‘Twist not scripture lest ye be like Satan.’” (Paul Washer)

“Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart.” (Paul Miller)

“If we are Christians and do not have upon us the calling to respond to the lostness of the lost and a compassion for those of our kind, our orthodoxy is ugly and it stinks. And it not only stinks in the presence of the hippie, it stinks in the presence of anybody who’s an honest man. And more than that, I’ll tell you something else, orthodoxy without compassion stinks with God.” (Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City (Chicago, 1969), page 123.)

“Inerrancy means the word of God always stands over us and we never stand over the word of God.” (Kevin DeYoung)

“When we bring God’s Word directly into our praying, we are bringing God’s power into our praying.” (Joni Eareckson Tada)

“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” (Augustine)

“Hell is full of people who think they deserve heaven. Heaven is full of people who know they deserve hell.” (Trevin Wax)

“We’re to love our children for who they are, not for what we want them to become.” (Alistair Begg)

“When you go through a trial, the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you lay your head.” (Charles Spurgeon)

And finally, some humor…

“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” (H.L. Mencken – 1880-1956)

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” (Mark Twain)