“Too many of us are passive when it comes to our spiritual affections. We are practical fatalists. We think there is nothing we can do. ‘Oh well, today I have no desire to read. Maybe it will be there tomorrow. We’ll see.’ And off to work we go. This is not the way the psalmists thought or acted. It is not the way the great saints of church history have acted either. Life is war. And the main battles are…
“Closely related to God’s holiness is his wrath, i.e., his holy reaction to sin. Scripture speaks of the wrath of God in high-intensity language, and it is important to note that a substantial part of the Bible’s storyline turns on God’s wrath. No doubt, God is forbearing and gracious, yet he is also holy and just. Where there is sin, the holy God must confront it and bring it to judgment, especially given the fact that sin is not first…
“A sleepless night is just as much a gift from God as is a night’s sound sleep! Not that we usually look on it that way—but David did! Those ‘watches of the night,’ so often occasions of restlessness, always time when the day’s ‘mole hills’ become mountains of anxiety, he turned into opportunities to ‘muse’ about God (Psalm 63:6), and to come, not to a fresh place of worry, but to a fresh place of joy and all-around assurance (63:7-11)….
“It is a not uncommon instinct among contemporary Christians to encounter difficulties and immediately conclude they have fallen into divine disfavor… We are not the best interpreters of divine providence. Nor is our conviction of the Father’s love for us grounded in his providential ways with us. The fatal mistake here is to base our assurance of grace and salvation on the fact that ‘God is blessing my life.’ When we do so, we have no anchor when life turns…
“…Jesus has reached the lowest point in his humiliation and the most awful moment of his agony. The physical pain is no worse than before, perhaps less, but his soul is in torment: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’… Jesus stands where no-one has ever stood before or since, knowing himself the bearer of the sin of the world, destined to pay the price for its redemption (Mark 10:45), and now drinking the bitterest dregs of the…