The degree of our peace of mind is tied to our prayer life (Phil. 4:6-7). This is not because prayer is psychologically soothing, but because we address a prayer-answering God, a personal God, a responding God, a sovereign God whom we can trust with the outcomes of life's confusions. And we learn, with time, that if God in this or that instance does not choose to take away the suffering, or utterly remove the evil, he does send grace and power. The result is praise; and that, of course, is itself enjoyable, in exactly the same way that lovers enjoy giving each other compliments.”

—D. A. Carson

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To reconcile offending man,
Make Justice drop her angry rod;
What creature could have formed the plan,
Or who fulfill it but a God?
No drop remains of all the curse,
For wretches who deserved the whole;
No arrows dipped in wrath to pierce
The guilty, but returning soul.
Peace by such means so dearly bought,
What rebel could have hoped to see?
Peace by his injured Sovereign wrought,
His Sovereign fastened to a tree.

– William Cowper

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms. . . . Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him.

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

The account about King David “provides one of the Scripture’s most vivid reminders that all human beings, no matter how elevated their status in the eyes of those around them, no matter what special calling they may have received from the Lord, are still fallen creatures and capable of the most unimaginable iniquities. It is for this reason that the Bible encourages us to place our trust in the Lord rather than in other people (Pss 118:8; 146:3).”

— Robert Vannoy

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Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.

— John Updike

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When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread their garments in the way. When He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet, but even trample upon it ourselves.

— Augustus Toplady

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You can shine your shoes and wear a suit. You can comb your hair and look quite cute. You can hide your face behind a smile.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.

— John Lennon

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Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. . . . 

– Proverbs 28:13a

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Jesus Christ, the Son of David, sent his ambassadors, his apostles and ministers, after all his servants the prophets, to his people, but they treated them shamefully, as Hanun did David’s ambassadors, mocked them, abused them, slew them; and it was this that filled the measure of their iniquity, and brought upon them ruin without remedy; for Christ takes the affronts and injuries done to his ministers as done to himself and will avenge them accordingly. 

– Matthew Henry

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I now see that duties are ours, events are the Lord’s. 

When our faith goes to meddle with events, and to hold a court, as it were, upon God’s Providence, and begins to say, “How wilt Thou do this or that?” we lose ground. We have nothing to do there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and steer His own helm. And he steers well. 

– Samuel Rutherford 

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

The great commission makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every disciple. 

– Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

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For your own sake, and your children’s sake, cherish and revere him whom you have chosen to be your pastor. Already he loves you; and he will soon love you as “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.” It will be equally your duty and your interest to make his labors as pleasant to him as possible. Do not demand too much. Do not require visits too frequent. Should he spend, in this way, half of the time which some demand, he must wholly neglect his studies, if not sink early under the burden. Do not report to him all the unkind things which may be said against him; nor frequently, in his presence, allude to opposition, if opposition should arise. Though he is a minister of Christ, consider that he has the feelings of a man. 

– Edward Griffin

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

The zealous advocates for the cause of Christ will be ready to plead it in all companies, as occasion offers. The [witnesses] of Christ must not think it enough to speak a good word for Christ once a week, but should be daily speaking honorably of Him to such as meet with them. 

– Matthew Henry

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship—he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.

– J. I . Packer

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[W]e are not washed by Christ, that we may plunge ourselves again into new filth, but that our purity may serve to glorify God. Besides, he teaches us, that nothing can proceed from us that can be pleasing to God until we are purified by the blood of Christ; for as we are all enemies to God before our reconciliation, so he regards as abominable all our works; hence the beginning of acceptable service is reconciliation.

– John Calvin

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

We quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate “temple” in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. . . . He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life. 

– D. A. Carson

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The Church is the mirror that reflects the whole effulgence of the Divine character. It is the grand scene in which the perfections of Jehovah are displayed to the universe. The revelations made to the Church—the successive grand events in her history and, above all, the manifestation of ‘the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ’—furnish even to the heavenly intelligences fresh subjects of adoring contemplation. 

– Charles Bridges

Order of Worship • Kids' Guide

The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all; [he] is just, good and does good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart and all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.

— “Of Religious Worship” from the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) & The London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)

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Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 1:8, 9

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The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but evening and morning of one and the same day.

– John Donn

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