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Consumed With RighteousnessMay 16th, 2012

Encouragement isn’t typically something that someone thinks of when reading or contemplating the story of Job. Job was a blessed man who loved the Lord, then he lost everything. Job lost his family, his wealth, his comfort as Satan tried to do everything in his power to destroy Job’s love for the Lord. I found myself encouraged however when, towards the end of the story, Job humbles himself and basically proclaims that God’s righteousness and glory are more important than his life. He declares that it is worth any cost for the Lord to reign supreme in his life.

JOB 31

“I have made a covenant with my eyes;
    how then could I gaze at a virgin?
2 What would be my portion from God above
    and my heritage from » read more

 
 

We are Pleasing to HimMay 15th, 2012

“God’s children are pleasing and lovable to him, since he sees in them the marks and features of his own countenance. For we have elsewhere taught that regeneration is a renewal of the divine image in us. Since, therefore, wherever God contemplates his own face, he both rightly loves it and holds it in honor, it is said with good reason that the lives of believers, framed to holiness and righteousness, are pleasing to him.”

“Therefore, as we ourselves, when we have been engrafted in Christ, are righteous in God’s sight because our iniquities are covered by Christ’s sinlessness, so our works are righteous and are thus regarded because whatever fault is otherwise in them is buried in Christ’s purity, and is not charged to our account. Accordingly, we can deservedly say that by faith alone not only we ourselves but our works as well are justified.”

John Calvin, Institutes

 
 

Having Faith Means…May 10th, 2012

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
 
 

Chuck ColsonMay 9th, 2012

 
 

You Don’t Have To ObeyMay 7th, 2012

You Don’t Have to Obey comes from the Desiring God blog.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions (Romans 6:12).

It bears repeating: if you want life, deny yourself (Matthew 16:24–25). Your narcissistic nihilist self will kill you if you do not.

This truth left me trembling again when I heard last week of a respected, seasoned Christian leader who committed suicide after his sexual sin was exposed.

Such a horror is alarming. But no honest person finds it inconceivable. That’s why it’s alarming.

Living with a sin nature is like living with a demon. The devil is not irrational; he’s immoral. He’s a liar, which means he deliberately manipulates reason to serve his own selfish desires. Apart from the regenerating grace of God that’s exactly what we’re like. That’s why Jesus calls unregenerate humans the devil’s children (John 8:44).

When the Father causes us “to be born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3), our “new self, created after the likeness of God” (Ephesians 4:24), comes alive. We begin to desire….Continue Reading

 
 

Going To GodMay 4th, 2012

The Christian life is going to God. In going to God Christians travel the same ground that everyone else walks on, breathe the same air, drink the same water, shop in the same stores, read the same newspapers, are citizens under the same governments, pay the same prices for groceries and gasoline, fear the same dangers, are subject to the same pressures, get the same distresses, are buried in the same ground.

The difference is that each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God; and therefore no matter what doubts we endure or what accidents we experience, the Lord will preserve us from evil, he will keep our life. We know the truth of Luther’s hymn: “And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for Lo! his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.” We Christians believe that life is created and shaped by God and that the life of faith is a daily exploration of the constant and countless ways in which God’s grace and love are experienced.

– Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (IVP, 1980), 40-41.

Originally posted on The Gospel Coalition Blog

 
 

C.S. Lewis and the Temporary Importance of FearMay 3rd, 2012

From John Piper on the Desiring God Blog

I think that when we are sinless we will still fear God in the sense of reverential, trembling awe — as when we stand on a peak before vast stretches of unscalable cliffs. And we will also fear, I suppose, in the sense of shuddering with thankfulness that we are not among the number who still dishonor God.

But the painful fear, the guilty fear, the craven fear, the humiliating fear — all such fear will one day be taken way. But only in the way God intends. And in his time. We should not be done with it in the wrong way, or too soon.

Here is the way C. S. Lewis puts it:

Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear [1 John 4:18]. But so do several other things — ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity.

It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear. (“The World’s Last Night” in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, 51)

 

 
 

Don’t Diminish The CrossMay 1st, 2012

The Post is from The Resurgence Blog.

Because I didn’t have a lot of church background, I struggled for a long time to understand certain phrases common in the evangelical community. First and foremost is this idea about Jesus being the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

Problems with the Cross

The suffering, this brutal slaughter of Jesus, stands now as the hallmark and message of our faith, and many people have massive problems with it. Some scholars and writers assert that the problem with assigning the slaughter of Jesus to God’s sovereign and atoning work is that it amounts to a kind of divine child abuse.

The problem with this view, though, is that it’s not like God the Father was whipping God the Son without God the Son obliging. If you’ll remember, Jesus says, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down” (John 10:18). The critics of a cross-centered atonement challenge the priority of the view of penal substitution (or deny its validity altogether), but this creates the problem of all the bloody sacrifices throughout the Old Testament, which Christ’s clearly stands in line with. To deny penal substitution is…..Continue Reading

 
 

The World Needs MenApril 27th, 2012

THE WORLD NEEDS MEN

- who cannot be bought;
- whose word is their bond
- who put character above wealth
- who are larger than their vocations
- who do not hesitate to take chances
- who will not lose their identity in a crowd
- who will be as honest in small things as in great things
- who will make no compromise with wrong
- whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires
- who will not say they do it “because everybody else  does it”
- who are true to their friends through good report and evil report,
   in adversity as well as in prosperity
- who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning are the best
  qualities for winning success
- who are not ashamed to stand for the truth when it is unpopular
- who can say “NO” with emphasis although the rest
  of the world say “yes”

GOD, MAKE ME THIS KIND OF MAN.
by Leonard Wagner

 
 

Men: Fight the Good FightApril 25th, 2012

Paul gives us great instruction as men of what to fight for, and what to take hold of in 1 Timothy 6

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness » read more