The sweetest fragrance, the most beautiful aroma that God has ever detected emanating from this planet, was the aroma of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that was offered once and for all on the cross.

Advice to aspiring ministers: Get in the Word. Stay in the Word. Master the Word. And for heaven's sake, preach the Word!

But the blessing Christ promised, the blessing of great reward, is a reward of grace. The blessing is promised even though it is not earned. Augustine said it this way: Our rewards in heaven are a result of God's crowning His own gifts.

Grace, by definition, is something that God is not required to grant. He owes a fallen world no mercy.

We break our promises to one another. We break our promises to God. But God never breaks His promises to us.

The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God Himself.

The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?