J.I. Packer (1926-2020) “Live slowly enough to be able to think deeply about God.”

Stick to the Bible.

Stop trying to be a Christian hero. Stop trying to be a spiritual giant. Just be a son. Just be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

The Gospel message a perfect cleanser, balm, & fire. Through faith in Christ's Person & Work, believers are purified from the stain of sin, healed of every soul-wound, & set afire with a passion for God's glory, a zeal for love & holiness, & a desire to make Him known to others.

"Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and power. Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, Ev'ry grace that brings you nigh. Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requires Is to feel your need of Him. Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you're better, You will never come at all. I will rise and go to Jesus! He will save me from my sin. By the riches of His merit, There is joy and life in Him." (Joseph Hart, 1759)

Satan works overtime, as it were, to get us to fixate upon the sins of others & upon our own sins. Are you doing that presently? The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, yes, but His chief work is to bring us to the place where our eyes are fixed upon the excellencies of Jesus Christ.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." -Ecclesiastes 3.11

Pray Mt. 9.37-38 for unreached peoples around the world. Pray and be willing to go to them if God would have you. But not to the neglect or with a cold heart towards your own land and countrymen. If you're not an evangelist here, you'll not be an apostle there.

Spurgeon: "It is a theme for wonder that the glorious God should visit sinful man."

YHWH to the people of Israel: "I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King." (Is. 43.15) Nathanael to Jesus the Messiah: "You are the King of Israel!" (Jn. 1.49) Let every man, including every Jew and the nation of Israel itself, repent and believe upon Him.

Once you receive the Holy Spirit by faith and chuck the anti-supernaturalism of our post-Enlightenment Western age, you find the living God speaking in manifold ways. Authoritatively? Only through Scripture. But in nature, in circumstances, through His people, through spiritual gifts, through promptings, through sufferings, through encouragements... The LORD is speaking all the time, and to His children especially. The sheep in Christ's flock really do hear His voice, know they are His, and follow Him "wheresoever He goeth." Are you listening today?

"There's only one way to heaven. There are a million ways to hell." -Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994)

"Without knowledge of the Son as our Redeemer and God as our Father, we don't really know God." -Michael Reeves

Don't plod without God.

Read this little book by @mike_reeves this evening. The Holy Spirit worked profoundly in my heart while reading. I was moved to tears, to worship, to "rejoicing with trembling." It's an easy but substantial read. Maybe 60 pages. I commend it to you.

God the Holy Spirit is at work among the nations, exalting the Son, just as Jesus said He would.

In Isaiah 41.20-21 the LORD identifies Himself as "the Holy One of Israel" and "the King of Jacob." In Rom. 11.25-26 Paul writes that a "partial hardening has come upon Israel," but that ultimately "all Israel will be saved," for God will "banish ungodliness from Jacob." In neither of these texts do "Israel" or "Jacob" mean the Church or Jesus. This is a reference to the elect nation (Jer. 31.35-37), Paul's "kinsmen according to the flesh," the "whole house of Israel." (Jer. 31.31; Ez. 37.15-28) The Bible is very clear and rather simple on this point. I don't believe it can be denied by any honest reader or exegete. Siftings and chastening will continue for a time and even escalate for Jacob, but the God of Israel (who has appointed the sifting) is going to redeem and restore the People of Israel. "Nothing is more certainly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews in Romans 11." -Jonathan Edwards (Part 4 / Section 6 of The History of the Work of Redemption)

Sinclair Ferguson - "For so many of us today, ministers and people, that to which we aspire, that which we admire, and God forgive us, that which we covet, is the mega-church, rather than the holy church."

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) - “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”

Pastors should preach a clear, Biblical Gospel, yes. But we cannot merely preach a clear Gospel. We must believe a clear Gospel, fellowship with the saints in light of a clear Gospel, nurture them in the Gospel, and lead in such a way as demonstrates the reality of the Gospel.