Jeff Ling

"He is not ashamed to call them his children." (Hebrews 2:11) Let that sink in: Jesus knows EVERYTHING about you—every struggle, every failure, every weakness—and He is NOT ASHAMED of you. You belong to Him. #BelovedOfGod #UnashamedIdentity #AdoptedByGrace

“Our confidence is not in our love for Him, which is frail, fickle, and faltering, but in His love for us, which is steadfast, faithful, and persevering. The doctrine of ‘the perseverance of the saints’ needs to be renamed. It is the doctrine of the perseverance of God with His saints." - John Stott

I understand opposition to Trump. But I'll never understand how opposition to Trump entails support for tyrannical regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba. It is a baffling phenomenon.

I still believe. I’ve had countless prayers that weren’t answered the way I hoped. Things withheld that I wanted in life so badly. Seen brokenness that never fixed. But I’ll tell you what I have seen. I’ve seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And I’ll tell you what I did get. I got Jesus. I realize again and again that the reason the scriptures still jump from the page with the life of the Holy Spirit so often when I read is because God saw to it that I’d need them. Require them. That they’d be my food and the living water of the Holy Spirit, my drink. This was to his good pleasure. I still believe. I believe his nearness is my good and his presence is my ecstatic joy. I have many regrets. Entrusting my life into the scarred hands of Jesus is not one of them. You can trust him.

@JoshuaBarzon I get the symbol use in #1 but it looks really busy. #2 is clean and elegant.

Which logo design do you like best? I’m currently working on this brand identity for Anchor Church. Both draw from the imagery of Hebrews 6:19, centering on the truth that Christ is the anchor of our soul. Would love to know which one you like best and why!

Why the popular, hard-line/hyper-cessationism doesn’t do justice to the Reformed tradition. ***Primary sources: Puritan John Trapp: “Actually, supernatural dreams are sent to people by God and his angels, and they are done so either to comfort us, as in Matt 2:19, or to chasten us, as in Job 7:13-14. And God usually repeats them until they are regarded.” Vermigli: “a good and lawful attention to dreams is not to be forbidden. The godly are permitted to pray that they may be instructed even in their dreams.” John Owen: “To say God does not or may not send his angels to any of his saints, to communicate his mind to them as to some particulars of their duty according to his word or to foreshadow to them his own approaching work, seems to unwarrantably limit the Holy One of Israel.” Exposition on the Book of Hebrews John Calvin: “Still, I do not deny that the Lord has sometimes at a later period raised up apostles, or evangelists in their place, as has happened in our own day.” Commentary on 1 Cor. 12:28 William Bridge, Westminster divine: “But, you will say, may not God speak by extraordinary visions and revelations, in these days of ours? Yes, without all doubt he may: God is not to be limited, he may speak in what way he pleases.” The Works of the Rev. Bridge, vol. 1 Richard Baxter: “It is possible that God may make new Revelations to particular persons about their duties, events, or matters of fact, in subordination to the Scripture, either by inspiration, vision, apparition or voice.” Christian Directory Samuel Rutherford: “There is a revelation of some particular men, who have foretold things to come, even since the ceasing of the Canon, as John Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, have foretold things to come and they certainly fell out, and in our nation of Scotland, M. George Wishart and John Knox.” “Mr. Flavel replied, That he expected much trouble because of his dream the night before, adding, that when he had such representations made to him in his sleep, they seldom or never failed. Accordingly they were overtaken by a dreadful tempest.” The Life of John Flavel Luther: “I do, indeed, have dreams from time to time, which move me somewhat....” Commentary on Gen 37:10 Also Luther: “The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth.” “Increase Mather did no less than three Times as the Year, 1678, was coming on, very Publickly Declare, That he was verily Perswaded, a very Mortal Disease would shortly break in, and the Slain of the Lord would be many. Some of his Friends were troubled at him for it. But when the Year 1678. was come on, we saw the Mortal Disease. The Small-Pox broke in.“ Cotton Mather, Parentator George Gillespie: John Knox, John Welsh, and others were “holy prophets receiving extraordinary revelations from God, and foretelling strange & remarkable things, which did accordingly come to pass punctually.” Works, vol. 2 etc. etc. ****Secondary sources: “Some of the later ‘cessationist’ ideas should not be read back into the Reformation era. While the Reformers were quite clearly not modern charismatics, they were also not so suspicious of the supernatural.” Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power “Personal informative revelation…was the standard Puritan view, as I have observed it—they weren’t cessationists in the Richard Gaffin sense.” J.I. Packer “Without a doubt, the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches cessationism, but it is a cessationism which requires considerable nuance and allows for supernatural surprises so long as they are working with and through the Word of God.” Kevin DeYoung “The divines did not intend to deny that God could still speak through special providences that might involve dreams or the ministry of angels, for example, but such revelation was always to be considered ‘mediate.’ Garnet Howard Milne “However, many of the authors of the WCF accepted that “prophecy” continued in their time, and a number of them apparently believed that disclosure of God’s will through dreams, visions, and angelic communication remained possible.” Garnet Howard Milne "Where the contemporary continuationist claims that God may still reveal hidden and future events to the church, he or she stands in line with Reformed orthodoxy as represented at the Westminster Assembly. Where the modern cessationist denies any God-given ability to discern such matters, he or she is at odds with the pneumatology and the doctrine of Scripture of the Westminster Assembly." Milne "The strict cessationist perspective of Warfield and others is a limited perspective on what the reformers and their descendants believed and practiced. If Knox, the Scottish Presbyterians, and the Covenanters were living today in the same manner that they did in the 1500s and 1600s, we would be forced to classify them more with the continuationists than the cessationists.” Dean Smith, Westminster Theological Journal “The Reformed tradition repeatedly stress the completeness and sufficiency of Scripture. They show an appreciation for discursive processes for deriving conclusions from Scripture. Yet we also find testimony to extraordinary works of the Spirit of a nondiscursive kind.” Vern Poythress etc. etc. ****Conclusion: Popular treatments of cessationism have swung to an extreme that the divines didn’t intend. The Reformers, Puritans, and Westminster Divines clearly believed that dreams, angelic visits & prophetic impulses/motions can still have a role in the ordinary lives of Christians. Popular treatments of cessationism rarely (never?) nuance this. The Divines who gave us WCF 1.1 also wrote 5.3: “God, in his ordinary providence, maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at his pleasure.”

@JoshuaBarzon Judas

WOW. John Piper recently said that he is more "scared of anger" than lust: "I’m scared of anger. More than I’m scared of lust.…It’s my besetting sin....anger is emotionally destructive. It’s so destructive in a marriage, for example....It eats everything." Worth pondering.

What goes on in this part of America?

@Ferndiggity Have always loved this album. Thank you!

I poured my guts into this record, The Shadow Of Your Wings. This song is a co-write with my pal Rich Nibbe. Harmony vocals are by Alison Krauss. Strings are Turtle Island String Quartet. Laura Griffiths played oboe open.spotify.com/track/1I1ShJC4…

@JoshuaBarzon I’m the pastor, gotta show up. 😂

Who else is going to church tomorrow even though we are losing an hour of sleep?

@LauraRbnsn @BasedPastorTrav @POTUS

@BasedPastorTrav @POTUS Whatever is being worshipped here is undistinguishable from a literal demon to me.

Worship at the White House. May we never take this for granted. Thank you @POTUS Thank you White House Faith Office.

“If you ask, ‘Why is this happening?' no light may come, but if you ask, 'How am I to glorify God now?' there will always be an answer." -J.I. Packer

Vintage old lady name for this DOG please

The desire to be known and loved without having to perform or put on a mask is one of the most universal longings there is. That longing isn't a flaw at all, but rather a sign that you are alive to how God has created you.

@JoshuaBarzon Sadly, yes.

Do you believe a nuclear weapon will be used in combat within your lifetime? Yes or no?

just wanna go on record as an evangelical Christian that the war with Iran has nothing to do with “the end times” except for in the sense that Jesus told his followers to expect wars anything further than that is not actually in the Bible can recommend some good books if anyone’s actually interested

Christian, take a moment to remember those six families who had two unwelcome visitors come up their driveway. Those visitors were there to deliver a death notification. Anyone who has had a spouse or a child on deployment or in law-enforcement dreads that day. Pray for mercy and the grace to accept this hard providence.

@Reformed_WP anybody in your orbit well acquainted with the works of James F. White?

@JoshuaBarzon x.com/osint613?s=21

What accounts on X should I be following to stay up-to-date with the Iran situation?

Very disappointed in the large brush that you are using here. I’m a theologically reformed Pentecostal who loves solid theology and is grateful for the 50 years I have been praying in the Spirit and being edified by it. I have no need for smoke machines and gold dust but I love passionately pouring out my heart in worship with God’s people. We’re not all the extremists you are lumping together here.

Pentecostal is one of the most damaging counterfeit versions of Christianity in the Western world. • a non-stop circus of manufactured emotions • fake “tongues” that are linguistically meaningless and unbiblical in form • gold-dust glitter, angel feathers, and “glory clouds” sold on Amazon • endless promises of healing & wealth that leave people poorer and sicker • pastors who scream, shake, fall backwards, and call it “the anointing” while the Bible calls it sorcery and spectacle • a theology that treats the Holy Spirit like a slot machine you can manipulate with enough volume and repetition They replaced sound doctrine with feelings, replaced Scripture with “new revelations,” and replaced the fear of God with the fear of missing the next “outpouring.” If your “move of God” needs strobe lights, fog machines, repetitive hypnotic chanting, and a hype-man in skinny jeans yelling “FIRE!”; it isn’t the Holy Spirit — it’s a spirit, just not the one from Acts 2. Stop chasing the next dopamine hit dressed up as revival. Christ deserves better than this.