Help! It Feels Like God Is Far Away in My Suffering
Lament is the biblical language for people who feel like God is distant.
Articles on The Christian Life
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4 Strategies to Help You Wait Better
I’m sure you’d like to move from anxiety to faith-filled, hopeful waiting. How do we make this practical? Let me give you a fourfold strategy from Psalm 25.
The Surprising Truth about Legalism
The root of legalism is almost as old as Eden, which explains why it is a primary, if not the ultimate, pastoral problem.
When Doubt Seeps In, Look to Thomas
Sometimes it is hard for us to believe in life after death. The true Bible story that shows this perhaps most clearly is the story of “Doubting Thomas,” as he is usually called.
6 Practical Steps to Help Grow Your Confidence in God’s Word
Sometimes we have our doubts about the stories we read in the word of God, about its moral convictions and the promises it makes.
Why Ordinary Faithfulness Is Enough
Feeding your faithfulness is an unremarkable practice in real-time. It’s unglamorous by the world’s standards, yet it is precious as it contributes to a life of holding fast to Christ.
The Most Important Lessons John Piper Learned from His Dad
Where did I learn that delight in God is our highest duty? Before I encountered Jonathan Edwards and C. S. Lewis and Daniel Fuller, there was my father, Bill Piper.
What Freedom from Sin Looks Like in This Life
It’s natural to feel frustrated that you’re still staring down the same habits of sin in your life.
The Most Important Thing Parents Can Do This Summer
Being faithful to the ABC’s of Christian living can have such a profound evangelistic impact upon your children.
6 Ways to Live in Light of the Serpent-Slayer Story
Jesus is the serpent slayer. So how should a Christian live in light of that thrilling storyline?
Fathers are called upon to choose not only between our children and our work, but between our convenience and the inconvenience of keeping a promise.
Why Does God Make Us Wait for Good Things?
Why does God make us wait for good things like, a spouse or a baby? It’s a really good question, and it’s a hard one because we live in tension.
What Our Individualism Costs Us
In Western culture, the high regard for autonomy and obsession with individualism has come at a cost: community. Tthis lack of community has contributed to rising loneliness.
How Does God's Love in Christ Relate to Islam?
How do we bear faithful witness to the love of God in Christ to our Muslim friends?
My Breakthrough in Scripture Memory
Maybe the breakthrough could come with some simple change in perspective. What if Scripture memory really was about today?
A Devotional on Prayer by Jane Austen
Teach us to feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.
Stay on Mission—Even in the Later Years
One joy of aging is a stillness of soul that helps us see the small moments as sacred moments when we can reflect God’s glory to someone else.
Innovation Exists by God’s Design
Innovators—both virtuous ones and nefarious ones—are created by God. Scripture protects us from the myth that God is trying his best to stifle and subdue the unwieldiness of human technology.
The Collapse of the Secularization Hypothesis
It has long been assumed that the rise of modernity will be accompanied by the decline of religion, but the scholarly consensus today rejects the secularization hypothesis.
Why Christians Depend on Revelation from God
Christianity is a religion that rests on revelation: nobody would know the truth about God, or be able to relate to him in a personal way, had not God first acted to make himself known.
Podcast: Tips for Leading an Effective Bible Study (Lydia Brownback)
What does it look like to lead an effective Bible study? How can a leader keep the conversation on track and guide people to discover the treasures of God's Word?
7 Essential Things to Know about Hope
Hope is not a situation. Hope is not a location. Hope is not a possession. Hope is not an experience. Hope is more than an insight or a truism.
Deacons are not the church’s spiritual council of directors, nor the executive board to whom the pastor-CEO answers. They are a cavalry of servants.
The Notion of Authority in God's Created Order
Authority is integral to God’s created order, and when his work of creation was completed, the structure of authority he’d established in the world was good and beautiful.
We Must Worship God on His Terms
True worship is not possible unless God himself enables it, because human beings are unable to truly worship him without his enabling.
The doctrine of the necessity of Scripture reminds us of our predicament: the One we need to know most cannot be discovered on our own, and this same ineffable One has made himself known through his word.
We were made for closeness to others and to God through Christ, and yet it doesn’t always feel as though we can grasp God’s nearness to us.
Wise Women Know How to Think, Feel, and Want (Part 1)
God created us as thinking and feeling creatures, and therefore both are part of being made in his image, therefore both thoughts and feelings are vital components of true faith.
You Are Set Free from Self-Improvement
Many of us believe that Christian discipleship is synonymous with self-improvement. But true Christian discipleship is a call to die, not to improve.
The Difference between Legalism and Discipline
Paul hated legalism but he enjoined discipline upon all of his followers for the purpose of godliness.