You know that part of you that you really want others not to see — that stubborn weakness, humiliating failure, embarrassing illness, horrible past event, or present struggle with sin? There’s very good news for you in the story of the woman with a hemorrhage in Luke 8.

Jesus was now a reluctant celebrity. And a crowd was teeming around him as he made his way toward Jairus’s home to heal the synagogue ruler’s twelve-year-old daughter.

In the crowd was a desperate woman. For twelve years she had suffered from a vaginal hemorrhage. All the medical treatments she sought had bled her savings. Nothing had helped.

But she had seen Jesus’ healing power. When he touched people they were healed. I…

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[Download a print-version of “7 Things to Pray for My Children”]

Some years back a good friend shared with me seven Scripture texts that he and his wife prayed for their two daughters from the time they were infants. The girls are now grown. And it’s beautiful to see how God has (and still is) answering the faithful, specific prayers of faith-filled parents in the lives of these young, godly women.

I have frequently used these prayers when praying for my children too. And I commend them to you (see below).

But, of course, prayers are not magic spells. It’s not a matter of just saying the right things and our children will be blessed with success.

Some parents earnestly pray and their chi…

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A few years back, in a sermon titled, “I’m Sending You to Open Their Eyes,” John Piper said,

Be a lavish giver. Be known as a generous person, not a stingy person. Jesus said, “Lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35). Combine this reputation with giving books, if you know someone is a reader. Give a Christian book that cost you seven or ten or fifteen dollars. Tell them what it meant to you and that you would love to talk about it sometime. If you don’t know the person, ask for their permission to give them a book that meant a lot to you.

This is what I regularly do on the plane. Sometimes conversations are easy to get into about Christ because I am a pastor. Other times they’re not…

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Demas and Mark are contrasts in failure. One provides us a word of warning, the other a word of hope. And as people who stumble in many ways (James 3:2), we need both.

Demas

What happened to Demas? We don’t know. All we know is that some of the last words the Apostle Paul wrote before his Roman execution expressed a heartbreak:

Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4:10)

Maybe Demas feared being executed with Paul and fled to safety. Maybe he escaped to a place where he could let himself succumb to the siren song of immoral seduction. Or maybe he simply caved in to the allure of a comfortable, prosperous life in the urbane, cosmopoli…

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We know from Romans 6 that from the early days of the church there has existed a temptation to distort this gospel of God’s grace by deemphasizing God’s holiness. Which is tragic. It’s precisely God’s holiness that makes his grace toward us sinners so amazing! Understanding the doctrine of God’s holiness is absolutely essential if we are to rightly understand the doctrine of God’s grace and the miracle of sanctification.

This is what the Children Desiring God National Conference, being held in Minneapolis May 2–4, is all about. The conference theme is “The Splendor of Holiness,” plenary speakers include John Piper and Bruce Ware, and there will be dozens of workshops.

If you are a children…

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For the first forty years of his life, Moses lived in a place of strength. As a member of Pharaoh’s household he had social prestige, wealth (Hebrews 11:26), and youthful strength. When he became aware of and troubled by his peoples’ oppression he used this strength to exact vigilante justice on an oppressive Egyptian. That wasn’t God’s plan for deliverance. He had to flee for his life and ended up tending livestock in the quiet fields of Midian for his second forty years.

So he passed his youth in a palace of power and his middle age in pastures of peaceful obscurity. Then one day he stumbled on a burning bush, which turned out to be God’s surprising call for his third forty years:

Behold…

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The old hymn says it beautifully: “Grace, grace, God’s grace; grace that is greater than all my sin.”

But the grace of God is not only great enough to “pardon and cleanse within.” It is so powerful, as Joseph’s older brothers learned in Genesis 45, that it can turn the most horrible sin you have ever committed against another, or has ever been committed against you, and make it the slave of his mercy.

“What do you mean he’s alive?” Jacob had no place to put Rueben’s words.

“I know it’s unbelievable, Father,” Rueben replied. “We hardly believe it and we saw him with our own eyes. The Egyptian lord—the one who demanded that we bring Benjamin—it’s Joseph. He’s not only alive, he’s…” Reuben …

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Years ago John Piper said something about reading that I have found to be spot on:

It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don't begrudge the 99%. And that life-changing insight usually comes in a moment, a moment whose value is all out of proportion to its little size. That's why I call it an “immeasurable moment.”¹

This is the reason we read books — for life-changing moments. And it…

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Darwinian theorists say that our obsessive selfishness is programmed into our genes. No disagreement there. We know that. The Bible describes the effects of the fall as pervading everything. This would include the genetic level.

But they hypothesize that the reasons for this selfishness is survival and procreation. Our genes want to save themselves.

Well, frankly, this doesn’t do our selfishness justice. There is a deeper depravity at work. We don’t want to merely survive; we want to subjugate. We don’t merely want to procreate; we want to possess. Down to our very genes, we want to rule our world and be worshiped by others. Our genes aren’t merely selfish. They have a God delusion.

But t…

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Every day, as we seek to follow Jesus, we deal with incessant weaknesses in our bodies, emotions, relationships, families, vocations, and churches. We are “beset with weakness” (Hebrews 5:2). And they tempt us to discouragement, sometimes exasperation.

But one of the precious gifts of Second Corinthians, especially chapters 11–12 is that, through Paul, God teaches us a great gospel paradox of the life of faith: God’s grace is more clearly seen and more deeply savored in our weaknesses than our strengths.

Paul was deeply concerned for the Corinthian church. “Super-apostles” had found their way to Corinth. They were parasitic charlatans who had followed in Paul’s wake and were now maligning …

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