This is my small tribute to another Christian killed for Christ’s sake. I read his story with great admiration. I pray that his death will not be in vain in my life and in Pakistan’s struggle for freedom.

Shahbaz Bhatti was the Minister for Minority Affairs in Pakistan, and a Christian. He was killed in Islamabad on Wednesday, March 2, 2011. He had opposed the Pakistani blasphemy laws that appoint the death sentence for one who speaks words against the truth of Mohammed.

In a video, posted online by the European group First Step Forum, Mr Bhatti said: “I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us. . . . I'm ready to die for a cause. I’m living for my c…

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In yesterday's post Pastor John cited Philippians 2:12-13 concerning our sin-killing role in sanctification —

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

But why should we attack sin with fear and trembling?

In this video excerpt, Pastor John answers:

. . . The ground for my trembing here is not threat, but gift. Tremble! God Almighty, the Creator of the universe, your Father, your Redeemer, your Sustainer is in you willing and working. Tremble! Your acting is his acting. That's what I meant by "I don't wait for a miracle, I act the miracle."

My attack on my sin in reliance upon the Holy Sp…

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When it comes to killing my sin I don’t wait for the miracle, I Act the Miracle.

Acting a miracle is different from working a miracle. If Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up, and he gets up, Jesus works a miracle. But if I am the paralyzed man and Jesus tells me to get up, and I obey and get up, I act the miracle. If I am dead Lazarus and Jesus commands me to get up, and I obey, Jesus works the miracle, I act the miracle.

So when it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait passively for the miracle of sin-killing to be worked on me, I act the miracle.

For example, Paul says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

So he tells me to put…

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George Herbert died on this day in 1633. I return to his poetry for my own soul more, probably, than any poet outside the Bible.

In a poem called “Ungratefulness,” he shows how the Trinity and the Incarnation draw all the work of creation finally into God’s enjoyment.

Just as God exulted over his creation in the beginning with, “It is very good,” so in the end he will look on what he has made and redeemed and delight in it with exceeding joy (Zephaniah 3:17).

Thou hast but two rare cabinets full of treasure,
The Trinity, and Incarnation:
    Thou hast unlocked them both,
And made them jewels to betroth
    The work of thy creation
Unto thyself in everlasting pleasure.

I often wonder how many people are stuck in their relationships in a cycle of repeating the same things over and over again. They repeat the same misunderstandings. They rehearse and re-rehearse the same arguments. They repeat the same wrongs. Again and again things are not resolved. Night after night they end the day with nothing reconciled; they awake with memories of another bad moment with a friend, spouse, neighbor, co-worker or family member and they march toward the next time when the cycle will be repeated.

It all becomes predictable and discouraging. They hate the cycle. They wish things were what they once were. Their minds swing between nostalgia and disappointment. They want th…

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With the launch of the new Fighter Verses, an iPhone® / iPad® app was developed. In line with John Piper's exhortation about smartphones, this is one app to wield in fighting fire with fire.

An Android® app is also available.

Learn more about Bible memory at FighterVerses.com, where you can see weekly verses and subscribe to the devotional blog. You can also find Bible memory helps, review tools, downloadable resources, songs, audio, and tips for launching a church-wide memory program.

French poet and novelist, Victor Hugo was born on this day, 1802. He is best known in English because of his novels, Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

We have little hope that his spiritual pilgrimage led him to Christ and heaven. But in the providence of God, and by the grace he scatters so liberally among his adversaries, Hugo was brilliant in his blindness. The imago dei and the remnants of his Christian roots break forth—to the praise of his Maker.

There are reasons Les Misérables is a classic. Put your eye to the pinpricks of light in these excerpts.

• A cannonball travels two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superi…

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In Augustine’s Enchiridion, chapter 46, which I am listening to in spare moments, he says this:

Here lies the necessity that each man should be born again, that he might be freed from the sin in which he was born. For the sins committed afterwards can be cured by penitence, as we see is the case after baptism.

This is, if I understand him, misleading at best.

Not that I want to minimize the significance of 1 John 1:9 (“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”). But to speak of new birth as being the way we are freed from pre-baptismal sin, and then penitence as the way we are freed from post-baptismal sin, is to create a two-phase dealing with sin that …

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All the women in your life have to be 80 years old or more to have gone through their child-bearing years during a time when abortion was not legal and accessible. Among the rest, 42% of American women have had one abortion by the age of 45 (abandoned or pressured, by and large, by men). There are 50 million abortions every year worldwide. The USA represents less than 3% of this. Where we gather college students and young professionals together to challenge them with the gospel, close to half of them are struggling secretly with this one particular form of guilt.

Addressing the Blood-Guilt of Abortion

Our generation needs a gospel presentation that address the blood-guilt of abortion spe…

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Do you believe both of these statements?

1. God loved us before we loved him, and not because we loved him.

2. God loves us in response to our love for him—because we love him.

They are both true.

Before I give you the texts to show it, the key in all such questions is to insist that you define terms and make necessary distinctions. The same words can mean different things in different places.

In support of the first statement, we cite:

1 John 4:10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Ephesians 1:4-5: “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose …

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