David Gibbs

Seeking joy in a fallen world through faith in Jesus Christ.

[Shane Pruitt @shane_pruitt78]

People: “I was born this way.”
Jesus: “You must be born again.”

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@DavidCCrowther Congratulations!!!

[Jeff Taylor @JeffTaylorLR]

The message of the Reformation did not explode across Europe because Luther said we are saved by grace alone through faith alone verified by works alone.

It detonated because he said something far more radical:

Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Christ’s obedience alone.

Not grace + faith + your performance.
Not grace + faith + your cooperation.
Not grace + faith + your verification.

The Reformers weren’t announcing a softer law.
They were announcing a finished covenant.

The Vassal kept the Pactum Salutis.
The verdict has already been rendered.
The righteousness has already been accomplished.
The inheritance has already been secured.

That’s why Europe erupted.
Not because Luther tightened the screws —
but because he cut the chain.

#Reformation #SolaFide #CovenantJustice #PactumSalutis #UnionWithChrist #KlineanArchitecture

[Jeff Taylor @JeffTaylorLR]

Why Paul Never Uses “Spirit Leading” for Decision‑Making

When people talk about “the Spirit leading me to do X,” they’re using a category Paul never uses. Not once does Paul connect the Spirit’s leading to vocational choices, directional guidance, or inner impressions.

Why? Because Paul’s entire framework for the Spirit is moral and eschatological, not intuitive or navigational.

When Paul talks about the Spirit, he’s talking about:
• the power that breaks sin’s dominion
• the presence that fulfills the Law’s righteous requirement
• the agency that forms Christ in the believer
• the guarantee of the coming resurrection

That’s the Spirit’s domain.
Sanctification, not signaling.
Transformation, not traffic‑direction.

When Paul wants to describe how Christians make decisions, he uses categories like:
• wisdom
• renewed minds
• discernment
• the mind of Christ
• the pattern of sound judgment

Decision‑making is a renewed‑mind category, not a Spirit‑leading category.

Paul never collapses those two.
He never treats the Spirit as a private GPS.
He never builds a spirituality around impressions.
He never ties maturity to sensitivity to inner signals.

For Paul, the Spirit’s leading is about who you are becoming, not which option you choose.

The Spirit forms a kind of person — one who can make decisions in freedom, wisdom, and love — without needing a whisper for every step.

#WisdomNotWhispers #RenewedMind #SpiritFormedLife #SanctificationLogic #MaturityInChrist #CovenantalDiscernment

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@JeffTaylorLR Love this! Truly appreciate your posts!!!

[Jeff Taylor @JeffTaylorLR]

A different way to preach Sunday

“See the Son — and stand in His strength”

Father’s Day sermons often collapse into moralism:
“Do better. Try harder. Step up.”

But Scripture doesn’t form men through shame.
It forms them through union with the Last Adam.

Christ is the true Image, the true Warrior, the true Builder.
He restores what Adam lost, arms His sons with His own armor,
and rebuilds households as intrusion outposts of the coming kingdom.

A father isn’t a self‑made man.
He’s a Spirit‑formed son.
Not the architect of the home, but a sub‑builder under the risen King.

The call today isn��t “perform.”
It’s “See the Son — and become the fathers He forms.”
#FathersDay

[Jeff Taylor @JeffTaylorLR]

Romans 8:13 is a first‑class condition.
Paul isn’t dangling your salvation over a performance cliff. He’s assuming the Spirit’s work as the operative reality of the regenerate.

The grammar is doing violence to the “use it or lose it” crowd:

εἰ + indicative = “If X — and X is true for you — then Y.”

This is not probation. Not contingency. Not “try harder or the Spirit walks.”

And Paul immediately interprets himself:

“For all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God.” (v.14)

Mortification is what sons do because of who they are, not the price of keeping the Spirit on retainer.

If your reading of Romans 8:13 turns adoption into a lease agreement, the Greek already refutes you.

Identity → Spirit‑leading → mortification → life.

#Romans8 #Mortification #UnionWithChrist #SpiritLed #AdoptionLogic #PaulineSyntax #FirstClassCondition

[K-State T&F/XC @KStateTFXC]

NATIONAL CHAMPION 🥇

Tah Chikomba takes gold in the long jump, breaking his own school record at 8.37m (27-5½)!

#NCAATF x #EMAW

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@JeffTaylorLR Congratulations

[Jeff Taylor @JeffTaylorLR]

“You will be perfect.”Matt 5:48 is not an imperative. Jesus isn’t tightening the screws of the law—He’s announcing the future the Father is creating.The Sermon on the Mount is not a moral treadmill. It’s the revelation of a people the Father Himself will perfect.Turn the promise into a command and you get despair. Receive it as eschatology and you get the gospel. #SermonontheMount #Matthew

[Nancy Pearcey @NancyRPearcey]

Why Christian Marriage Was Revolutionary

"To appreciate how unique the Christian view of marriage is, we need to set it against the ancient Greco-Roman culture into which the church was born. In the ancient world, sexual promiscuity among men was widespread and socially accepted. The purpose of a wife was to have legal heirs, but it was expected that men would have sex with prostitutes, mistresses, concubines, and, most of all, with their slaves—male and female, children and adults.

Demosthenes famously said, “We keep prostitutes for pleasure. We keep mistresses for the day-to-day needs of the body. We keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes.” Wives sometimes protested, but they were told they had no choice but to accept their husband’s promiscuity....

Men could accuse their wives of adultery, but since it was thought acceptable for men to have sex outside of marriage, wives could not accuse their husbands of adultery. Cato declared, “If you catch your wife in adultery, you can kill her with impunity; she, however, cannot dare to lay a finger on you if you commit adultery. It is the law.”

In this historical context, Christianity was nothing short of revolutionary. At its core was a new form of sexual equality. To the shock of the ancient world, both sexes were held to the same moral standard. Christianity condemned promiscuity among men as well as women. It stood out as radically different because it taught that a husband actually wrongs his wife by committing adultery. Jesus said, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11–12).

Such even-handed treatment was genuinely novel."

(From The Toxic War on Masculinity)

[Melissa the Hopeful🏠Homemaker @BiblicalBeauty]

Helen Roseveare, a missionary who faced intense suffering and persecution during her 20 years of service in the Congo, shares one of the times that she saw God answer prayer in a most unexpected way:

"I went to have prayers with our orphanage children as I did every day, and any of the children wanted gathered around me for prayer time, and I'd give them different things to pray about. And this particular day, I told the children of this tiny baby and asked them to pray for the nurses that they would stay awake all night to keep that baby warm. If the baby got cold, it would die. I mentioned that the baby had a 2-year-old sister who was crying because her mommy had died. I mentioned the burst hot water bottle.

During prayer time, different children prayed for different things, and then one little 10-year-old girl, Ruth, she prayed in the usual blunt way of our African children, 'Please, God, send us a hot water bottle. Now, God, it'll be no good tomorrow. Send it this afternoon. Now, if it comes tomorrow, the baby will be dead.'

I'm sort of swallowing hard, and she said, 'While you're about it, God, would you send a dolly for the little 2-year-old sister, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?'

And that afternoon, the parcel came. It was the first parcel I ever, I've been out there four years, I'd never had a parcel from home. And despite the fact I live on the equator, somebody packing that parcel had been prompted by God to put in a hot water bottle, and a child from my Bible class at home had put in a dolly for a little girl.

And it came that afternoon in answer to a 10 year-old child's prayer, and the amazing thing was, you know, that parcel had been on the way five months to get to us. It had left England in July, and it came that afternoon, cause a child prayed."

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@JeffTaylorLR I love this so much! Thanks to your posts my interest in MK has grown exponentially!

[Jeremy Carl @realJeremyCarl]

I'm going to keep posting this Alstair Begg clip "The Man on the Middle Cross" (less than four minutes in length) every Holy Week, because its message is true in 2026, it will be true in 2036 and it will be true in 3036.

"If i take my eyes off the cross, I can then give only lip service to its efficacy while at the same time living as if my salvation depends upon me.

And as soon as you go there it will lead you either to abject despair or a horrible kind of arrogance.

And it is only the cross of Christ that deals both with the dreadful depths of despair and the pretentious arrogance of the pride of man that says you know, I can figure this out."

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

“What would you say to a young Christian who is nervous about the future?”

I love @TimKellerNYC’s answer. I think about it every Easter.

[Paul Chitwood @DrPaulChitwood]

As you pray for America’s soldiers in harm’s way, I urge you to also pray for our Southern Baptist missionaries, for national believers, and for the lost who so desperately need the Lord.

I’m grateful to God that we can confirm our missionary families are currently unharmed.

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@bradleybrisco Love this so much! Thanks

[David Gibbs @David_Gibbs]

@rickbrennanjr This is helpful! Thank you!

[Cities Church @citieschurch]

A Response to the Disruption of Our January 18 Worship Service