A Resurrection Reflection
For Lord’s Day, September 27, 2020 Dear Saints, As we close our sermon series through Matthew with the Great Commission today, I’d like to share this acronym from William Hendriksen at the end of His mammoth commentary on Matthew’s Gospel:…
Every Lord’s Day is Easter Sunday!
For Lord’s Day, September 20, 2020. Dear Saints, As we return to the Gospel of Matthew we take it up at the grave of Jesus. And we find He is risen from the dead as the firstfruits of our resurrection.…
Be Still Knowing God (By “Cutting Slack”)
For Lord’s Day, August 23, 2010 Dear Saints, Recently we took comfort together in a sermon on Psalm 46:10: Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the…
Heaven Will Have No Disappointments
For the Lord’s Day, June 21, 2020 Dear Saints, Do you often struggle with being down in the mouth over disappointments (our unmet expectations and surprises)? Me too. Here’s something to encourage us. In his commentary on the Olivet Discourse…
Control Your Circumstances to Maintain Self-Control
For the Lord’s Day, June 14, 2020 Dear Saints, I see an interesting connection of wisdom with something I read in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, along with a small section of the Westminster Larger Catechism’s (WLC) teaching on…
How to Change the World: Ten Lessons from a Navy Seal Admiral
For Lord’s Day, May 3, 2020 Dear Saints, In two sermons last year I quoted from a renowned graduation speech by Navy SEAL Admiral William H. McRraven entitled, “How to Change the World”. I originally learned about this message last…
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing!
For Lord’s Day, April 19, 2020 Dear Saints, This week’s e-devotion is short and sweet and silly. But before I continue, I wanted to let you know that our church just had an article published on Reformation21 today which you…
Richard Baxter on Validity of Government Forbidding Worship Assemblies in Times of Pestilence
For Lord’s Day, April 5, 2020 Dear Saints, This week’s e-devotion and preparation for Sabbath worship comes to us again via our brother Mike Delgado’s sleuthing. I share below what he forwarded to me by Puritan Richard Baxter on whether…
Martin Luther’s “Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague” is Helpful to Meditate Upon Regarding Our Recent Move to Online Webcast Worship Services During the Coronavirus Pandemic
For Lord’s Day, March 29, 2020 Dear Saints, It has been a long time since I’ve done an e-devotion. My apologies for that. I’ve been working on one to share along with an online video which I’ve referenced in several…
The Dignity of Deference
For Lord’s Day, December 9, 2018 Dear Saints, It has been a long time since I have been able to give proper attention to writing an e-devotional for you. It likely will be a while before I can do so…
Contentment is Quieting our Stormy Hearts in the Midst of our Storms
For the Lord’s Day, November 26, 2017 Dear Saints, We continue with our devotion through Jeremiah Burroughs’, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. The next thing he teaches us is that contentment is “a quiet frame of spirit”. He explains: Methinks I feel…
Contentment Disallows Murmuring Vexation
For Lord’s Day, November 5, 2017 Dear Saints, First, a reminder to turn back your clocks tonight for Daylight Saving Time tomorrow. We return to Jeremiah Burroughs’, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, as a follow-up to our Wednesday night…
It is Very Christ-like to Lament and Learn Contentment
For Lord’s Day, September 3, 2017 Dear Saints, After a long hiatus, we return to our excerpts from Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. Let us be good students to learn and become master artists. Burroughs goes on…
Paint a Better Picture
For the Lords’ Day, August 26, 2017 Dear Saints, We are so thankful to have returned from our 5-week trip to the Land Down Under! We missed you terribly, and though we are still settling it is so goooooooooooood to…
Redeem Your Time While There is Time
For Lord’s Day, May 14, 2015 Dear Saints, This week, in this blog, I saw this cartoon: This reminded me of this cartoon I saw on the wall while visiting Isaac’s doctor recently: These just seem to go together and…
Contentment: Spiritually Internal thus Independent of Externals
For Lord’s Day, April 2, 2017 Dear Saints, Here is our next installment of Jeremiah Borroughs’, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment to supplement our Wednesday Night study of Thomas Watson’s, The Art of Divine Contentment (both based on Philippians…
Affliction: The Moment We Need to Learn More Contentment
For Lord’s Day, February 26, 2017 Dear Saints, Our next installment of Jeremiah Burroughs’, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment deals with being content through affliction (which we saw from our recent Wednesday night studies with Watson’s book on the topic…
An American Pastor’s Polemic on Politics
Dear Saints, While I was caring for Abraham while he was sick this Lord’s Day, I was afforded time to finish my reading of William S. Plumer’s, Jehovah-Jirah: A Treatise on Providence. The book has been a dear friend to…
Contentment: Christian Self-Sufficiency
For the Lord’s Day, February 19, 2017 Dear Saints, Here is our next supplemental installment to Watson’s, Art of Divine Contentment on Wednesday nights from Burroughs’ Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Chapter 1, “Christian Contentment Described.” His starting point for…
Peaceful Contentment in Peacemaking
For Lord’s Day, February 12, 2017 Dear Saints, Having begun our Wednesday Night study with Thomas Watson’s, The Art of Divine Contentment, let us begin our supplemental e-devotions with Jeremiah Burroughs’, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. Before we actually…
The Artful Study of Strange Providences for Our Contentment
For Lord’s Day, February 4, 2017 Dear Saints, Next Wednesday night we will begin studying Thomas Watson’s, The Art of Divine Contentment, and I plan to use our weekly (Lord-willing) e-devotions/Pastor’s Posts to share the “cliff notes” of Jeremiah Burrough’s,…
Passing on the Faith through My Trust and Last Will and Testament
For Lord’s Day, January 29, 2017 Dear Saints, On the occasion of my daughter, Olivia Rose, taking her communicant membership vows before you this morning to be received into full communion and begin taking the Lord’s Supper this evening, wherein…
Superflous Praise for Superlative Grace: Our Cup Runneth Over
For the Lord’s Day, January 22, 2017 Dear Saints, Last Lord’s Day’s morning sermon based on Ephesians 3:8 encouraged us to more deeply explore “the unsearchable riches of Christ”. We were exhorted to “Keep Searching Out Christ”, as His mercies are…
Don’t Throw Away Your Vote to Pragmatic Politics
Dear Saints, As you know, I’m up in the mountains on respite with the children and will not be able to vote tomorrow for the next president of the United States of America. Frankly, I’m disgusted with the candidate options, and if…
Daniel Diet Devotion
Van Leuven Family Devotion for Start Date of Gerson Therapy Protocol Encouragement for healing and health improvement and safety July 20, 2016 Creation’s Diet Design Extended through the Flood: Psalm 139:14-15: we are fearfully and wonderfully made (designed, thus so…
Men Must Minister to Women
For Lord’s Day, June 5, 2016 Dear Saints, Jennifer and I recently came across a video (shared below) that I mentioned to you in passing in last week’s evening sermon on the qualifications for elders. There I reminded us that…
Post Tenebras Lux: “After Darkness, Light”
For Lord’s Day, March 20, 2016 Dear Saints, Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness … so reads Psalm 112:4. Thomas Watson quoted this Scripture in his lengthy exposition of the beatitude we look at tomorrow night, Blessed…
Persevering Friendship
Image source: For Lord’s Day, March 6, 2016 Dear Saints, I was impressed with something I recently heard a celebrated American composer and singer-songwriter share that I’d like to pass on to you, my friends and brethren: I’ve had hopeless…
Elderly Wisdom of Our Fathers
For Lord’s Day, February 21, 2016 Dear Saints, Considering that the Lord just reminded us in Leviticus 19:32 to honor those older than us (especially those with gray-haired crowns as reflecting the Ancient of Days), and considering part of this…
Witnessing Like Palm Trees and Football Players
For Lord’s Day, February 7, 2016 (Image source: ) Dear Saints, Last week in the morning service, Leviticus 19:30 had us revisit the fundamental expression of being God’s people—sanctified Sabbath worship around Him in His sanctuary. This is, after all,…
How to Approach God in Worship to Reach the World
For Lord’s Day, January 31, 2016 Dear Saints, Sometimes there are meaningful things gleaned in commentaries for sermon preparation that won’t make it “out of the woodshed” and into the sermons. Preparing for tomorrow evening’s sermon that will introduce our…
Jesus Will Be Standing to Receive You into Heaven
For Lord’s Day, January 24, 2016 Dear Saints, While my family finished the end of Book II of Pilgrim’s Progress together, we were quite moved to read about Christiana and many of her travel companions being called upon by Christ…
Of Men and Manes and Identifying with the Messiah
For the Lord’s Day, January 17, 2016 Dear Saints, What do you see in this picture: a lion or a lioness? Ah, looks can be deceiving. If you thought this was a lion (meaning a male), you were wrong. This…
Prepare Ye Straight Paths for the Way of the Lord
For the Lord’s Day, December 20, 2015 Dear Saints, Tomorrow evening’s sermon text, Matthew 3:1-12, has John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!” And we will see that…
The Right and Wrong Kind of Repentance
For Lord’s Day, December 6, 2015 Dear Saints, Our weekly bulletin quotes from the Puritan William Secker’s, The Consistent Christian, have for a while now been contrasting godly repentance that preserves life (as in Peter’s case) with worldly repentance that ruins life (as in Judas’ case) having in view…
Melodious Companionship through Melancholy
For Lord’s Day, October 11, 2015 Dear Saints, Considering our evening psalms of the month for corporate worship this October, we were delighted this week in family worship to read the following in Book Two of The Pilgrim’s Progress: … Christiana thought…
Barrenness May Actually Be Birthing Season
Image Source: (Photo by Raymond Watson). For the Lord’s Day, October 4, 2015 Dear Saints, As I’ve been preparing to preach Psalm 23 in the evening services of October, I’ve been reading a number of books by pastors who had also…
His Eye is On the Sparrow
For Lord’s Day, September 20, 2015 Dear Saints, I have not had time to write a weekly e-devotion lately, but today I thought I’d share with you some photos of a special moment we captured while Jennifer and I enjoyed…
Wise, Discerning Discipline
For the Lord’s Day, August 2, 2015 Dear Saints, A blunt but discerning leadership and parenting nugget is mined from General H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s autobiography, It Doesn’t Take a Hero. He shares the following story during his time as second lieutenant in the…
Remember Christ’s Redeeming Righteousness
For Lord’s Day, July 26, 2015 Dear Saints, There is a quote that I will share with you in tomorrow’s morning sermon that is worth meditating on beforehand as we are reminded to remember that we are a chosen people…
Discerning and Doing the Will of the Lord as His People
For Lord’s Day, July 19, 2015 Dear Saints, Before I put J.G. Vos’ Westminster Larger Catechism commentary back on the shelves, I thumbed through its pages for review and came across these statements that seemed quite poignant for the times…
Thomas Watson on the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer
For Lord’s Day, July 12, 2015 Dear Saints, Tomorrow evening we will conclude the Westminster Larger Catechism with the conclusion to the Lord’s Prayer (Q&A 196). For a change, I won’t be sharing any quotes from Thomas Watson’s commentary…
Heaven Rejoices When You Repent
(Image source: ) For Lord’s Day, July 5, 2015 Dear Saints, Like a father and mother and grandfather and grandmother and uncle and aunt and brother and sister rejoiced in the hospital at your birth, so did the angels celebrate…
Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
For Lord’s Day, June 28, 2015 Dear Saints, With the egregious Supreme Court decision about gay marriage now forced upon our land, here are a few things to be thinking about. First, while some of the rhetoric of the LGBT…
Marital Fidelity and Genes?
For Lord’s Day, May 24, 2015 Dear Saints, Yesterday, the same day that Mike and Erin (now the Delgados!) vowed before God and all of you to live in exclusive, life-long covenant faithfulness to one another, the New York…
Be Your Best by Choosing the Best
For Lord’s Day, May 17, 2015 Dear Saints, Motivated by the church’s recent Homemaker’s movie night, we began reading John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress for family worship. We are making a point to look up a Scripture that summarizes each vivid part.…
The Narrow Way is Always Obvious
For Lord’s Day, May 10, 2015 Dear Saints, At our Homemakers Movie Night last month, something really stood out to me as helpful for our own Christian Pilgrimage that I’d like to review with you. In the modern retelling of…
Children Reflect Their Parents
For Lord’s Day, April 12, 2015 Dear Saints, We had a hearty chuckle yesterday afternoon as I was getting ready to mow the lawn. Isaac (nearly 2, going on 22), became hilariously excited, making driving motions with his arms and…
The Awful Public Execution of Hell and the Cross
For Lord’s Day, April 5, 2015 Dear Saints, We were all struck by the typology of the Burnt Offering in Leviticus 1:6-7 last Lord’s Day. (Image source: ) Many agreed that the public execution typified by the flaying off of…
The Medicine of Laughter
For Lord’s Day, March 15, 2015 Dear Saints, I ended up getting the cold that has been going around my family and I didn’t sleep Friday night, so I took to reading through our family’s collection of Mark Twain writings. I…