Repent. Believe. Follow. Repent of your sin. Believe Jesus died for you, bearing your sin on the cross. Follow Him, obeying all that He taught, including telling others about their need for Jesus (sin & repentance), His death for them, and His call to repent, believe, & follow.
Happy Father’s Day.
I’m reminded this Lord’s Day that God’s identity as Father offers dads like me a profound model that transcends mere instruction; it redefines what fatherhood means at its deepest level. Every family derives its name from God the Father (Eph 3:14–15), which means my role as a father participates in something cosmic and eternal. If you’re a father you’re not inventing fatherhood; you’re reflecting it.
The encouragement here is this: if you’re a dad you don’t stand alone in your fatherhood. Parent-child relationships are designed to teach us by analogy our precious relationship to God — our true Father — in Christ. As you love your children imperfectly, you’re pointing them toward the perfect Father who loves them infinitely. That’s your true calling.
A father’s calling involves more than providing or protecting.
He is meant to reflect the heart of the heavenly Father — in strength and tenderness, wisdom and patience, mercy and truth.
No earthly father does this perfectly. But faithful fathers point beyond themselves to the perfect Father their children need most.
Happy Father’s Day.
Listen to John Piper’s message “Fathers Who Give Hope.”
If our country were invaded, about 90% of the soldiers who took up arms to defend us would be men.
If a criminal is breaking down your door and you call the police, there’s about an 85% chance the officer who shows up to put his life on the line for you will be a man.
If you need electrical work, plumbing, or welding done, about 95% of those who do such hard work are men.
If you need goods hauled from shore to shore by truck drivers, around 90% of them will be men.
Thank God for the men who do such work—and all other kinds of labor—most of whom do it to care for their wives and children. Thank God for all men who get out of bed and are off to their jobs so their families have a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Families need fathers. Daughters need dads. Sons desperately need dads. You can look up the stats that prove the deleterious effects of fatherless households. Or you can just open up the Bible and read Genesis 1-2 to see that God created a man and woman to be a husband and wife, and together to procreate and raise children.
Are men perfect? I don’t need to answer that. We all know the answer, especially us men. And the same answer applies to women. None of us are: women, men, mothers, fathers. We are all deeply flawed people, all living by the mercy of a good God.
That same merciful God has put us all together on this planet to live, to love, to work, to worship. Men do men things. Women do women things. God uses fathers in ways that mothers can never replicate. Just like he uses mothers in ways that fathers can never replicate. Parenting is not a competition between the sexes.
Today is Father’s Day. A day of gratitude for men who shoulder tremendous burdens, provide for their families, take them to church, teach their sons to be men, show their daughters that they are loved and respected, and will do whatever it takes to protect their families from harm.
Fathers. Thank God for them.
There's a quiet temptation, as we get older or busier or more settled in our routines, to coast. To assume we've learned the main things. To put the books down and the questions away. But a mind that stops growing starts shrinking — and so does the faith that lives in it.
God gave you a curious mind on purpose. He invites you into a lifetime of discovering more of Him through His Word, through good books, through wise teachers, through the slow patient work of asking better questions. Spiritual maturity isn't a destination you arrive at. It's a journey you stay on.
What's one book or passage stretching you right now? Share below!
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Psalm 46:1 in the original Hebrew carries more weight than the English conveys. The word translated "refuge" is machaceh, meaning shelter or place of protection. The phrase "very present help" means clearly proven. This is not wishful thinking. It is a tested and verified claim.
The MLB has warned Christian baseball players that their faith and moral convictions will not be tolerated.
“They are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. But they will give an account to Him…” (1 Peter 4:4-5)
Why do we keep making these movies? Every generation has a film (or five) about a child searching for their missing father.
Why? What's so special about that one man?
I do not condemn Communism because it is violent and revolutionary. I condemn Communism because it is false. I condemn it because it is an erroneous ethical theory of the normal life of man.
Jesus not only bore our sins on the cross, He carried them away an infinite distance. He removed them from the presence of God and from us forever. They can no longer bar our access to God's holy presence. Now "we have confidence" to enter God's presence (Hebrews 10:19).
My personal account is changing.
Fitness is what I do.
Christ is who I belong to.
Going forward, this account will be much more clear about that.
Expect Scripture, theology, fatherhood, manhood, marriage, leadership, discipline, and following Christ in a world that hates Him.
I remember when my kids were little, there was a whole VBS circuit, that all the moms knew about. You could have your kid in a VBS each week of summer and have your summer childcare covered. There were charts, with churches and times, and everything.
Some of the older people got mad about this. Said this was about Jesus, not people getting free childcare.
And that's the wrong take. These kids learned to feel safe in church. They heard about Jesus. They met every pastor in town. The financial burden on neighborhood families were lifted. And you didn't see the fruit right away. But when there was a death in the family, or a tragedy, old VBS attenders knew who to reach out to. And they met with Jesus when it mattered, and the Holy Spirit controls the timing, not us.
Grace is lavish. The gospel is lavish. Just look at the parable of the sower. He's just throwing seed every which way, on rocks, on thorns, on good soil. Sow lavishly, because the seed we are sowing is lavish. Grace sown stingy isn't grace.
My goodness, everyone needs to go and read/watch "Babette's Feast." Learn something about the transforming power of grace when it's given generously.
@lukedsimmons Oh man, this hits home today. Some naysayers in my life have pushed for "clarity", "vision", but when I talk to others they affirm it's there. I think it's more likely that the critical voices were looking for their vision/their goals in what I shared. Thanks for sharing!