Just One Thing...

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Paul Tripp's blog on Psalm 27: One Thing has caused me to rethink the "just one thing" mentality which I perceive to so often paralyze American Christian thinking limiting our focus of the manifold wonders of Christ. This is the "one thing" David prays to God for! Definitely worthy or heavy meditation...

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire (meditate) in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

The Death of Pride

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

I'm finally posting again and reading a new book, Holiness by Grace authored by Bryan Chapell. Some of us continually fall into the appeasement of God trap and its root is pride. Bryan comments:

Spiritual pride dies when we realize that all of our comparisons with others based on relative levels of apparent goodness count for nothing in terms of gaining us standing with God. What we may want God to account to our credit has no currency with him, because the economy of good works is dead. Being better than the next guy, being a more astute observer of his sin, or being more insightful about scriptural truth does nothing to earn me status with God. [p43]

Although this makes perfect sense it so easily entangles our lives.

Pursuit of Happiness

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Can you have happiness without peace? Can you have faith without peace? Does joy then flow from faith? Gurnall implies we must have peace as the base of happiness (joy).

Peace is both indispensable and comprehensive. You cannot be happy with anything less than peace but you do not need anything more than peace to fill you with true joy. Of all the varieties on God's spiritual menu, His serving of peace can least be spared. If you take this away the feast is spoiled, even if a brightly garnished outward peace replaces it at the center of the prince's table.

Piper has greatly influenced my thinking in the last couple years on the fight for joy -- "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!" (Ps 34:8). I think Gurnall adds a component to reflect on for that fight and understanding the peace we have through the gospel.

Autonomy

Monday, August 6, 2007

Reading through Future Grace I find it absolutely wonderful how Piper opens up the idols preventing future grace ("all-satisfying admiration" [p97]) particularly pride.

Every turning from God--for anything--presumes a kind of autonomy or independence that is in essence of pride. Turning from God assumes that one knows better than God. Thus pride lies at the root of every turning from God. It is the root of every act of distrust toward God. Or, more accurately, pride is not so much the root as it is the essence of unbelief, and its remedy is faith in future grace ("all-satisfying admiration").... In Jeremiah 9:23 God says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches". In those three phrases God names his great competitors for the boast of the human heart. [p87]

In the next few days I'll be digging deeper into each of those.

When Tragedy Strikes

Thursday, August 2, 2007

John Piper has a Christ centered perspective on the terrible events (Minneapolis bridge collapse, 9/11) we experience.

Cracking the Breastplate

Friday, July 27, 2007

Gurnall has a wonderful observation in The Christian in Complete Armour on the compromise of the breastplate of righteousness from the inside. I think we so often want to blame God or his tools for the failure of righteousness instead of looking at the internal compromise of our armor -- pride.

Satan's policy is to crack the breastplate of righteousness by beating it out farther than the metal can bend.... Is anything worse than pride, such a pride which runs rampant over the way which God Himself has made for saving souls? If you really want to be holy, be humble, because the two are clasped together. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) God has not asked you to earn heaven by your holiness but to show love and thankfulness to Christ who earned it for you. [July 27]

Grace Faucet

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Today I'm reading Future Grace by John Piper and a marvelous observation about grace in Paul's epistles:

Without exception the apostle Paul begins and ends each of his thirteen New Testament letters by blessing his Christian readers with future grace. What he usually says at the beginning of his letters is, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." At the end he usually says something like, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you." [p65]

John suggests the beginning is grace about to flow to the reader and the ending is how grace will be with you:

With you as you go home to deal with a sick child and an unaffectionate spouse. With you as you go to work and face the temptations of anger and dishonesty and lust. With you as you muster courage to speak up for Christ over lunch. [p66]

He sums up his observation with the following:

In other words, we learn that grace is not merely a past reality but a future one. Every time I reach for the Bible, God's grace is a reality that will flow to me. Every time I put the Bible down and go about my business God's grace will go with me. This is what I mean by future grace. [p67]

Profitable Petitions

Thursday, July 19, 2007

D.A. Carson commenting on prayer in A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12).

Paul's prayer is constrained by the framework he brings to it: he prays for more signs of the grace for which he has already thanked God, and he prays with eternity's value in view. ... In a strange paradox, Paul is constantly telling people, in effect, to become what they are; that is, since we already are children of God because of his free grace to us in Christ, we must now become all that such children should be. ... We are not strong enough or disciplined enough to take these steps ourselves. That is why Paul prays as he does. If the hold God is to count us "worthy of His calling," we must ask Him for help. That is why Paul is praying: he is not simply asking the Thessalonians to try harder, he is praying for them to the end that God will count them worthy of His calling. Such a prayer is tantamount to asking that God will so work in their lives, so make them worthy, that ultimately he will count them worthy.

Mortification is the Work of the Spirit

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

John Owen on sanctification in Overcoming Sin and Temptation.

He promised of God to be given unto us to do this work. The taking away of the stony heart--that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart--is in general the work of mortification that we treat of. Now this is still promised to be done by the Spirit, "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh" (Ezek 11:19) "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" Ezek. 36:26), and by the Spirit of God is this work wrought when all means fail "17 Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart. 18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners," (Is 57:17-18).

We have all our mortification from the gift of Christ, and all the gifts of Christ are communicated to us and given us by the Spirit of Christ: "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). All communication of supplies and relief, in the beginnings, increasings, actings of any grace whatsoever, from him, are by the Spirit, by whom he alone works in and upon believers. From him we have our mortification: "God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." (Acts 5:31); and of our repentance our mortification is no small portion. [p60]

Forward gaze of faith

Monday, July 16, 2007

I have been reading an excellent book by John Piper, Future Grace which touches on a topic I think may believers struggle with on a daily basis -- motivation for sanctification.

Gratitude is not set forth in the Bible as a primary motive for Christian living. Gratitude is a beautiful thing. There is no Christianity without it. It is at the heart of worship. It should fill the heart of every believer. But when it comes to spelling out the spiritual dynamics of how practical Christian obedience happens, the Bible does not say that it comes from the backward gaze of gratitude, but that it comes from the forward gaze of faith. [p43]

Perfect Holiness and Love

Friday, July 6, 2007

From A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

The truth is that every Christian who has thought long and hard about the cross begins to understand that God is not merely a stern dispenser of justice, nor merely a lover who lavishly forgives, but the Sovereign who is simultaneously perfect in holiness and perfect in love. His holiness demands retribution; his love sends his own Son to absorb that retribution on behalf of others. The cross simultaneously stands as the irrefutable evidence that God demands retribution, and cries out that it is the measure of God's love (see Rom. 3:21-26). That is why, in the Christian view of things, forgiveness is never detached from the cross. In other words, forgiveness is never the product of love alone, still less of mawkish sentimentality. Forgiveness is possible only because there has been a real offense, and a real sacrifice to offset that offense.

Happy Independence Day!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Expect God's Blessing

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Looking again at The Christian in Complete Armour:

The sincere Christian cherishes such sweet thoughts of God that his meditations unite him with peace and he would not consider speaking unworthy of God's glory or goodness. We see this in David: "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it" (Ps 39:9). Both his spirit and body were afflicted at the same time; he was sad and sick, yet he remembered where the affliction came from. "This is from You, Lord, and I love You dearly; so I can take it without fear. After all, You might have thrown me into a bed of flames instead of a bed of sickness; so let me accept my correction thankfully." Thus he fielded the blow without sending words of resentment or anger back upon God. [July 3]

Husband Expressing Love

Monday, July 2, 2007

From Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart.

Brothers, as husbands (or future ones), our love is to be expressed as sacrifice. (Eph 5:25-27). [p138]

...Christ loved his bride, and it came throuh sacrifice. Christ did not sacrifice his headship (thereby abandoning his calling); he was expressing it. Christ's supreme act of headship was to go ahead and do what was required, even sacrificing his own life, to serve his bride the church. He did not say, to put in the creedal form of every passive husband, "Yeah, whatever." This is not sacrifice; it is abondonment. Nor even though he is God, did he lord it over people. He woos and wins through love and patience. [p138]

...Manly love looks to sacrifice. We lay our own wants and desires down in order to serve her wants and desires. This is not an absolute but a disposition. Not all her desires are consistent with God's desires, and so we must please Him above all others. But to the degree that there is no conflict between God's holiness and our wife's happiness, we are willing to make the sacrifice. [p139]

The beginning...

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Today is the beginning of this blog for which I hope to provide many quotes (and a very small bit of personal commentary) from great thinkers aiding us in our fight for faith. Today I'm quoting from The Christian in Complete Armour.

The hypocrite's joy, like strings of a musical instrument, cracks in wet weather; but sincerity keeps the soul in tune through all seasons. Unstable people let circumstances control how they feel--cheerful in sunshine but depressed in rain. And this is the way of the unsound heart. A few trying situations weaken his spirit and destroy him as a cold winter kills feeble bodies. Afflictions, however, help the Christian grow by uniting him even more closely with Christ. Trouble sends him straight to the arms of the Lord, as the bee flies to her hive in a storm. He is glad who has such a comfortable pillow as the lap of Jesus. [July 1st]