How Mormonism Fails

The June New Horizons has another excellent article--this one from my fellow-pastor Jody Morris. Jody grew up Mormon, and he gives an excellent testimony of his coming to Christ, and the liberation that it was for him not to have to earn God's favor through his own good works. If you have a copy, it will reward the time to read it. I'll put a link to it as soon as it is up on the web.

Grace and Money

We're kicking off a fund-raising drive for a new facility at Covenant. How do you do fund-raising out of grace, and not out of guilt? How do we give out of grace? Tim Keller has an excellent sermon that you can download here titled "Grace and Money." See how money is redefined as the "bottom line" for a disciple of Christ.
Tip: Download it, then burn it on to a CD, and listen to it in the car on your way to or from work. What else are you going to listen to?

A Moment of Cynicism

Indulge me for a moment--the cynical side of me--and take a look at this video, a satire of what happens in some churches on Sunday morning. What do you think?

A Prayer

Here is a prayer--suited to what we have seen lately in Luke 18, from the rich ruler to the blind beggar (from the Valley of Vision):
Glorious Jehovah, my Covenant God,
All your promises in Christ Jesus are yes and amen, and all will be fulfilled.
You have spoken them, and they shall be done; commanded, and they will come to pass.
Yet I have often doubt them, have lived at times as if there were no God.
Lord, forgive me that death in life, when I have found something apart from you, when I have been content with lesser things.
But through your grace I have repented;
You have given me to read my pardon in the wounds of Jesus, and my soul trusts in him, my God incarnate, the ground of my life, the spring of my hope.

The Fear of God

I am reading a book by Ed Welch about addictions. He has in there an excellent chapter on the fear of God. he defines it as follows:
"The fear of the Lord is knowing that I live coram deo, before the face of God. It is knowing that the Holy God sees every aspect of my life. The result is that we live knowing that we are seen. We live publicly, and follow Christ in joyful and reverential obedience." (p. 176)
Here's another thing to think about from later on the same page:
"The practical theology of all addictions [and indeed of all sin] says that God is present sometimes and absent at others. We typically indulge our sin without pangs of conscience when we believe no one sees. How do we know this? Notice what happens if someone actually catches us. We are embarrassed; we have a sudden sense of our guilt. What we tried to keep in the dark is now exposed in the light. The reality, of course, is that we are never in private. 'You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence' (Ps. 90:8) All our lives are lived out in the courts of the Lord. We are always seen and in the presence of the Holy One."

By Grace Alone

This is from a forthcoming book by Sinclair Ferguson, titles By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me. (Sinclair Ferguson was one of my professors in seminary)
The gospel is an invitation to receive a gift. But many people hear it as a summons to do better. Paul makes it clear that the gospel is not about something we do. It is about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.... You did not, do not, and cannot earn your own salvation. You can contribute nothing to it in any way. It is not earned by your achievements, your merit, your faith, your level of sanctification, your faithfulness, or your Christian service. Reconciliation is a free gift of grace from beginning to end. Christ already has done everything that is needed in order to take your sins and to transfer His righteousness to you.

More on Music

This month's New Horizons magazine is well worth the read. Besides two pictures from our own Barbaranne Kelly (one of Ross' ordination, the other with the article about the Chinese Church), there is an excellent article on Why God Wants Us to Sing. It is not yet on the OPC's New Horizons website, but when it gets put up, it should be here. Again, well worth the read.

God is a Mathematician

Thus said a famous mathematician. I was a math major in college, and so I found this article on "hybrid numbers" (numbers that are a combination between real and imaginary numbers) quite fascinating.
I'm not sure I understand the ins and outs of what this article says. But one of the big questions in the philosophy of mathematics is this: Do we construct mathematics, or do we discover it? Here is a strong argument, from my standpoint, that wherever mathematicians may go, God has already been there--so that we discover it more than constructing it. See what you think!