Christward Collective

Every Christian heart cries, "Give me more of Christ." We long to see Him. David said, "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27:4). When Peter...

"He is not so happy as he may be, who has not the pleasure of making others so, and of seeing them put into a happy condition by his means, which is the highest pleasure of a good and great mind." John Tillotson In a sermon on The Happiness of God based on 1 Timothy 1:11, Puritan-era...

Pastors sometimes say stupid things. Sometimes those stupid things are catchy and wind up being repeated by many other pastors. One of the more preposterous pithy statements I have heard many preachers say is, “Sheep are dumb.” They say this as shepherds and are referring to the sheep...

“For Everything There Is A Season...” So says the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Our God has ordained whatsoever shall come to pass, according to His most wise and free counsel. He has set the limits for every hour, day, week, month and year. He has also ordained the seasons. We live our...

Why do we make the decisions that we do? What is the motivational structure of the human heart that forms the foundation for the decisions we make? According to Scripture, people choose to do what they love. The desires of the heart determine the actions of one’s life. Jesus made this point...

In the previous post in this series, we considered what Martin Bucer taught in his pastoral manual, Concerning the True Care of Souls , about what it means to be true Seelsorgers –true carers of souls. Among the variegated tasks of pastoral care, Bucer set out five as being primary. In that...

I was visiting a church once and heard an exchange between a pastor and one of his congregants that has stayed with me ever since. A woman asked the pastor before the service, "Is the video this morning going to make me laugh or cry? It always does one or the other." The pastor was quick...

Many of us have joyfully welcomed the renaissance of Christ-centered preaching that churches in North America have undergone in recent decades. For some it has been an old practice to saturate their ministry with the person and work of the Savior. For others it is a relatively new thing to...

There has been quite a lot of discussion in recent years about evangelical scholarship in the Old Testament and the validity of the doctrine of Scriptural inerrancy. As I watch from my perch in an evangelical and Reformed seminary, I have a few preliminary thoughts on some of the issues that seem...

Marriage can be painful--and Christian marriage is no exception. When two sinners are in a relationship as intimate as marriage, there is bound to be some measure of hurt. Our flesh will balk at the demands of self-sacrifice, service, and humility affecting one another for ill. There will be sins...