Brian G. Hedges's Blog, page 4

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat,

Where Jesus answers prayer;

There humbly fall before His feet,

For none can perish there.



Thy promise is my only plea,

With this I venture nigh;

Thou callest burdened souls to Thee,

And such, O Lord, am I.



Bowed down beneath a load of sin,

By Satan sorely pressed,

By war without and fears within,

I come to Thee for rest.



Be Thou my Shield and

The Diagnosis and Cure for an Angry Heart

Of the seven daily sins, wrath may be the most difficult to acknowledge as sin. We’re miserable in envy, depressed by sloth, and embarrassed by gluttony and lust. Those sins may be hard to admit to others, but not usually to ourselves. Wrath is different. We can be deeply angry without fully realizing we’re sinning because anger usually feels so right. Wrath is a chameleon adept at disguise,

7 Errors to Avoid in Following Christ

What you believe makes a big difference in your Christian life. Even if the categories of formal theology seem remote and unfamiliar, you have a theology. Everything you think about God, Jesus, law, sin, salvation, holiness, the Spirit, the church, human nature, life, death, and eternity is theological. We are all theologians. The real question is whether or not our theologies are true to

Top 12 Books of 2014

Every December, bloggers list off their favorite books of
the year. I relish these posts and usually buy a few books as a result. Here are my top twelve picks for the year. Keep in mind, of course, these are my favorites of the books I read this year, not books published this year. Happy reading! 



Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Home, Work, and School by John

Five Motivations to Pray

For years, when I thought about prayer, I mostly felt guilty for my lack of a robust prayer life. Reading stories of great saints praying for two hours a day or more left me with a gnawing sense of defeat. I would often resolve to pray more. But the resolves didn’t last.

One day I realized that something had changed. While not exactly satisfied with my prayer life, I knew that I had one. I’m

Do You Think Biblically about Your Work?

Work is one of the most significant parts of our lives. Of the 168 hours we are given each week, most of us will spend at least 40 at the workplace.  Many spend closer to 60 or 70, sometimes juggling two jobs or more. One of the most pressing questions for a Christian to answer, then, is, “How do I think biblically about work?”

Created to work

The first thing to remember is that we were made

Is the Christian Life about Running or Resting?

In 2009, Time magazine named “the new Calvinism” as one of the 10 ideas currently changing the world. The burgeoning movement brought several streams of conservative evangelicals together, ranging from Baptists to Presbyterians to Reformed Charismatics, best represented through organizations and conferences like Together for the Gospel and The Gospel Coalition. But in recent months an

God Provides, Even When We Can't See It

In his book Brain Rules, John Medina tells
the intriguing story of Dr. Oliver Sacks, a British neurologist, and one of his
patients, an elderly woman who “suffered a massive stroke in the back region of
her brain that left her with a most unusual deficit: She lost her ability to
pay attention to anything that was to her left.” Medina explains the effect
this had on her perceptive abilities

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5 Tips for Dealing with Difficult People

Pastoral ministry is people work and people can be difficult. Some folks seem to have the spiritual gift of pointing out everything you and the church could do better. Others have impossibly high expectations that despite your good intentions you never seem to meet. Still others are just plain ornery: cantankerous old (or young) cusses that fit the profile of grumpy goats, better than cuddly