A Catechism for Girls and Boys

Part III: Questions about Salvation

69. Q. What is the covenant of grace?
       A. It is an eternal agreement within the Trinity to save certain persons called the elect, and to provide all the means for their salvation. 

(Read the proofs and see if you don’t think they’re doing a bit of covenant conflating. What do you think?)

(Click through to read scriptural proof.)

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Sunday Hymn: Blest Be the Tie That Binds

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

—John Fawcett

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Update: O For a Heart to Praise My God at Still Reforming
• Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care at Whatever Things
• Soldiers of Christ, Arise at Field Stone Cottage
• And Can It Be That I Should Gain at Rosemary at Home
• Searcher of Hearts, from Mine Erase at The Happy Wonderer
• What Wondrous Love Is This at Conjubilant With Song
• Lord’s Day 13 at Tried With Fire 
• Faith Alone - March 25, 2012 at The Upward Call
• Lord’s Day 13, 2012 at The Thirsty Theologian
• A Sunday Psalm: The Treasury of David - Psalm 3:2-3 at Theology for Girls
• Update: Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: True Wisdom Is Not Academic

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Round the Sphere Again: Working Well

In the Home
Two practical posts from Rachel Meeks (Small Notebook) on keeping a home clean and orderly.

• Make a Weekly Cleaning Routine. A common sense post that includes a blank template to help the reader work out a cleaning schedule appropriate to their unique situation.
• How to Make It Easier to Clean Kids Rooms. If you have young children, this might be a help. (I know from experience that things get more complicated when they get a little older. I’ve been told that some teens have neat and organized rooms, but I’ve never actually seen it.)

As a Christian
Two on vocation:

• Which Vocations Should Be Off Limits to Christians (Gene Veith at The Gospel Coalition Voices). I’m not sure I agree with every jot and tittle of this article, but it’s very useful for working through the question of whether there are some jobs Christians should avoid. And I especially appreciated this point:

  Before God all vocations are equal. But that is not so in the world. Often the highest-paying and the highest-status jobs do less for the neighbor than do jobs that the world tends to look down upon. I am ready to concede that the professional athlete and the movie star have legitimate vocations in giving brief moments of pleasure to millions of people. But the love and service rendered by the men who pick up our garbage every week or the women who clean up our hotel rooms is far more immediate and far more important.

• 7 Motives in Our Work (Matt Perman). “By doing good work and enjoying it, for the glory of God and good of others, you not only serve your workplace, but, through that, you serve and transform society as well.”