Worship is ...

... a royal waste of time.


-Marva Dawn

The Lonely Crowd

As the American family gets smaller, 3.14 persons in 1970 down to 2.57 persons in 2003, the number of bedrooms [per house] continues to grow. Of new homes in the US, 39% now have 4 or more bedrooms. Ironically - or maybe not - during that continuing bouduare growth trend, reports of childhood depression - including thoughts of feeling lonely, isolated, and even suicidal - have increased four fold. I wanted my own bedroom when I was growing up, but it wasn't to be. I always had to share one with my omni-annoying older brother. Maybe my brother wasn't so bad after all.

-Jeff Yeager

Summer Reading List ...

In case you're looking for a good book this summer, Monergism has just released their reading guide. It is simple, straightforward and quite decent overall. Check it out, here.

Men - Shall Not the Lamb Have Have the Full Reward of His Suffering?!

My Default Arminianism

If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a Calvinist. I'm not one of these Arminians. Except that as a Calvinist, I believe in total depravity, which means that as a Calvinist I know that I am an Arminian. That is - even though I say with my lips that I'm justified by faith alone, in my heart I think that I can earn God's favor with my behavior. In fact, if you're a really hardcore Calvinist, you think that you can earn God's favor because of your zeal and commitment to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Calvinists hold to the doctrine of unconditional election which holds that God didn't choose us because He peered down the corridors of time and saw that we would choose Him - that's an Arminian view. We don't believe that. No, we think God peered down the corridors and saw that we'd be a Calvinist and that's why He chose us.

So often our spiritual exercises are designed in the horrible, dark corners of our hearts as a means to win God's favor.

- R.C. Sproul, Jr. [pictured with his newly adopted son, Reilly Justice Sproul]

Easy to Please ... Way Too Easy to Please

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

- C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

Nope, it's not a typo ...

"... God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ-likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer."

-Rick Warren, ... yes, that Rick Warren