Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Unimaginable Abundance

Unimaginable Abundance

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You live in an age of unprecedented wealth. Very few Americans have ever had to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. Now, even if you have faced severe financial strain, to the point of living for an extended period on beans & rice, it is also likely that due to the abundance around you and through the generosity of others, you were able to avoid prolonged famine.

You ought to realize that this arrangement is an overwhelming exception in history. You can get ripe strawberries in February. Whereas, many of your ancestors probably never ate a strawberry, maybe never even heard of them.

I bring this up to stir up the gratitude which should be one of the primary attributes which mark us as we feast at the Lord’s Table. Not only has God been profoundly kind to you in your circumstances by placing you in a period of history marked by unmerited abundance, but He has poured out upon you the surpassing blessing of welcoming you into all the manifold blessings of His triune life.

The nourishment which God your Father provides for you is not a hand to mouth subsistence. He doesn’t dole out His grace in rations sliced paper thin. His love towards us is great.  Everything necessary for life & godliness is provided for you by His loving hand. You may be weak, but He is strong. You may be weary, but He is your Rest. You may be discouraged, beaten up, and surrounded on every side; but He is to you a Rock, a high tower, and a mighty deliverer. Upon this table is a memorial meal which assures you that, as the Apostle Paul put it, “All things are yours.” And the glory of all these glories is that all this is given to you through only one means: the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Death Blow to Atheism

The Death Blow to Atheism

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There’s been a steady march from Darwin down to the present madness that afflicts our nation. As soon as creation, and man in particular, is no longer seen as the handiwork of Almighty God, the slow march to the hell commences. An Atheist not only shakes his fist at God, he severs the spinal cord of his own humanity. To be human is to stand in an office, to be placed in position as a contingent being, made in the image and by the very hand of God. To cut that cord is to descend into madness. And our culture has descended very deep into madness indeed.

The Atheist who sets out to enjoy all the beauty, all the glory, all the blessing, is thwarted at every turn because they cannot say “thank you” for any of it. There’s no One to thank, after all. This is all just matter in motion. That ache to give thanks, but refusing to acknowledge the Fount from whom all blessings flow is what drives the Atheistic culture into madness.

This, however, is where God delights to meet lost mankind. When we’re mired in the filth of our own making, God comes down. Affirming that God created the cosmos, by the Word of His power, in six days gives meaning and purpose to the glory around each corner and in each creature. This doctrine gives vent to man’s desire to say, “Thank you.”

Christian thankfulness is what deals a death blow to atheism. We have a million glories around us, crowned bythe greatest glory: union with God through Christ. As we give thanks, we acknowledge our position as dependent creatures, and thus rise into true humanity. In our present conflict with our national madness, Christians must engage the fight with this weaponry: grateful praise to our Creator & Redeemer.

Analytics for a Non-Analytic

Analytics for a Non-Analytic

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ben zornes - thank you - blogpost 05-31-16I’ve been tinkering with my blog recently, and I have some changes to be revealed soon. But one thing I came across as I was making these adjustments was the data for the traffic that has visited my site over the last three years. It took a bit for me to start to realize what these numbers & stats mean, and I was shocked when it began to sink in. Over the last three years my little blog here has had visit from 150+ countries, the top ten are as follows:

  1. United States: 28,701
  2. Canada: 2,506
  3. Australia: 1,308
  4. South Africa: 799
  5. Brazil: 592
  6. United Kingdom: 577
  7. Philippines: 386
  8. Germany: 290
  9. India: 249:
  10. New Zealand: 212

On an average month, 1,057 spend a spell reading my blog posts, or perusing the other resources on my site. Even over the last year, since we’ve moved to Moscow, ID for me to attend Greyfriars Hall, and my blogging has been less frequent, there’s been a considerably faithful following. That humbles me, and spurs me onwards in living a life to the glory of Christ, in service to His saints, and reaching the lost through all means available to me.

The top ten most read posts are:

  1. George Muller: For the Benefit of the Church (7,037 views)
  2. Bamboozling Our Inner Pharisee (3,920 views)
  3. Think About Porn (2,714 views)
  4. To Destroy the Works of the Devil (2,581 views)
  5. The Ministry of Intercession (2,476 views)
  6. Your Days (of Singleness) Are Numbered (2,104 views)
  7. The Recipe for Spiritual Starvation (1,839 views)
  8. Leaven in the Lump (1,590 views)
  9. A Bunch of Baby-Haters (1,526 views)
  10. Summer Advice for Sons (1,463 views)

Ironically, the term that has brought in the most traffic via Google searches is: “destroy the works of the devil”. This is because one of the first things I did on my blog, clear back in 2009, was a series on “5 Reasons Jesus Had to Die”, and the last one was “To Destroy the Work of the Devil”. Numerous variations of that phrase have brought in traffic, and I’m grateful that as people are grappling with how to fight the Adversary of the church, somehow they land on my site and, I pray, are guided into understanding that the cross of our Lord Jesus has dealt a death blow to Satan and his kingdom.

If I were to pick which post is the most important to me, that’d be tough, but perhaps A Great Mountain, and a Crumbling Statue would rank highly. With Beware Erasmus ranking highly as well. He Will Answer, from about a year ago, is also one that is profoundly important for me and I think for all the saints.

All of this is simply to say, thank you. Those who have returned with each post and shared and tweeted out quotes from my posts, you have left me humbled and grateful. I do this all to present the preciousness of Christ to the church and the world. Reviewing the last three years’ analytics has only deepened my gratitude for the readers/visitors of this site! I profoundly value your support and disagreement, as both are important to me. Every time you re-post, share, tweet, email, print it out and hand it to a friend…I’m blessed that the thoughts I’ve cobbled together have been a blessing to others. So, here’s to the next three years…onward and upward.

Ben Zornes