Pastor_David's blog

I appreciate these words from Jonathan Edwards:

"The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean."
-- Jonathan Edwards

The current shake-up in the financial sector is a frightening thing to watch. The impact of this collapse will be felt throughout the entire world. For those of us who aren’t trained in economics, much of what is taking place is beyond our ability to understand. But there are a few lessons we can learn from what is going on. Here are four I can think of ...

Often when I read current Christian books, I get the sense that they were shaped more by the demands of the publisher than by the needs of the reader. The author will start out sharing some really fantastic ideas for the first 150 pages, and then begin repeating him/herself mindlessly for the next 125. I get the sense that the first draft of the manuscript was mailed back to the writer with an editor’s note stuck to it, saying: “Brilliant stuff! But we need at least 250 pages if we want this baby to sell.”

Well, the other week I ran across a little book that was (obviously) never written with publishing in mind. It is one of the weirdest and coolest books I’ve seen in a long time...

The sermon posted on our site this week, based on Psalm 138, touches on the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human suffering. (See sermon "The Purposes of God, 08/24/08) How can God be sovereign while so many tragic things happen in life? Do these things happen against his will? If so, God must not truly be in control of the world. Yet if he is in control, why does he let these things happen? Much of the suffering we face is caused by decisions people make. Did God ordain their decisions? If so, what happens to the idea of free will? Are we just robots blindly functioning as we have been programmed to do? Are we no more than puppets dancing on a string? If so, why does God take our choices seriously and hold us responsible for the things we do (as the Bible says he does)? ...

This past weekend our church participated in a Labor Day retreat hosted by Comunidade Cristiana Presbiteriana (Newark, NJ) and other Brazilian PCA churches. There was preaching and teaching in three languages. Pastor Jeremias preached in Portuguese. Pastor Ramon preached in Spanish. Pastor Jacob preached in English. The theme of the weekend was “Conviction or Convenience.” We were confronted with the question: “Do you obey Christ only when it is convenient for you, or is your obedience to him based on solid convictions that grow from the Word of God?”

This reminds me of the following quote from Jerry Bridges classic book, “The Pursuit of Holiness” ...

This summer we've been studying the Psalms, the songbook of the covenant. At our church’s Spanish Fellowship Group this week, the group members were discussing the question, “Why has singing praise always been so important for the people of God?” Someone said, “One reason is that singing praise is a way to wage spiritual warfare.” I agree. The quote below from John Piper explains it well ...

“Satan hates the songs of God's people. He does his best to keep a church from being a singing church. And he does his best to keep you from being a singing person.... Satan cannot endure the spiritual songs of the saints. You can fight him with song.... We have two great weapons in worship: the Word of God and song. So let us give heed to the Word of God and let us sing with all our heart.” (John Piper)

We have been preaching from the Psalms in church this summer. The psalms, of course, are a collection of songs. So, as I prepare for these sermons, I keep reminding myself that I am not just studying written text; I am studying lyrics that were intended to be sung. This has got me thinking about how important corporate singing is to the life of God’s people. Here are a few scattered thoughts about singing ...

It’s nice to get a chance, in the summer, to get out of the city once in a while to enjoy the beauty of nature. Last week my family and I got to spend a few days upstate in a cottage owned by some friends. The cabin sits on the shores of a picturesque lake near the foothills of the Adirondack mountains. It was really amazing.

One morning I went out for a walk to enjoy the beautiful scenery and a thought hit me ...

Having just experienced another great 4th of July with all its patriotic fanfare, and with a presidential election approaching later in the year, many of us are turning our thoughts to our nation and asking what our role should be as Christians who are citizens or residents of the U.S.A.
I have been enjoying my friend Charlie Drew’s book A Public Faith – Bringing Personal Faith to Public Issues. In one of his chapters, he makes the point that a primary responsibility we have as the church is to pray for our government. How should we pray? Here are some of his points, looking at Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy 1:1-6...

I really enjoyed our united prayer walk with the members of the Astoria Baptist Church last Saturday. I walked through the streets of Astoria and Long Island City with a group of Christians I was meeting for the first time. We stopped and prayed together in front of various churches, schools and housing projects. I was greatly encouraged by the strong faith of the Christians in my group as they cried out to the Lord to work in mighty ways in our community.