“Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11). The Bible grounds true happiness in gospel holiness. The most holy people are the most happy people – because they are most like God and live most in his presence. The two stand and fall together; man must have both or neither. Any attempt to sever what God has joined together produces a shallow satisfaction that proves dishonoring to Christ and dismal to the soul. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a […]

The following letter was penned by John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787), who served as a Scottish Presbyterian minister in the Associate Synod, to his young children as he lay on his deathbed. It portrays a God-fearing father bequeathing a spiritual inheritance to his sons and daughters – and to us, his spiritual heirs. Let us heed his advice and follow his example. My Dear Children, Believing that God hath made with me, and with my seed after me, his everlasting covenant, to be a God to me and to my seed, I did, in your baptism, and often since, and […]

Speed wins the blue ribbon for being the premier virtue of modernity. People will pay high premiums to accelerate the pace of life when using their cell phone, ordering their food, and traveling abroad. Fast is fashionable. The all-consuming lust for speed, however, caters to instant gratification and undermines weighty pursuits. It carries a hidden cost, a price tag that few would be willing to pay in many situations. And we know it. Who would urge a surgeon to cut corners during a critical surgery, or a spouse to abbreviate their words about a life-altering decision, or an engineer to […]