Devotions

Worth Reading

Psalm 138

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

How Should Christians Think About Corporate Apologies?

Helpful read in light of the post last week related to our denomination’s statement of repentance regarding racial sin. This statement of repentance will be included in our bulletin this week.

The Savior at the Well

Concluding paragraph of an important and timely article:

We have unique cultural challenges in our day--challenges that tempt us to be silent on the difficult truths of Scripture, challenges to fear man rather than God and challenges to allow sin to go unchecked. We all feel the temptation to want to make Christianity more palatable for the masses by taking away from our presentation of it whatever our culture deems offensive. There is something right about our need to be cautious about our own offensiveness. We should never want to be offensive by means of our personal tone or motives in presenting the Gospel to men and women; however, we must always recognize that the Gospel is necessarily offensive in that it--working together with the Law of God--exposes our sin and shows us that our only hope is in the message of the crucified and risen Christ. While we acknowledge that we are exactly like the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, the prodigal son, Zacchaeus and the thief on the cross, we need not turn from telling others about the nature of sin and of the eternal danger that they continue to face in if they will not turn from it to the Savior who stands ready to forgive and cleanse His people by His grace. It is the most loving thing that we can do for our neighbors and fellow image bearers.

Trouble in Bakersfield

There you have it: A popular, longstanding, and effective member of a school board has had to stand down—not because he does not enjoy the confidence of the community, but simply because he does not accept the latest demands that every knee must bow to whatever the political taste of the moment has decided is non-negotiable.

 

Worth Reading

Psalm 13

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

 

Our denomination’s statement of repentance regarding racial sin

This seems even more important in light of recent events. Lord have mercy on us.

 

Is Black Lives Matter the New Civil Rights?

I began this way because I want you to know it’s right and good for us to be talking about ethnocentrism and racism in the church. Jesus still sees it, and Jesus still hates it. But our hope is that Jesus still cleanses it out of his church. And, despite our historic failures and present struggles, Jesus will make his house a house of prayer for all nations.

 

What Shootings and Racial Justice Mean for the Body of Christ

The path ahead will be difficult, but it will require the Body of Christ—the whole Body of Christ—to call one another to moral awareness and action. That starts with acknowledging that we have a problem. When the videos are no longer viral, our witness must still be Christian.

Worth Reading

Psalm 119:153-160

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

 

FEAR NOT, THE UNIVERSE IS WILDLY OUT OF YOUR CONTROL

Things are wildly out of my control but they are not out of control. These things are set in place. Designed. Ordered. Governed. Even the airline database of cancelled flights. Feeling my smallness helped me to feel God’s vastness. My circumstances were in his control.

 

2016 PCA General Assembly: Moving Forward Together

Amy and I had the privilege of attending our denomination’s annual assembly last week in Alabama. Richard Phillips gives a balanced summary of some of the main actions of the assembly in this article.

 

EXPLORING EVANGELICALISM: THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA

Bryan Chapell explains the defining characteristics of the PCA. This may be of particular interest to those who are new to Proclamation or our denomination.

Worth Reading

Psalm 131 

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

Why Churches Should Stop Pandering to Millennials

It’s true that churches have seen an exodus of Millennials in recent years. Some institutions have responded by adding coffee shops; trendy megachurches host services in auditoriums rather than churches and use the latest technology—giant projector screens and contemporary music that mimics a Beyoncé concert—to attract younger worshippers. They use The Message Bible rather than the King James Version, and embrace a “cool Jesus” that inspires memes such as an image of the crucifixion with the caption, “So this Pontius Pilate guy has me crucified but after three days I was like Nah bro!”

But guess what? All of this pandering is the exact opposite of what Millennials actually want from church. The harder churches try to be cool and trendy, the more Millennials are joining the mass exodus from the church. 

Presbytopia

Linking to a book may be a bit odd for our "Worth Reading" blog, but I've been reading through this little book over the past week, and I think it's a great resource for the people of Proclamation (or for anyone with questions about Presbyterianism!) Certainly, this book is "Worth Reading"! We realize that many of our people are coming from a non-Reformed background, and this book can be a great resource for anyone who has questions about "what it means to be Presbyterian".

If We Love God Most, We Will Love Others Best

 

The most loving thing we can do for others is love God more than we love them. For if we love God most, we will love others best.

I know this sounds like preposterous gobbledygook to an unbeliever. How can you love someone best by loving someone else most? But those who have encountered the living Christ understand what I mean. They know the depth of love and breadth of grace that flows out from them toward others when they themselves are filled with love for God and all he is for them and means to them in Jesus. And they know the comparatively shallow and narrow love they feel toward others when their affection for God is ebbing.

Worth Reading

Psalm 2

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims Worship the Same God?  

You can find a loving conception of monotheism in both Judaism and Islam, but only in Christianity does this love manifest itself in a one-way work of salvation of sinners apart from religious effort. For this reason, C.S. Lewis has famously said of Christian faith, “We trust not because ‘a God’ exists, but because this God exists.”

5 Reasons to Study Old Testament History 

Shakespeare wrote that each person's history is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The Christian view of personal and world history is quite a contrast; we believe God ordained it, organizes it, and moves it towards a meaningful, definite, and certain purpose.

Many Christians, however, entertain a negative view of Old Testament History; of its usefulness and even of its accuracy. It is often regarded as "far away" and "distant" chronologically, geographically, socially, and theologically. "What can it do for me?" and "Why study it?" are common questions. Here are five reasons to study it and benefit from it:

Christian, Do You Love God's Law?

Neither Jesus nor Paul had a problem with the law. Paul wrote that his gospel of grace upholds and establishes the law (Rom. 3:31)—even God’s laws in their negative form, since the “grace of God . . . teaches us to say ‘No’” (Titus 2:11–12 NIV). And remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17–19? Our attitude to the law is a litmus test of our relationship to the kingdom of God.