As the title lends us to think, the book is about surrendering ourselves to God. Though we sin less, we are not sinless. We have stubborn habits, secret sins, spiritual strongholds. And, as the book says, “The key isn’t how committed you are to the battle – it’s how surrendered you are to God.” I liken it to Jerry Bridges’ famous book, The Pursuit of Holiness. You cannot win the battle against sin until you learn to surrender.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss is the host and teacher for Revive Our Hearts, a radio program for women heard daily on more than 500 outlets nationwide.

Here are some highlights:

• Genuine saving faith is always accompanied by repentance and must be followed by ongoing growth in obeying God (2 Peter 1:4-8); that does not mean perfect obedience, to be sure, but a desire to move from rebellion toward greater surrender to and satisfaction in God.
• To surrender to the Creator’s control is not onerous or burdensome; it is, in fact, the place of blessing, fullness, and peace.
• Even if you are stubborn and think you will not submit to anyone, you will always be submitting to someone or something – and that can be extremely dangerous. Even life-threatening.
• From the moment we were conceived, we were at war with God.
• We have nothing to lose by signing the blank contract with God.
• Our initial surrender to Christ was the launching pad for a lifetime of continual surrender and sacrifice.
• Many of our fears about relinquishing total control of our lives to God fall into four categories: provision, pleasure, protection, personal relationships.
• If we are unwilling to trust God with our happiness and well-being, and we insist on the pursuit of temporal pleasures, we may become dominated by overeating, getting drunk or using drugs, sexual promiscuity, adultery, pornography, obsession with television or films or novels, being irresponsible, or living beyond our means.

The above excerpts are often paraphrased slightly for reasons of brevity. They are solely to capture your interest in order that you might lend yourself to purchase the book for your own reading.

It is a common notion to argue that Jesus is one of many other ways to heaven. One might even hear this from the mouths of professing Christians. To say contrary, expressing that Jesus the only way to heaven and that there is no other, is just as commonly argued as being arrogant and insensitive others. But what is the real truth? Are we humble if we open the doorway to heaven a bit wider and include other paths to God?

God disagrees.

Professing Christians who deny, question, or do not forthrightly proclaim the exclusivity of Jesus are not being humble. They are being arrogant. The exclusivity of Jesus is not of human origin. God declared it in the Bible. To say otherwise is to say that we know more than God, and worse, that He is a liar. It is profoundly arrogant, not humble.

As Christians, we ought to embrace Jesus as the only way to salvation, heaven, and God. We must believe it, trust it, agree it, and proclaim, no matter the cost.

Inspired by TableTalk (“One Way of Salvation”, Vol. 36. Issue 3.  p. 63).

Read an edited transcript of this video at DesiringGod.org.

Read the DG announcement on their website.

By way of introduction, let me say that this is a clever campaign message. By finding the similarities between historic American slavery and modern American sex-trafficking, then publishing it as one in the same, is great marketing. I work in marketing. I get it.

The same thing was done in the campaign against abortion. Although I never saw a bilboard that read “Stop legalized murder,” I am sure it has been made. This is a technique that we do in marketing. Since Americans are generally okay with abortion but not murder, we refer to it as murder. People are stirred by their emotions. If you desire to provoke a response, you need to make the proper emotional connection.

The bilboard has good messaging. However, it reveals a bad point about our society.

Apparently, we are okay with sex-trafficking. This is why it has to be described as slavery. Americans have a terrible past with slavery which I need not to revisit. Slavery leaves a sour taste in our mouth and a hot temper in our head. Slavery arouses our emotions and provokes us to action. Sex-trafficking, on the other hand, is part of our debased culture. We love and worship sex. Pornography, prostitution, adultery and pre-marital affairs are things that we accept as our entertainment. And some of us will go to great lengths to be entertained. Sex-trafficking does not generally stir up negative emotions because it is positively accepted for the most part, at least in its most plain sense: sex as entertainment.

For this reason, it is difficult to start a revolution against sex-trafficking. This is why it is called slavery. Slavery imposes on the American dream. Sex-trafficking does not.

In the end, the campaign message to abolish sex-trafficking is well delivered and much needed. I hope that it helps convince people of the evil. But, if the underlying issue is not resolved first, the message will ultimately fail.

We have a problem with sin, particularly sexual sin. Sex is our master. It has made us slaves (cf: Matt. 6:24). And since it has made us slaves, we are making slaves out of young, vulnerable girls. This is sex-trafficking: Slaves to sex making slaves for sex.

I would rather the bilboard read: “Repent and Turn to Christ.” But, I have a feeling that won’t go over well (Acts 3:19).

MacArthur’s writings are always a treat to read. This one was no exception.  In it, he takes the reader door to door unlocking and opening the riches of God’s word as it relates to spiritual maturity. On the back cover, it says that “spiritual maturity is more than an obligation; it’s our privilege.”

Here are some things I highlighted:

• Growth is one of the essential signs of life.
• Where there is no spiritual growth, there is good reason to question whether spiritual life exists.
• The Bible speaks as perceptively and definitively to the twenty-first century as it did to the first century.
• Glorifying God is more than pasting an adage on your car, even if you drive with good manners.
• You have to worship God if you are going to walk with Him, and you have to walk with Him before you can work for Him.
• True confession of sin is not just admitting that you did something wrong, but acknowledging that your sin was against God and in defiance of Him personally.
• Real confession includes a brokenness that inevitably leads to changes in behavior.
• A right view of sin also recognizes an urgent need for cleansing.
• Guilt locks a person’s lips from giving testimony.
• Salvation is a once-for-all transaction. It cannot be repeated.
• Continual confession characterizes Christians.
• The one who is not faithful in prayer constantly struggles against his own spiritual nature. He is holding his spiritual breath. And that is spiritually debilitating.
• For confidence in the future, trust the Word.
• Privileges in Scripture never cancel obligations, they only increase them.
• When the Bible speaks, God speaks.
• It is the Word that builds us up and causes us to grow spiritually.
• Growth is basic to usefulness.
• The more we affirm biblical truth, the stronger we are against sin.
• A prerequisite for helping others is to know God’s Word.
• Spiritual growth takes place as we live more consistently with who we are in Christ.
• People need to see in our lives the reality of what we profess.
• We’re not supposed to be experts about evil.

The above excerpts are often paraphrased slightly for reasons of brevity. They are solely to capture your interest in order that you might lend yourself to purchase the book for your own reading.

The arguments of the book evolve, in one way or another, from Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 4, particularly verse 6 which reads, “I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.”

Here are some things that I highlighted:

• The sin of judging is negatively evaluating someone’s conduct or spiritual state on the basis of nonbiblical standards or suspected motives.
• Since you cannot know with certainty what is in your own heart, how could you possibly think that you can discern what is in the heart of another?!
• Everyone knows that murder, adultery, hate, lust, and other common sins are wrong, but few are aware that it is equally wrong to judge another Christians.
• Jesus Christ is the only One fully qualified to judge some things and the only One fully capable of judging some things.
• The Bible teaches that there are some things about others that we can and should judge, and that there are some other things that we cannot and should not judge.
• We should withhold judgments not only on that which is outside of Scripture, but also on that which is inide of man.
• We can and should judge what people say about their beliefs, whether it is consistent with the Bible or not. But we must be very careful not to ascribe bad motives to them.
• Cross-Examine Your Judgements:
  • Is this opinion based firmly on Scripture, or on my ideas and preferences?
  • Does the formation of this opinion include any judgments about the person’s thoughts of motives?
  • Am I missing any facts that are necessary for an accurate evaluation?
  • How would I want this person to think of me if the roles were reversed?
  • How can I show the grace of the cross to this person?
• Legalism: creating moral standards beyond what the Scripture has revealed.
• The study of spiritual issues can actually produce bad results if it is divorced from the love for God and others.
• Knowing that God accepts us in Christ keeps us from fabricating human ways to earn acceptance with Him.
• When it comes to issues not directly addressed in the Scriptures, God will be looking primarily at the reasons and responses of the heart.
• In ourselves we are more sinful than we ever dare to admit, but in Christ we are more loved and accepted than we ever dare to hope.

The above excerpts are often paraphrased slightly for reasons of brevity. They are solely to capture your interest in order that you might lend yourself to purchase the book for your own reading.

Swavely wrote this book to help us make more decisions that are grounded in God’s Word. The first half of the book is dedicated to how we should not make decisions. The second half is on how we should make decisions. It is very, very practical. At the same time, it convinces with solid Biblical evidences.

Dave Swavely is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He was founding pastor of Faith Church in Sonoma, California.

Here are some things I highlighted:

• “Needs theology” has infiltrated the church – the idea that our needs must be met first before we can really reach out to others … this is unbiblical.
• When faced with a choice, remember the old saying that the road to JOY is Jesus, Others, then You – in that order.
• When we give little or no thought to God in our decisions, we are disobeying the command in 1 Corinthians 10:31 and failing to fulfill the very purpose of our existence.
• Extra-biblical revelation is not only spurious, it’s downright dangerous. It invariably leads you astray, away from the truth of God. Your curiosity and your fascination will take over, eclipsing the authority of the Scriptures.
• The fact that God speaks today only through his Word is a blessing, not a handicap.
• Discontentment with the wisdom of the Word and the presence of the Spirit is looking for “something more” than what God chose to give.
• You need to understand that the Bible uses the terminology “will of God” to express two different concepts: the sovereign will of God and the moral will of God.
• From God’s perspective, he knows all our choices ahead of time and actually has planned for us to make them. But from our perspective, we do not know his plan until it happens, so it is our responsibility to make our decisions based on the commands and principles revealed in his Word.
• God’s sovereign plan will go on undaunted.
• Feelings and impressions are not always a good indicator of a godly choice.
• God’s providential plan is a part of the “secret things” that belong to him alone. We must focus on what he has revealed in his Word.
• The terms for prayer in Scripture are never used of God. We talk to God through prayer; he talks to us through his Word. So the idea of “listening to God in prayer” reflects a misunderstanding.
• God accomplishes his sovereign will through our desires, and his moral will reveals that sometimes he gives us guidance through our desires.
• Psalm 37:4 seems to not be saying that God will grant the desires of your heart, but that God will implant them into you (when you are following him).

The above excerpts are often paraphrased slightly for reasons of brevity. They are solely to capture your interest in order that you might lend yourself to purchase the book for your own reading.

Here is a trailer featuring Shai Linne’s wife, Blair.

The author, T. David Gordon, has identified a problem that affects all churches today. It is a result in the shift of dominant media forms which have unfortunate consequences when it comes to preaching. The subtitle says it all, “The Media Have Shaped the Messengers.”

Gordon is a professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College, where he has also taught in the humanities and media ecology.

Here are some things I highlighted:

• Seven minimal requirements that are essential to every sermon: Textual Fidelity, Unity, Evangelical Tone, Instructiveness, Movement, Point, Order.
• With regard to sermon lengthiness: When we experience a thing that is well done, we get caught up in it, become lost in the movement, and lose any sense of the passage of time. [On the other hand,] bad preaching is insufferably long, even if the chronological length is brief.
• Sermon length is not measured in minutes; it is measured in minutes-beyond-interest, in the amount of time the minister continues to preach after he has lost the interest of his hearers.
• Those who write compose their thoughts more successfully than those who do not; they commit fewer “sentence farts” (where one begins a sentence, partway through realizes that it cannot be successfully completed, and therefore begins again).
• Many ministers today read for information or for amusement, but they do not read because they cherish the aesthetic pleasure taken in something that is well written.
• We are swamped by the inconsequential, bombarded by images and sounds that rob us of opportunity for reflection and contemplation that are necessary to reacquaint ourselves with what is significant.
• At least two disadvantages to technological developments: (1) We can hear people whom we do not see. (2) We do not compose our thoughts as frequently or carefully as we once did.
• We have become telephone babblers, unskilled at the most basic questions of composition.
• Preach Christ, and you will have morality.
• If theocracy didn’t work in Israel, where God divinely instituted it, why do people insist on believing it will work in places where God manifestly has not instituted it?
• The pulpit is the place to declare the fitness of Christ’s person, and the adequacy of both his humiliated and exalted work for sinners.

The above excerpts are often paraphrased slightly for reasons of brevity. They are solely to capture your interest in order that you might lend yourself to purchase the book for your own reading.