O gracious God, Father of the Lord Jesus,

Through your Son’s words I hear you ask me “What do you want me to do for you?” (Luke 18:41). This is my answer: I want Ephesians 3:16–19.

I want you to “strengthen me with power through [your] Spirit in [my] inner being” (verse 16). I need your power more than I need prosperity or popularity or peace in my family because I am so weak. 

I need more power because I long for more of Jesus to “dwell in my heart through faith” (verse 17). I know he dwells there now, but not enough of him. I want more of him. And I can only have that if your Spirit strengthens my heart to hold more of your Son through faith.

I need more of Jesus in me so that I…

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And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

October will be here before we know it. And October ends with Reformation Day, because on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, lighting the fuse that exploded into the Protestant Reformation.

I have a suggestion for you. Since one of the great cries of the Reformation became Sola Fide (faith alone), how about making this October “Faith Month.” For private worship and reflection you could select and meditate on Scriptures that explain what faith is and how…

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Lord… You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)

Christians are word people. We’re really into words because the Founder of Christianity is the Word (John 1:1). He came to earth to deliver a message in words. Those of us who have believed his words recognize them as the “words of eternal life” (John 6:68). And we seek to speak these words to others so they too can have eternal life. We call these words the gospel.

Christians are also book people. We’re really into books because our Founder left us a book, a collection of the words he determined are most important for us to know and remember.

This means we’re not into books merely because they’re good for us — as in a good book…

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Time and energy is money. And money is money. So when we want to get something done we typically want it done as efficiently as possible.

That’s why we are often bewildered when God gives us work to do and then allows the “inefficiencies” of trouble and opposition to consume so much time, energy, and money. Why does he do this? We see a clue in the book of Nehemiah.¹

At first, God just seems to prosper Nehemiah. He rose through the ranks of Artaxerxes’ court to the prestigious and highly trusted position of the king’s cupbearer. This provided him close proximity to and high credibility with the king. This in turn caused the king to notice Nehemiah’s sadness over Jerusalem and want to do…

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Jesus and Nazareth are inseparable. Jesus spent most of his life in Nazareth. The prophets had said, "He shall be called a Nazarene" (Matthew 2:23). History would remember him as Jesus of Nazareth. Even the demons called him that (Luke 4:34).

That's why this verse is one of the saddest in the Bible:

And he did not do many mighty works [in Nazareth], because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:58)

It's a great irony that the Pride of Nazareth was rejected by the Nazarenes because of pride.

Can you believe this? Joseph the carpenter's son thinks he's a prophet! Well, we know his family and they're respectable enough people. But I know for a fact that he didn't receive any formal religio…

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People don’t really care how many books we’ve read. So it’s a waste of time to read kinds of books or numbers of books to impress others.

And it’s also a waste if we spend most of our reading time escaping into a fantasy. I don’t mean fantasy as a genre. I’ve seen glorious realities while sojourning in Middle Earth. I’m talking about literary fast food that tastes good but doesn’t nourish — the kind of stuff that leaves you spiritually sluggish.

Your reading time is precious. So read to see more of what’s real. Read to understand more of what’s true. Ransack books hunting for joy. Read to get glimpses of glory. Read to steer out of your perspective ruts. Read to stir your affections — …

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I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:2–3)

I just read Finish the Mission and was shaken by quotes like this, just as I was when I heard them at the Desiring God 2011 National Conference:

Hundreds of millions of men and women who have rebelled against the sovereign glory of God have never heard about the saving grace of God. So what does this mean for our lives? And what does this mean for the church?¹

And,

If there is any Scripture at all, this is true — that those who stubbornly refuse to submit to the gospel, and to love…

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He had… no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. (Isaiah 53:2)

Are you feeling hopeful today? Take a look under the hood. How much of your hope is linked to some promise of a more attractive, prosperous, impressive future you — a you others will admire? Feeling discouraged? How much is linked to someone else’s disapproval?

The world has a gospel and preaches it all the time: be sexy, successful, or smart and you will be saved. What you will be saved to are the heavens of others’ esteem, desire and envy — and the various perks that usually come with it. What you will be saved from are the hells of others’ rejection and indifference — and the various undesi…

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 Life is Christ. (Philippians 1:21)

One of the great hoaxes of our time is that we’ve learned to worship posers. American heroes are mainly entertainers. Our heroes don’t have to do anything particularly great, they just need to look and sound great. Lewis was right in more ways than one: “we are far too easily pleased.”

My beef is not with skillful entertainers as such. Working hard to become skillful with the gifts God gave us is a good thing, if used for redemptive purposes.

My beef is with us. We’ve made them cultural gods. They dominate our t-shirts, bedroom walls, Facebook pages, and living room plasma screens. We listen to them in our ear buds and Twitter feeds. And we bestow o…

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“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet… they are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

My children begin school this week. The summer is passing us by and we’re all groaning a bit. It went so fast.

I turned 47 this summer. 47? I remember my Dad turning 47. How’d I get here so soon? My oldest child turned 16 this summer. My second child turns 14 this week. But they were just toddlers! We were just trying to figure out kindergarten options for them, weren’t we?

Life is a vapor. Even if we live to old age our lives “are soon gone” (Psalm 90:10). But most people either desperately try to grab as much life as they can by pursuing passing things, …

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