If God Answered All Prayers Immediately

Posted on by under D. A. Carson

If God were to answer all prayers the instant they were uttered, He would become an automaton, the power link in a clever bit of magic.  He would not be the God who wisely responds to His people, and who disposes of all things according to His sovereign goodness, but a powerful genie constrained by a magic bottle called prayer.

D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), 116-117.

All or Nothing

Posted on by under C. S. Lewis

Christ says, “Give me all.  I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.  I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it.  No half-measures are any good.  I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there; I want to have the whole tree down.  I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it but to have it out.  Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked — the whole outfit.  I will give you a new self instead.  In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1952), 167.

The Depth of a Christian’s Joy

Posted on by under D. Edmond Hiebert

The depth of a disciple’s joy in the Lord may well be measured by the degree of his participation in the sufferings of the Lord.  It is still true that those who pay a great price in suffering to remain true to Christ know a deep measure of this Spirit-wrought joy in their lives.  Perhaps our Christian lives are so lacking in this joy because our Christian profession costs us so little.

D. Edmond Hiebert, The Thessalonian Epistles (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), 60.

When in Our Music God Is Glorified

Posted on by under Music, Video

When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried
Alleluia!

How often, making music, we have found
A new dimension in the world of sound,
As worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!

So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
In faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
Borne witness to the truth in every tongue,
Alleluia!

And did not Jesus sing a psalm that night
When utmost evil strove against the Light?
Then let us sing, for whom He won the fight,
Alleluia!

Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always
Alleluia! Amen.