Living Under God's Revelation

"Christian values . . . cannot be accepted as a superior utilitarianism, just as a means to an end. The biblical message is truth and it demands a commitment to truth. It means that everything is not the result of the impersonal plus time plus chance, but that there is an infinite-personal God who is the Creator of the universe, the space-time continuum. We should not forget that this was what the founders of modern science built upon. It means the acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, and it means living under God's revelation. Here there are morals, values, and meaning, including meaning for people, which are not just a result of statistical averages. This is neither a utilitarianism, nor a leap away from reason; it is the truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life. This second alternative means that individuals come to the place where they have this base, and they influence the consensus. Such Christians do not need to be a majority in order for this influence on society to occur."

-- Francis Schaeffer, "How Should We Then Live?"

"In Christ I'm not a sinner"

A gospel-based meditation from Dane Ortlund.

He makes all things new

"The miracles of Jesus are signs of the right order of things. Jesus was not so much turning things upside down as turning them rightside up or, at least, giving his followers glimpses of the rightside up. The miracles of healing, deliverance, provision, and resurrection all reveal that God, through Jesus, is making all things new, that he is restoring what once was unbroken."

— Matt Chandler
The Explicit Gospel
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2012), 107

"How faith works"

A helpful, balanced, Biblically-rich article from S. Lewis Johnson regarding the relation between faith and works, justification and sanctification, etc., especially in relation to the "Lordship Salvation" controversy:   from CT online....."How Faith Works"

"The Tragedy of the Dumb Church"

This blogpost focuses on one of the most crucial (but largely unrecognized) problems plaguing the evangelical church today....an intelletcual lazinesss, including related to the Bible and theology, that falls far short of loving the Lord with our minds.

"The Tragedy of the Dumb Church"

'Without holiness, no one will see the Lord"

“. . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”  Hebrews 12:14

“No unclean thing, nothing that defileth or is defiled, shall ever be brought into the glorious presence of this holy God.  There is no imagination wherewith mankind is besotted more foolish, none so pernicious, as this, that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy in this life should afterward be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God.  There can be no thought more reproachful to his glory, nor more inconsistent with the nature of the things themselves, for neither can such persons enjoy him, nor would God himself be a reward unto them.  They can have nothing whereby they should adhere unto him as their chiefest good, nor can they see anything in him that should give them rest and satisfaction, nor can there be any medium whereby God should communicate himself unto them, supposing them to continue thus unholy, as all must do who depart out of this life in that condition.  Holiness, indeed, is perfected in heaven, but the beginning of it is invariably and unalterably confined to this world, and where this fails, no hand shall be put into that work in eternity.”

-- John Owen, Works (Edinburgh, 1981), III:574-575.

A key reason that we gather to worship

"The world is constantly telling us lies: 'God doesn't exist.'  'It's all about you.'  'Sin has no consequences.'  'This is all there is.'  'The more you own, the happier you'll be.'

"In the face of these lies, we gather as the church to proclaim the truth.  We gather to declare -- to ourselves, to each other, and to God -- what we know to be eternal reality.  There is one God, who is sovereign over the universe and every detail of our lives.  We have rebelled against him.  He sent his Son to die in our place for our sins.  And through Jesus Christ we have forgiveness and peace with God."

-- Bob Kauflin, "Worship Matters" (Crossway), p. 134

A conscience captive to the Word of God

A compelling post from John Starke about Martin Luther's commitment to Scripture as God's Word.

For my dry and empty, barren soul...

“I can feelingly say, he has proved himself stronger than I and his goodness superior to all my unworthiness.  He tells me (and enables me to believe it) that I am fair, and there is no spot in me.  Though an enemy, he calls me his friend; though a traitor, a child; though a beggared prodigal, he clothes me with the best robe and has put a ring of endless love and mercy on my hand.  And though I am sorely distressed by spiritual and internal foes, afflicted, tormented and bowed down almost to death with the sense of my own present barrenness, ingratitude and proneness to evil, he secretly shows me his bleeding wounds and softly and powerfully whispers to my soul, ‘I am thy great salvation.’  His free distinguishing grace is the bottom on which is fixed the rest of my poor weary tempted soul.   On this I ground my hope, often times when unsupported by any other evidence, save only the Spirit of adoption received from him.  When my dry and empty barren soul is parched with thirst, he kindly bids me come to him and drink my fill at the fountainhead.  In a word, he empowers me to say with experiential evidence, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ Amen and amen.”

-- Joseph Hart (1712-1768), quoted in Peter C. Rae, “Joseph Hart and His Hymns,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 6 (1988): 22-23.

HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.

Let me be a man of one book

"To candid,reasonable men I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought: I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf, till a few moments hence I am no more seen -- I drop into an unchangeable eternity! "I want to know one thing, the way to heaven -- how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very reason he came down from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the Book of God! I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be a man of one book...." -- John Wesley

Religion and culture

"Culture is religion externalized." Henry Van Til

"Teach children the Bible is not about them"

A wisely-written essay from Sally Lloyd-Jones.

How do you evanglize if you don't ask someone to "pray the sinner's prayer"?

Justin Taylor introduces and summarizes a two-part essay from David Platt.

Three Lies the Devil Wants You to Believe

from Ray Ortlund, Jr.:

It is very much in the devil’s interests that we despair.  If he can get us to believe these three demoralizing lies that he loves to whisper into our thoughts, our powers for Jesus are greatly diminished.

Lie #1: “You’re a hypocrite.  Sure, you’re serving Jesus.  But you don’t really mean it, you phoney.  You might as well give up.”

Answer: “Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20).  “I do not even judge myself. . . . It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Corinthians 4:3-4).

Lie #2: “You’re a loser.  You’ve ruined your life.  You’ll never amount to anything for the Lord.  You might as well give up.”

Answer: “. . . the poor, . . . the brokenhearted, . . . the captives, . . . that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.  They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations” (Isaiah 61:1-4).

Lie #3: “You’re small.  You’re so buried under the debris of our complex and crowded culture, you’ll never make an impact.  You might as well give up.”

Answer: “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:28-29).

The perfect church service...

‎"The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God." — C.S. Lewis