How eager Jesus was to restore broken fellowship with his apostles after the resurrection! Surely this is a sign of how eager he is to restore us when we have drifted (or bolted) away.

All the apostles had forsaken him. In the garden, at his most sorrowful hour, "They all left him and fled” (Mark 14:50).

Now he was raised. What would he say to those who had abandoned him? Three healing things:

1. To Mary at the tomb: “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

   “Brothers!” “Your Father!” “Your God!” I am going now. You will come later. We are, and we will be, together. I forgive you. Our Father forgives you. 

2. …

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At Bethlehem we close prayer week with a focus on the value of reading and memorizing Scripture in the new year. I preach on the value of God’s word and the importance of reading and memorizing the Scripture every day.

Justin Taylor has pulled together a list of possible ways to read the Bible in this new year.

I encourage everyone to take the closing days of the year to plan how you are going to read the Bible in the new year. Don’t leave it to chance. One of the main reasons we don’t read God’s word is that we don’t plan to.

This past year I used the McCheyne reading plan, reading it with the Olive Tree Software on the iPad. McCheyne takes you through the whole Bible once, a…

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Dear Friends of Desiring God,

Desiring God exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ, especially by focusing on the truth, and its implications, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

We want to spread that truth and all of its amazingly God-exalting, practical implications everywhere in the world. So when the world passes beyond the seven billion population mark, we look at the 15 million or so people that checked us out last year on the web and say, hmmm, that's about 0.21%. And we say: There is some work to be done here. And we aim to do it with all our might and as globally …

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There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It’s often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible. It’s usually after a lot of criticism. Lots of expectations that have deadlines and that seem too big and too many.

As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic mornings, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life. And my ministry. The temptation to run away from the stress has never won out — not yet anyway. This is amazing. I worship him for it.

How has he done this? By desperate prayer and particular promises. I agree with Spurgeon: I love the “I wills” and the “I shal…

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Sometimes I write poems for our anniversary. Sometimes on our anniversary. This one I wrote on our anniversary, December 21st. It addresses the question of where in this baffling, unknown, fragile world certainty and security can be found.

The Bridge and the River
A Poem on Our 43rd Anniversary

I count at least two thousand gray triangles
in the two-lane bridge that links Wisconsin
to the town

where we sat by a gas fire,
marked our forty-third wedding anniversary,
ate our turkey wraps, played scrabble,
and talked, cautiously, of years to come.

It may be double that — four thousand — if you allow
the parallel beams that form the sides of most,
and if you count the hu…

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This is not a plea to be thoughtless. It’s not an argument for ignoring strategy. God uses strategy (Joshua 8:4).

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord” (Proverbs 21:31). Yes. Make the horse ready. But it is also true: Sometimes the enemy strikes when there is no time to get the horse ready. And victory still belongs to the Lord.

For example, Jeroboam tricked Abijah, king of Judah, by laying an ambush behind him: “His troops were in front of Judah, and the ambush was behind them” (2 Chronicles 13:13). Abijah was outwitted.

What happened? “They cried to the Lord . . . and God defeated Jeroboam.” (2 Chronicles 13:14–15).

Abijah was outwitte…

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The longer I live the more complexities I see in living. They’re not as paralyzing as they used to be. I pray more for a spiritual nose to sniff out the path between precipices.

Take tender-heartedness, for example. I think one of the most practical and important passages in the whole Bible is Ephesians 4:31–32. God put that there for me. It is one of the most important mandates in my life.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

There are dozens of situations where I should be more tenderhearted than I am.

But what about 2 Ch…

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Three things came together in the last thirty-six hours to create this post. The death of Christopher Hitchens, the Desiring God Board meeting Thursday, and the word of God.

1. Christopher Hitchens died Thursday night. He was, perhaps, the most aggressive of the “new atheists.” I am sobered and made quiet by the probability (though we do not know his final hours) that he is in torment today awaiting his final judgment and the lake of fire.
2. Also on Thursday the Desiring God Board clarified and refined the Ultimate Goal, the Mission, and the Core Strategy of Desiring God. The Mission of Desiring God is to help people everywhere understand and embrace the truth that God is most glorified in us w…

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Did Jesus teach that miracles are useless for those who reject the word? Here’s the story he told:

From hades the rich man implored Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers not to come to that place of torment.

But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.”

The rich man said, “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

Abraham disagreed: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31)

God Must Open Eyes

Does this mean that miracles are useless among people who have biblical truth, but don’t believe it? Sounds like it: If the prophe…

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I stand in awe of Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott’s massive The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford University Press, 2011). Edwards is worthy of this scope of treatment.

But may I register a disagreement with one way this book is being commended.

Alistair McGrath said that it is “unquestionably the best starting place for anyone wanting to grapple with the ideas of America’s greatest theologian.”

And Kenneth Minkema said, “This volume provides the single best entry point into Edwards’ writings and ideas for the specialist and general reader alike.”

If what they mean is that this is the best secondary source for entrance into the thought of Edwards, then I won’t quarrel. Bu…

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