Jonathan Shradar

Only Christians living under a rock for the last year haven’t heard at least one person rave about the book Gentle and Lowly from Dane Ortlund. The book, tapping into the scholarship of the puritans, boldly proclaims the truth of Christ’s heart toward sinners and sufferers. As I told my small group it is a soul-warming book.  Where Gentle and Lowly gives us the basis of salvation and fuel for life, you might be looking to continue on, from Christ’s heart to how that helps you grow, how you become sanctified after being awakened to this love.  Ortlund has another volume that is a keen help in answering just those questions. Deeper, Real Change for Real Sinners is a short but wonderful book that suggests to grow we just go deeper into the truth of Christ’s heart and our union with him by faith.  I found this one a breeze to read. Broken into nine chapters beginning with Jesus and ending with the Spirit, Ortlund works through how the depths of the gospel work transformation in us as foll

For the first half of the week I was attending the Pursuit conference in Houston. Hosted by a large church there, the conference was an invitation to the reclamation of the gifts of the Spirit in the life of the church. The host pastor confessed his functional cessationism (believing doctrinally that the gifts described in Scripture are still happening today but in practice living as if they are not). For many it was a introduction to prophecy, tongues, and healing (among other gifts) but for many of us it was also a keen reminder of what our hearts long for.  I lead a church that holds doctrinally to the continuation of the gifts, we are parts of a network that expresses this clearly, and we have been blessed by a number of significant healings and prophetic words timely and Christ-exalting. And my attendance represented an earnest desire form more expression of the gifts in the life of the church and the unleashing of gospel power that we would proclaim Jesus with boldness in our day