Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. Romans 11:22 Like apostate Israel, God has given the West “a spirit of stupor” so that she has not seen nor heard (Rom. 11:8). Still reeling from the carnage of the twentieth century – … [Read more...]
5 Books on Knowing God in Troubled Times
The most basic and abiding need of God’s people is the knowledge of God. While all people in every time and place, as God’s image bearers, inescapably know God through his clear revelation in creation and conscience, sin causes man to suppress the true knowledge of God (Rom 1:18-21). The sinful inclination of the human heart is the desire ‘to be like God’; self-sufficient … [Read more...]
Worshiping the gods of this Age
She [Israel] has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and the gold—which they used for Baal. Hosea 2:8 What a parallel to the Western church worshiping the gods of this age! We have bowed to the Baals of productivity and power. Seduced, we have pursued our plans for growth—to be the largest or fastest … [Read more...]
‘Fire on the Earth’: God’s Dealings with the West
The malaise of the 21st century Western church, in an increasingly hostile secular culture, urges us to penetrate its cause and radically re-cast the Christian vision for the 21st century. What is required is nothing short of the recovery of the biblical vision for a kingdom-shaped ecclesia; designed and destined by God to transform entire cultures and disciple nations. Even … [Read more...]
Humility of Heart: Restoring the Glory of God
God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6 NASB He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8 NKJV This kind of humility is to occur: Not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and … [Read more...]
