Providence Community Church

05/26/2026

From Shadhriq Kahn —

Let me be honest. I wanted to stay Muslim so badly.

Not even because of God at first, but because of the life attached to it.

My dad’s businesses were waiting for me. Signed and ready.

My mom’s community. Doctors, lawyers, politicians. Connections everywhere.

Success was laid out in front of me.

There was even an arranged marriage lined up. A doctor. Beautiful future. House. Wedding. Stability.

All I had to do was say one sentence:

“Yeah, I still believe.”

That was it.

Keep the money.
Keep the family approval.
Keep the life.

But here’s what ruined it for me:

I could not unsee Jesus.

Once I really read the Quran and compared it to the Gospel, I couldn’t force myself back into pretending.

And honestly, knowledge becomes heavy at that point.

Because I didn’t leave Islam to rebel.

I left because I could not betray what I believed was true.

No business opportunity, no relationship, no comfortable future was worth denying the King who gave His life for me.

So yeah, my life would have been easier if I stayed.

But when Jesus says, “I am the way,” you don’t answer with, “But the other path feels safer.”

You pick up your cross and walk.

05/23/2026

Here is a great word from Acquinas on the difference between God's love and human love.

"...it is manifest that God loves everything that exists. Yet not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as by its object, our love, whereby we will good to anything, is not the cause of its goodness; but conversely its goodness, whether real or imaginary, calls forth our love, by which we will that it should preserve the good it has, and receive besides the good it has not, and to this end we direct our actions: whereas the love of God infuses and creates goodness." -- Thomas Acquinas, Summa Theologica

Humans love in response to the goodness they perceive (rightly or wrongly) in a person.
God's love is not reactive in this way. Rather, God's love is what makes a thing good (infuses and creates goodness).

We have so much trouble loving difficult people because we find very little in them that stirs in us admiration, appreciation, affection, etc... We must instead ask, "what has God's love done in this person?" Sometimes the only visible answer is existence itself. God has chosen to make this person exist. He/she has a role to play in the divine story, etc...

05/21/2026

In his commentary on Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1), Matthew Henry points out something I'd never noticed before. Mary has only just been "chosen" and "exalted" and "lifted up" by the Lord for the special task of carryin the savior into the world. Her response was to magnify the Lord.

"My soul magnify's the Lord!" - Luke 1:46

"Note, Those, and those only, are advanced in mercy, who are thereby brought to think the more highly and honourably of God; whereas there are those whose prosperity and preferment make them say, What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? The more honour God has any way put upon us, the more honour we must study to give to him..." -- Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

When God exalts us, we must give him greater praise. Not only is this fitting but it is safe. The burden of an increased station in life will eventually overwhelm us unless we constantly remember that the Lord exalted us and will help us perform our expanded duty.

05/20/2026

Christian Localism is a great antidote to blackpilling. Consider how G.A. Cooke reminds us that the book of Ruth is taking place in the time of the Judges. And yet at the local level, the infamous national sickness is not nearly as acute.

THE ancient narratives of the Book of Judges carry us back to a half-barbarous age of struggle and disorder, memorable chiefly for the deeds of Israel’s heroes: the Book of Ruth, although the scene is laid in the same age, gives us a very different picture. It introduces us to the peaceful life of the home and of the village, with its sorrows and joys, its wholesome industry and kindly virtues; a life which is by no means barren of heroic qualities, but they take the form of unselfish affection and generosity and loyalty to the ties of kindred; a simple community, tenacious of long established customs, and penetrated throughout by a spirit of unaffected piety. No doubt the picture is idealized; but the author, so far from inventing facts which never existed, is evidently describing a life with which he was familiar. How true to nature are his incidental touches! the excitement of the women-folk over Naomi’s return and their interest in the birth of the child, the grave approval of the elders sitting in the gate, the cautious prudence of the ‘near kinsman.’

Other parts of the Old Testament create a far less favourable impression of the religion of the people; their superstitions and crude beliefs, even their wilful unfaithfulness which stirred the indignation of the prophets, confront us again and again. But in the later literature, especially in the Wisdom Books and in some of the Psalms, we find plenty of evidence to shew that there must have been many homes in Israel beside those of Naomi and Boaz which were hallowed by the fear of God and love of family, many a village beside Beth-lehem in which an act of disinterested charity would win approval ‘in the gate.’ For such companion-pictures to Ruth we can point to Job 1:1–5, 29, Ps. 127, 128, 133, Prov. 31:10–31, Tobit 2, Judith 8:1–8, Ecclus. 40:18–27. The religious homes of which we catch a glimpse at the beginning of the New Testament, homes like those of Elisabeth and Zechariah and of the Holy Family, could trace an ancestry of many generations in ordinary Jewish life.

05/18/2026

The key takeaway from this bit of Acquinas is that yes, God's self-disclosure to us requires supernatural intervention (described here broadly as salvation) because there are certain truths about God that exceed the capacity of human reason. In other words, God wants to show you things about himself that cannot be seen unless he unites you to himself via union with Christ. Glorious!

It is also important to add that these truths exceed human reason but do not fundamentally oppose it. Reason plays a very important role in the life of Christianity but not the ultimate one. This is a very common theme in Christianity (and feels like one of the first major "skills" one must learn in order to successfully follow Christ). Namely, God's goodness stands above and orders all subordinate goods -- including reason.

"It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God, besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee (Isa. 64:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation." -- Thomas Acquinas, Summa Theologica

05/16/2026

By the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

05/15/2026

Don't Waste Your Crisis. How to Recover from a Self-Inflicted Wound

05/13/2026

Jesus Christ continuously thinks about believers with deep affection, viewing them as precious gifts from the Father, and his primary desires for them are their unity in love as a witness to the world and their ultimate presence with him in glory. - Sinclair Ferguson

05/13/2026

No matter what they claim to believe, anxious and emotionally fragile people are "attitudinally aligned" with an Old Covenant way of being.

The Old Covenant (referred to in chapter 8 as “the law”) was a fragile treaty between God and man because it required man to be more than he was capable of being. But the New Covenant is founded on the incarnation of Jesus Christ who took up man’s part and fulfilled it on his behalf. In essence, Jesus became less than he was worthy of being in order to atone for man’s “shortfall” (Romans 3:23). Therefore, Romans 8 is a kind of doxological declaration that all of the fragility of the older treaty has been more than fortified through Christ.

Sin has been stripped of its “covenant breaking” power because Christ has stood in the breach. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).” And in Romans 8:28 we see that the fragility of the Old Covenant has been replaced with a kind of antifragility in the New. Now all things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose.” This is the glorious triumph of the New Covenant. The treaty between God and man has been fully consolidated into God’s hands. He fulfills it all and makes it fixed on his unchangeable nature. The New Covenant is indeed antifragile.

“31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”

-- Pastor Chris

05/12/2026

05/07/2026

"If the children of God are a forest of trees planted by streams of water, then the cry for help is the ever-present psithurism of the saints. Psithurism (pronounced sith-ur-iz-um) refers to the low whispering or rustling sound of leaves in the wind. It captures the music of the trees under the breeze — and so perfectly describes the constant muttering of saints moved by the Spirit of God. They are childlike enough to know, like my kids, that they are constantly needy — and that their Father will help." -- Clinton Manely, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/help-please-the-christians-ceaseless-plea