Christians and non-Christians alike constantly talk about the need for “self-care” these days. I wonder if farmers, working 80 hours a week in 1950s America, thought about “self-care.” That is a rhetorical question. Of course, they did not. The reason, I suspect, is not that hard-working farmers did not need to take care of themselves. … Continue reading Moses, the Mountain, and a Mass of Email
The following is by Pastor Rob Golding of First Artesia Christian Reformed Church. I have noticed a world of difference between visiting the depressed and visiting the physically sick. The physically sick will chat with you and will enjoy a prayer at the end of your conversation about their illness and the medical plan to take … Continue reading The Secret Benefit of Depression
The following is by Pastor Rob Golding of First Artesia Christian Reformed Church. One of the most profound spiritual moments in my life came when I was most spiritually depressed. I was in college and found myself in a serious spiritual search. I was a Christian at a Christian college, studying the Bible, and I had … Continue reading What Spiritual Depression Taught Me About Worship
The perennial frog in the kettle does not know he is being heated until it is too late. Tepid water feels just fine as it is heated, degree by degree, but a boil begins to roll at some point. In America, at least, if not the Western world, we are beginning to succumb to a new phenomenon—relational fragility. In isolation, manifestations of this trend are not all that interesting—cancel culture, “ghosting,” the divorce rate, family estrangement, and political witch-hunts. On the other hand, combined, we can discern a cultural shift that is quite literally tearing at the fabric of American society. We are now in a time when people are trying harder than ever to be connected but are, ironically, sprinting away from one another at breakneck speed. - CLICK TO READ MORE
The following is a post by Pastor Rob Golding of First Artesia Christian Reformed Church. He also writes for the Westminster Theological Seminary Magazine. In The Edge of Eternity, Randy Alcorn imagines what it will be like to experience true joy in heaven, as compared to the joys we now experience. The man who enters into the … Continue reading The Joy Beyond the Pain
When the Psalmist speaks of the enemies he so desperately wants God to kill, we should imagine that pet sin Satan intends to use to drag us to hell. When we read of the incessant desire of the Psalmist's adversaries, we should think of our own constant temptation to Sin. We should read these poems of war as our poems of war. We should be encouraged not just to sit through hard times but to... CLICK TO READ MORE.
We work like dogs and stay glued to email while we are supposed to be eating with family. We collapse with exhaustion on the couch and think incessantly of that little “thing” that was not done. We bring our pocket computers into bed with us—like work adulterers—and allow our tasks to be the last thing we see before sleep and the first thing we see upon waking. CLICK TO READ MORE
Insisting that the nose is the faculty for experiencing gravity will produce nothing more than pointless sniffing. So, we cannot doubt God because we cannot perceive Him with the eye any more than we can doubt gravity because it doesn’t have a certain odor... CLICK TO READ MORE
The following is a post by Pastor Rob Golding of First Artesia Christian Reformed Church. He also writes for the Westminster Theological Seminary Magazine. A fish swallowed the recalcitrant prophet Jonah, but what happens when the obstinate Christian similarly buries his feet in the sand? Is the Christian’s fish only for cars, or does God appoint fish … Continue reading We Are Jonah
The following is a post by Pastor Rob Golding of First Artesia Christian Reformed Church. He also writes for the Westminster Theological Seminary Magazine. What do people really mean when they say, “Jesus is my life”? What did Paul mean when he said, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal … Continue reading Life in Christ and the Struggle with Sin
The Fight of Faith 