Tresuring God's Truth in Your Heart

Psalm 40:5: Proper Worship

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.

Disappointment is easy to find. Disappointment lurks when keys are missing, and thrives in the chasms of a broken heart. Is disappointment easily found because life does not go as planned or because our hearts worship lesser things? Counselor and pastor, Paul David Tripp, defines worship as “[our] identity as . . . human being[s]. [We] were designed to worship. This means that [we are] always attaching the hopes, dreams, peace, motivations, joy, and security of [our] heart[s] to something. So you don’t just worship on Sunday; you worship your way through every day of your life” (Tripp, Sex and Money, 35). If Tripp is right, then God created us to be worshipers. Because the Fall into sin (Genesis 3), we regularly place our hopes, dreams, and peace on people, possessions, and perspectives that only God can fill (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

How does worship relate to Psalm 40:5? Psalm 40:5 depicts a heart in proper worship of the Triune God of Scripture. Because of proper worship and trust the Psalmist, King David, has hope in the face of pain and suffering (Psalm 40:1, 12, 14, and 17). Because of proper worship, David could proclaim and wait for God’s most wondrous deed: redemption through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:7-10). What about you? Where are your hopes, dreams, peace, motivations, joys, and securities resting today? The truth is Christians and non-Christians struggle with worshiping the right thing. The only way to escape improper worship and have lifelong hope is to rest in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ Who through His Spirit gives us all hearts like David (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

This blog was written by Seth Dunn

Treasuring God's Truth in Your Heart

John 1:29: Forgiven by the Lamb

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

What would you give to have forgiveness? To have the pains you caused others, your careless words, and all the errors you cannot let go, pardoned? John the Baptist knew worldwide forgiveness cost lamb’s blood. But not just any lamb. If I am honest, I know the wrongs I have committed against others and God cannot be dealt with by a barnyard beast. My angry actions, my insensitive speech, my past have missed Scripture’s mark so much I need something God sized to heal my brokenness. If you are honest, you and I are in the same sinful ship in need of help (Romans 3:23).

That is why Jesus Christ is so amazing. Jesus is our once and for all sacrifice needed to move our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:11-12, Hebrews 10:12-18). Jesus is the Lamb promised in the Old Testament, Whose blood empowers holy living today (Isaiah 53:7, Jeremiah 11:19, 1 Peter 1:17-19). Jesus is the Lamb Who is worthy in this sight of heaven when all others are found worthless, and Whose impending victory is predicted in Scripture (Revelation 5, 19:11-21). What would you give to have forgiveness? Forgiveness already purchased for you? Whether you have not yet received Christ as your exclusive means of salvation or a struggling Christian, His forgiveness is for you when you confess your need for Him, crying out “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (1 John 1:9-2:2).

This blog was written by Seth Dunn

Worth Reading

Ephesians 4:1-6

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.

No Little People, No Little Places

Many people in our town know my youngest son, Tim. Often, Tim is recognizable because he has Down syndrome—and there aren’t that many people in Ephrata, PA who are recipients of that “noticeable extra little something” called the 47th chromosome...When I drop him off at work every evening, . . . he declares with gusto, “Let’s go get those customers!” or he says, “Customer service—to the glory of God!”
The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people.

TULIP and Reformed Theology: Total Depravity

The idea is that we are not sinners because we sin, but that we sin because we are sinners.

We’ve Lost Our Vocabulary of Wonder About Heaven

By losing our vocabulary of wonder, I mean that we’ve come to think of Heaven as utterly immaterial and non-physical, a home suited for body-less angels, not real people. Floating in clouds while strumming harps isn’t anybody's idea of a great time. But the Heaven God promises is for human beings, who aren't just spiritual but physical too. This is why the biblical teaching of the physical resurrection and eternal life together on the New (resurrected) Earth is so critical. . .
God tells us to set our minds not primarily on this life, but on the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for: Heaven (Colossians 3:1-4).

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Worth Reading

Ephesians 4:1-3

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.

My Father’s Anger

But here’s an important distinction. Though I felt Dad’s anger, I always knew what kind of anger it was. It was the anger of, “You, my son, have done something wrong, and I am angry that wrong has been done.” But there’s another kind of fatherly anger that I never felt. It’s the anger that says, “You have done something wrong, and I am angry to have such a son who would do this kind of thing.” The first kind of anger came and left. Even minutes after discipline I knew I was welcomed into the love of my father.

TULIP and Reformed Theology: An Introduction

The Local Church Is More Awkward Than Your Facebook Wall

We are not called to engage the local church with blind trust in the pastor or members. We can be realistic and admit that the local church only realizes the biblical model in fits and starts. But it remains the most beautiful hope we can imagine. We give ourselves to it because it is the community through which God will ultimately solve the problem of human loneliness and isolation, “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 1:10).

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Worth Reading

Ephesians 3:1-13 

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.

(Im)Possible: One-on-One with Lon Allison about His New Book on Evangelism

Even if you are not attending the Sunday School class I am teaching I believe you will find this article helpful and encouraging:
We each have different roles to play in different people’s lives. Some sow, some water, some harvest. It’s incredibly freeing to know you are not alone in witnessing to a person. Others were there before. Others will follow. God is present and working in the whole journey.

Lottery Winner Says Winning “Has Ruined My Life”
 

Anything in your life that you would refuse to give up to follow Jesus has become an idol. Many make an idol out of material possessions and wealth, as the Rich Young Ruler did in Matthew 19:16-30, a passage I had the privilege of preaching on Wednesday night at Westminster PCA as part of their Lenten Series. What that man did not see is that Jesus calls us to treasure, not away from it. This article may help us see the deceitfulness of riches.

Wise Technological Parenting

It is the apex of foolishness for parents to allow their children to have free and unaccountable access to technology-- smart phones, tablets, iPods, computers, etc…
There is a lot more that we could unpack on this important subject. But for now we must ask, "What should we do?" How should we, as Christian parents, approach these thorny issues related to modern technology?

This blog was written by Andy Styer