Christ the Healer of Soul-Sickness

“Jesus is the Great Healer of all our spiritual diseases. He loves to undertake the care of the sin-sick soul, and never lost one who betook itself to His cross. Come with your spiritual disease, O my soul; it may have baffled every physician and distanced every remedy – - Jesus and His Atonement can cure it. ‘He heals all your diseases.’ He bind up the broken heart, heals our backslidings, restores our wanderings, revives our declensions; and when faith droops through trial, and the spirit faints in adversity, and love chills through temptation, Jesus the Healer comes, and by the fresh application of His blood, and by the renewed communication of His grace, and by the quickening energy of His word, He heals us.”

Summary of Francis Schaeffer’s Thought

“True truth exists as revealed in the Bible by ‘the God who is there,’ and that what we do with this truth has decisive consequences in every area of life and culture.”

- Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live, 9. Comments of Lane Dennis.

Preaching & Discouragement

“Just go on preaching. Don’t worry about who will listen; let me (God) worry about that. The world will be against you, don’t let that trouble you. Nevertheless, others will be there who will listen to you and follow. You do not know them now, but I know them already. You preach and let me manage.”
- Timothy George, Reading Scripture with the Reformers, 234. (a quote from Martin Luther)

Law & Gospel

“The law accuses, condemns and drives to Christ whereas the gospel is the announcement of forgiveness, pardon and new life based not on any achievements or merits of one’s own but solely on the accomplishment of Christ.”
- Timothy George, Reading Scripture with the Reformers, 179.

D. A. Carson comments on the Redefinition of Sin

“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith and delight in the Lord. We drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”
- D. A. Carson, For the Love of God vol. 2, 74. Quoted in This Little Church Stayed Home by Gary Gilley.

Washington by Vickery

I have a fascination with history in general, but I have always had a special love for American history, and the revolutionary generation in particular.

So when I spotted a Washington bio for review on Booksneeze I was all over it. And I was not disappointed.

I really respected the way that Washington’s faith was referenced but not forced down my throat. What many of these books do is try to turn Washington into a 20th century evangelical. It would appear that he was a pious Anglican with a sincere faith. For this we should be thankful.

I also really loved the way that Vickery highlighted Washington’s perseverance and willingness to adapt. I think many of us are set in our ways and are unwilling to change. Washington sought the advice of his subordinates and even listened to them. We could all use a good dose of that.

I know this wasn’t a very profound review but I did enjoy this book and benefited from it. I encourage you to read this book as well and I would guess that you would benefit as well.

4 Stars

God Looking to Jesus

“My looking to Jesus brings me joy and peace, but it is God’s looking to Jesus which secures my salvation and that of all His elect, since it is impossible for our God to look at Christ, our bleeding surety, and then to be angry again with us for sins already punished in Him.”
- Charles Spurgeon, Morning & Evening, August 13 PM