Fetching the Heavenly Fire

"Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labour, but I am speaking to you upon the public account, that you would do it for the sake of the church. When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you have been much with God: that which is most on your hearts, is like to be most in their ears. I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publish to my flock the distempers of my own soul. When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused...If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies our hearers are like to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increases of the same graces in them! O brethren, watch therefore over your own hearts; keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love and zeal...Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices." Richard Baxter from The Preacher and Preaching, chapter 2, The Preacher and Piety, Erroll Hulse, pages 68-69 (emphasis mine).

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Getting the Most from Reading your Bible

The start of the new year often means the start of a new Bible reading plan. For most of us, we start strong, fight through the "descendants" and difficult names. The familiarity of Exodus (thanks to Cecil B. DeMille ) puts some winds in our reading sails. Then we hit the rough waters of Leviticus. You get the idea... God reveals Himself to us in His Word. We want to see Him in His Triune glory there. Fighting against the difficulty of reading regularly, consistently, and prayerfully is one of the most important battles we face every day that God gives us. Below, I am recommending three resources that may help you, not just stick with your Bible reading, but love God's Word more, even the difficult parts. My prayer is that one or two or all three of these resources will help you fight and win the battle so you can consistently read God's Word and God will consistently bless you through your personal Bible reading. This is not a countdown, from best to least best.

Suffering--Book Brief

Paul Tripp is a faithful counselor and has served me and many of you through his conferences, books, video series, newsletters and booklets. He has written on the transition to middle age, love, sex, and money, raising teens and many other subjects. If you are not familiar with him or his writing, I highly recommend him. His latest book, Suffering , is the best thing he has written. There are multiple contact points any reader will have with this book because suffering is universal. We all experience it. We can’t escape it. Tripp, through his decade's long association with the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) has counseled hundreds of sufferers. You will hear many of their stories in this book. More importantly, you will hear how a skilled biblical counselor helps the sufferer frame her experience in such a way that the truths of the Bible connect to the experience of the sufferer. The chapters “The Awareness Trap”, The Fear Trap”, “The En

David Powlison (1949-2019)

David Powlison died around 11am on Friday, June 7th, 2019. I wrote this about him a couple of years ago: He taught some of my counseling classes at WTS and is the Executive Director of CCEF. His ability to pastor the human heart and his relentless pursuit of the glory of Christ was on display in the classes he taught. We would often begin classes by singing a hymn together and Dr. Powlison would pull a nugget of truth from the hymn and riff for a few minutes. It was always encouraging to our faith. I will forever be grateful to Dr. Powlison and his wife Nan for how kind they were to me and my young family. He has left a treasure for us in what he has published. Without reservation, I recommend everything below: The Journal of Biblical Counseling . You can subscribe to the digital copy or a hard copy. He was the editor and past copies are available. Seeing with New Eyes . This is a "vision shaping book" that makes the case that the Bible is sufficient for all we e

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