Tuesday is for Spiritual Challenge I love my country. Flaws and all, I love it. I think, on balance, it has been a force for good in the world, even with all of its missteps and corruptions. But it is dangerous to live here. Dangerous to the soul. Our affluence, our comforts, and the long … More Fighting the Urge to Live for Comfort, Convenience and Security
Sunday Afternoon Musings This week I have been rereading a short biography on the life of Charles Simeon. It’s the second bio in John Piper’s The Roots of Endurance (Crossway, 2002). Simeon was a British pastor (1754-1836). His mother died when he was very young, his father was an unbeliever and he was sent to … More What Happens When a Non-believer Takes the Lord’s Supper Seriously?
Saturday Musings John Piper describes Charles Simeon’s growth in grace this way: “he ‘grew downward’ in humility and upward in his adoration of Christ.” It was this dual and simultaneous growth that Piper attributes to Simeon’s never yielding to bitterness or to the temptation to never leave his congregation for 54 years. This, despite the … More Growing Downward While Looking Up
Sunday Afternoon Musings Imagine a pastor whose congregation of wealthy members . . . refuse to come to church refuse to let anyone else sit in their pews remove chairs that are placed in the aisle so that standing visitors have to remain standing burn the chairs that someone else paid for for the visitors … More Endurance: What Does it Take to Make You Quit?
Tuesday is for Preparing the Preacher I found an old journal today and this entry from 4-11-08: “Help me to be like Charles Simeon who made it his practice ‘never to hear, or see, or know, what if heard, or seen, or known, would call for some distasteful response from me.’ “ Still a great … More Protecting Your Ear from the Things that Will Destroy You
Thursday is for Discipleship The literary cadence of authors now 200 years dead is often foreign to our ears. But that does not mean that wisdom is absent. The quote below requires some concentration. But it is a wise reminder that every forward movement for the gospel from our ministries is only possible by the … More Effective Ministry is Only by Grace
Wednesday is for Prayer “In April 1831, Charles Simeon was seventy-one years old. He had been the pastor of Trinity Church in Cambridge, England, for forty-nine years. One afternoon his friend Joseph Gurney asked him how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his many years of ministry. He … More Learning to Endure in an Emotionally Fragile World
Monday is for Discussion “In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect—‘That the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.’ The thought came into my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt … More “May I transfer my guilt to another?”
Monday is for Discussion “A nominal Christian is content with proving the way of salvation by a crucified Redeemer. But the true Christian loves it, delights in it, glories in it, and shudders at the very thought of glorying in anything else. … Let all your joys flow from the contemplation of his cross.” —Charles … More Forgetting the Cross Will Empty Your Soul
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