Sublime

For a wise articulation of this point, see Michael Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014).

You might think of Augustine as offering a hitchhiker’s guide to the cosmos for wandering hearts.

we’re all sinners who deserve death and separation from God. For those of us who don’t get that, we’re the ones for whom things aren’t fair—we do not get what we deserve.

God doesn’t stand for a leader who is doing things his own way, disregarding the good of the people, betraying the God of the universe, and seeking selfish gain.

Do we love God and others enough to drop the pretense and just be ourselves? Only the gospel simultaneously provides the humility and the confidence the pastor needs to be his real self. The pastorate is no place for image-managing, for worrying about our own PR. In any event, if everybody likes you, something’s wrong, and if everybody hates you, s

The justified pastor—the man justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to God’s glory alone, who happens to be a pastor—when taken on his good day or bad day, ministry high or ministry low, will be received with gladness and welcome. Clothed in the righteousness of him in whom you trust, how can you be turned away? You will not b