My sole hope for heaven lies in the full atonement made upon Calvary’s cross for the ungodly. On that I firmly rely, I have not a shadow of a hope anywhere else.
-Charles Spurgeon
@goinggodward Also….
“True God of True God, Light from Light eternal
Humbly, He entered the virgin’s womb
Son of the Father, begotten, not created”
It’s in my top 5 hymns of all time not just Christmas.
A church’s children’s ministry may be prudently useful. But such ministry is nowhere found in the Bible.
Instead, the Bible emphasizes fathers training and instructing their children in the context of a local church (Eph 6:4).
Therefore, the long-term solution to “the church service is over their head,” is not taking them out of the assembly for more age based ministry.
The solution is faithful dads and moms daily discipling their children in such a way that over many years the Scriptural content of Christian worship is in their kids’ heads, not over it.
A plea: We can be patient with our brother pastors who apply the Word of God, law and gospel, differently in their different contexts. Spurgeon said that he preached the law to the proud and the gospel to the broken. There is pastoral wisdom required in the preaching of Christ. Faithful preaching does not always sound the same in every context, even when the overall theology is the same.
For it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched. We see the fitness of His death and of those outstretched arms: it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and unite together in Himself.
-Athanasius
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Is it nothing to you to be left to find what happiness you can in this world with its perishing trifles and enter into eternal misery when you die, when such riches of glory are held out to you?
-John Owen, calling out to unbelievers
Why does Christ love you? Does He need you? Have you deserved His love? Did you love Him first? Can He not be happy and blessed without you?
It is nothing but His overflowing mercy, compassion, and grace that moves Him to call you to Himself.
-John Owen
There are two reasons for coming to Christ by faith. The first is to receive life and salvation. But secondly, we come to Him as believers so that we may have ‘life more abundantly.’
-John Owen
@rcaldw@SlowToWrite It is absolutely recency bias. And you can ask former and current NBA players and the majority side with Jordan.
People confuse an amazing and long career with being the best basketball player.
Jordan played 7 fewer seasons and still has more hardware in multiple categories.