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Currently, I have several books I am reading.  Here are a few quotes from recent chapters: Miracles are associated in the Bible with the prophetic office far more frequently than they are with priests or with kings. The miracles that God worked through prophets were not merely acts of raw power to compel awe. The form of the miracle reinforced the message delivered in the words that the Lord gave his prophets. The message that the Lord conveyed through prophets can be summed up in the contrasting terms prosecution and promise. Contentment trusts God to be God. We don't find our strength in the stuff of the world; we find it in the work of the Spirit. But to be filled with the Spirit and learn this supernatural contentment, we must often be emptied by the Spirit of all else that might satisfy. Fasting from anything is a sign that we are denying "more" and saying "enough." Prayer and fasting are expressions (and embracings) of our weakness and,...

Currently, I am reading two books by Jared C. Wilson.  One is on the Holy Spirit and the other is about the church.  Here are a few quotes from recent chapters I have read: the truth is, God is never silent. the primary way any Christian will participate in a friendship with God is by Bible study and prayer. (Bill is) approaching the Bible not as a religious token of routine affection but as Spiritual food to feed his hunger. Showing you Jesus is what the Holy Spirit is most after in your life. Applying (Scripture) prayerfully is key as well. We have no power in and of ourselves. The power we need to apply God's Word in ways that honor God and magnify Jesus can only come from God himself. It is in prayer that we "tap into" this power. Everybody hungers for community whether they realize it or not. We were made for relationships with God and with other people. Because of sin and the fallenness of the world, however, we are not "discipled" well in ...

Here are some quotes from books I am currently reading: We daily face the temptation of self-worship. the Holy Spirit's purpose is to point our attention continually to Jesus. Regardless of whether you're conscious of the Spirit's work in your life, he is still working. He doesn't need you to help him. He is who he is and he does what he does. The preaching is the steering wheel of the church. Is it enough simply to get sheep in the pasture while leaving them thereafter unfed? Gospel-driven preaching that proclaims and exults in the revealing of God's glory in Christ. The point is to point them to he living God in the content and through your passion so that that they might respond to God's good news in worship. for the sermon cannot do any good unless there is a savor of Christ in it. The worship gathering ought to seek to orchestrate an encounter with God, not an experience of him. The worship service is primarily about helping people...

Here are some quotes from three books I am currently reading: "the role and nature of this person (Holy Spirit) is to "help". "Jesus presents the Holy Spirit to us as the ultimate answer to overcoming and undoing the work of Satan, the great Deceiver and "the father of lies" "This conviction is the only way people become aware that they need the Savior. The truth is that no one ever comes to believe in Jesus as Savior without first coming to the conviction that he or she needs the Savior. That's the Holy Spirit's job." "Good advice requires a person with a plan; Good News requires a person with a message." "Radical discipleship means bringing to the world--including Christians--the wonderful, surprising, and offensive news of the gospel." "If people are withering on the vine with perpetual exhortations without Good News, praise without being reminded what they are praising God for, calls to active im...

I am currently reading through two books: Christless Christianity by Michael Horton and Walking with Jesus through His Word by Dennis E. Johnson.  Here are some quotes I read recently: It is through God's Word of judgment (law) and salvation (gospel) that we are transferred from our own pointless scripts and inserted into the grand narrative that revolves around Jesus Christ. Reduce Christianity to good advice and it blends perfectly with the culture of life coaching...What distinguishes Christianity at its heart is not its moral code but its story...At its heart, this story is a gospel: the Good News that God has reconciled us to himself in Christ. The worst thing that can happen to the church is to confuse law and gospel...We naturally think that if you want people to do the right thing, you just need to tell them what to do and exhort them to do it with sufficient passion and effective methods. This, however, avoids both the law and the gospel...The law commands, but...

You Can Change by Tim Chester has been on my bookshelf for a few years.  I started it this year and I am sorry that I didn't start it sooner.  This book is so good!  Chester's book cover states "God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions"  Go buy the book.   But for now, here are several great quotes: We're not changed by systems or rules. We need a Redeemer to set us free, and we have a great Redeemer in Jesus...What this book tries to do is connect the truth about God with our Monday-morning struggles. The message of this book is that change takes place in our lives as we turn to see the glory of God in Jesus. We "see" the glory of Christ as we "hear" the gospel of Christ. Moral effort, fear of judgment, and sets of rules can't bring lasting change. But amazing things happen when we "turn to the Lord." What the law does do is show us we can't change ourselves or make ourselve...

Over the last four months, I have been reading several books.  And over the last few weeks, I finished three of those books: Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray Rejoicing in Christ by Mike Reeves You Are Free by Rebekah Lyons Here are some quotes from each: justification is the act of God's free grace...We do not justify ourselves...Justification is not any religious exercise...Justify is to declare to be righteous. justification must be one that will take care of past sin as well as provide for the future...Only a perfect righteousness can provide the basis for a complete, perfect and irreversible justification. Adoption is concerned with the fatherhood of God in relation to men. Sanctification is specifically the work of this indwelling and directing Holy Spirit...we do not sanctify ourselves. It is God who sanctifies. Specifically it is the Holy Spirit who is the agent of sanctification. Nothing is more central or basis than union and communion wi...

Here are some of my favorite quotes from books I have read over the last few weeks: Words can draw us together or they can divide. What we say and how we say it makes a difference...Discussions based on respect for reach person demonstrates the relationship is valued more than the issue being discussed...We accept and love people; we agree or disagree on principles. (The Messy Life of Parenting by Lori Wildenberg) We were born of Adam. There is no hope for us in trying harder or getting some divine leniency. Our only hope is to be taken out of Adam's old humanity, to be born again into a new humanity, to be a new creation. How, then, on that dark day of the fall, must Adam and Eve have thrilled to hear of the Seed, the offspring, the child who would bruise the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15)! Nothing else would suffice. (Rejoicing in Christ by Michael Reeves) The virgin birth is an almighty No! to all our silly attempts at earning salvation. It means that before Jesus is ev...

Last week, I finished Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul by Chad Bird.  It is a book I would recommend as the author communicates well and shares how God met him every step of his journey. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book: God specializes in broken people...No matter how badly we have wrecked our lives, our Father is in the thick of that disaster to begin the work of making us whole again...Every step of the way we are accompanied by the God who, in Jesus Christ, will never un-love us, un-adopt us, un-redeem us. Christ's forgiveness precedes our repentance--and calls it forth...Once more, we lose control. And in loss is freedom. At the foot of the cross we are equal--equally guilty, equally forgiven, equally loved. We realize, in our weakness, that we are totally dependent on the strength that comes from the grace of Christ...freedom comes not from pretending I'm someone I'm not, but from a loving welcome from one who accepts me as I am. Th...

I finished reading Why the Reformation Still Matters by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester a few weeks ago.  There is a previous blog post with quotes from first 5 chapters of the book.  Today's post includes quotes from Chapters 6-11. For them (the Reformers) there was an important difference between union and communion. Communion with Christ--meaning the actual enjoyment of Christ--is something that fluctuates in believers...Union is the foundation of communion...union with Christ is a fixed and therefore stable thing, the solid foundation on which we can know lasting joy. (117) our sin cannot be removed from our hearts simply by our trying harder or scrubbing ourselves clean: the Spirit must transform us through the gospel. That is how the new life of the Spirit begins, and this is how it grows...The gospel, then, cannot be treated simply as a message for unbelievers, as the doorway into the Christian life; in order for Christians to grow they must be kept in the sunshine...

I am about halfway through the book, Why the Reformation Still Matters   by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester.  I am reading it in preparation for preaching this summer.  Here are some quotes from the first 5 chapters: Nothing matters more than justification by Christ alone through faith alone...This is why Luther described justification as "the summary of Christian doctrine" and "the article by which the church stands or falls." So Christ is central to the Bible. And Christ is central to the interpretation of the Bible. All true interpretations of the Bible lead us to Jesus. Corrupted all the way down, we cannot fix ourselves. Our hearts must be renewed, and that can happen only through the gospel being preached and the glory of God being unveiled. For them, grace was not a "thing" at all; it is the personal kindness of God by which he does not merely enable us but actually rescues and freely gives us himself...In other words, the grace and righte...

I recently finished Sola! by Leann Luchinger and Heather Choate Davis. Here are some quotes: sola is Latin for alone, and that the three solas are considered foundational principles of Protestantism...sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), and sola scriptura (Scripture alone). Not grace plus works or worthiness or effort or intention or money or remorse. Grace alone!...It is an all or nothing proposition, with God doing all, and us doing nothing. Because the Cross of Christ is where sin and grace kiss. Not just once but daily. His Law (God's wisdom for living) reveals our sin (all the ways we reject that wisdom). His Gospel then assures us that we are not to sit around beating ourselves up about it but rather to keep following Him, trusting that "for freedom Christ has set us free"...This balanced tension between Law and Gospel serves us in every season, keeping us humble through the highs, hopeful through the lows, and trusting that it's all on H...

I am currently reading through Think Again by Jared Mellinger.  A review of the book will be posted tomorrow on the blog.  Here are some quotes from the first half of the book that I have enjoyed: The more we are captivated by Christ, the less we are caught up in self. Fear, false guilt, unbelief, and many other daily struggles are weeds that grow in the soil of thinking about ourselves too much, and thinking about Christ too little. Jesus rescues us from the introspection that would make us unfruitful and ineffective by fixing our eyes on him. What we learn is that the gospel rescues us from self-hatred and self-esteem by destroying the idol of self and replacing it with Christ. Satan's strategies for keeping us in sin is by leading us to dwell excessively on our sin. The devil's lie is that the more we focus on sin, the more we will be free from it. But ruminating too long upon our ruin is not a virtue. The Spirit's goal in showing us our sin is to drive us to Chr...

I started two new books recently.  They are The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson and Unchained by Noel Jesse Heikkinen.  Here are some quotes from the first chapter: We structure our spiritual lives in such a way that we can monitor and measure how we are doing and, presumably, how God feels about us at any given moment. The problem occurs when our man-made rules become more important than Jesus--when praying or reading the Bible every day becomes more important than following Jesus. Freedom is not what our culture tells us it is. Freedom is not my deciding, from the urges and longings of my sinful nature, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, with whom I want to do it. According to the Bible, that is bondage, not freedom.  The remedy for both (antinomianism and legalism) is a fuller, biblical, and profound understanding of grace and of the character of God. When we behold the glory of Christ in the gospel, it reo...

I recently finished Three Free Sins by Steve Brown from Key Life Network.  This is a great book that reminds us that God's not mad at us.  Here are some of my favorite quotes: Self-righteousness is addictive...self-righteousness starts with convictions (a good thing), then moves to discussion (another good thing), and finally falls into the devil's trinity of dismissal, demonization, and destruction (some very bad things). I found out that it really isn't about me and my faithfulness, perfection, and obedience. It's about Another, who is perfect in his faithfulness and obedience. The truly amazing thing about the whole incident (Genesis 17) is that it was God--and God alone--who walked down the path between the cut-up animals. God was saying that Abram wasn't required to do anything, to obey the laws of the covenant, to be faithful, or anything else. That was God's business; he would fulfill all the requirements and obligations of the covenant! Wha...

This past week, I have reading three specific books.  Core Christianity by Michael Horton, Life With A Capital L by Matt Heart, and Because He Loves Me by Elyse Fitzpatrick.  Here are quotes from recent chapters: The logic of karma or the law is broken because the God of justice is also the merciful God of grace. The gift has been given. Therefore we are free to give. And what we give is our thanks to God and our good works to our neighbor. The good news draws us out into the world, looking up to Christ in faith and out to our neighbor in love and good works. We are called to a discipleship that grows out of living on the Vine--in union with Christ and together with the communion of saints. At the core of the Christian faith are objective, historical realities that secure our faith. And with our salvation fully secured, we are able to look up in faith toward God and out to our neighbor in love. Plumbing theology is simply a matter of receiving from God and then...

Today, Bryan Loritts book, Saving the Saved is released.  Earlier today, I posted a book review.  This afternoon, I want to share my favorite quotes from the book. The church has become a meritocracy. It was never meant to be this way.    We’re all complicated messes in need of daily grace.  If we want a life rich with fruit that blesses others, it doesn’t happen by doing more, but by abiding more    Our sins were expunged, not through our white-knuckled, try-harder morality, but through the death of Jesus. We call that grace.  Life in the meritocracy tends to be all about me and my attempts to find value and love through, well, my attempts. So off we go, trying to ascend “Mount Significance” through our own efforts, hoping to catch greatness along the way. But what if I told you there’s a completely different way, a counterintuitive path? What if I showed you that the great God who created you and me not only relieves us of our strivi...

I am currently reading Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward For Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides by Scott Sauls. Many of you have heard me talk about wanting a "third option" based on how often issues are divided into two based on the loudest voices whether that be Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal, traditional/contemporary, etc. I often say I want another choice.  Scott Sauls' book will be helpful in this dialogue. For us preachers, Tim Keller said, the longer it takes people to figure out where we stand on politics, in all likelihood the more faithfully we are preaching Jesus. Rather, when it comes to kings and kingdoms, Jesus sides with himself. Our loyalty to Jesus and his Kingdom must always exceed our loyalty to an earthly agenda, whether political or otherwise. The world's politics rely heavily on power. Leaning toward a certain party is one thing, but it is important to see that a partisan spirit can actually run against the Spirit of ...

I am reading four books right now.  Here are my favorite quotes from my recent reading at the Perk: The great theme of Walter Marshall's book is that Christians grow in obedience by the power of the gospel, not by their own strength. Christians are in union with Christ, and their Christian growth flows from this union, not from their own efforts. The gospel is essential for growth in holiness. Only the gospel can empower obedience. That is why every generation of the church must discover afresh the sufficiency of the gospel of grace, and the power of the cross of Jesus Christ both to save and to sanctify. the key error of the Christian life is that people think that even though they have been justified by a righteousness produced totally by Christ, they must be sanctified by a holiness produced totally by themselves. The Old Adam lives in the world of control, of constant self-measurement and self-reliance. The Law, on most every occasion, draw...

In a previous post, I shared some favorite quotes from The Gospel Project online seminar.  Today, I am sharing a few more that I listened to before the videos were removed.                  A gospel centered church consistently & constantly reminds its people of the gospel, consistently & constantly reminds people who they were before they heard the gospel & consistently celebrates the present power of the gospel for daily life. (Matt Chandler) The gospel in worship leads people into the beauty of the story of the finished work of Jesus & the power of His resurrection. (Louie Giglio) We have a new identity-child of God, loved by God. This new identity leads to a new way of living-loving others. (Jeff Vanderstelt) Discipleship is not a ministry of your church. Discipleship is THE ministry of the church. (Dhati Lewis) The Church partners with Jesus in saving thru gospel proclamation...