"The Bible of the Sacred Self"

Compelling and convicting essay from Jonathan Leeman.

What does it mean to call Jesus, "Lord"?

Strange as it may seem, a few Christian teachers assert that 'confessing Jesus as Lord' (e.g., Rom. 10:9) doesn't mean acknowledging and submitting to his authority, but only means believing in his Deity. But I think it's clear that Jesus' own words contradict such a notion, for he himself asked, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" (Luke 6:46, compare verses 47-49). So, for yet another reason, we affirm once again, to be a Christian is to be a person committed to comprehensive obedience to Jesus, via his Word.

One more point worth making: I'm not sure why affirming that Jesus is God wouldn't also entail acknowledging/submitting to his authority!

How Conversion Happens

“The subjective means of conversion is what the sinner is called upon to do in repenting, believing, and acting upon the promised forgiveness in Christ. It is all that God accomplishes within the person to enable him or her to overcome the pressures of unbelief, to begin centering upon the invisible and eternal realities of God despite the contention of a multitude of distractions, to struggle for self-denial against inbred self-assertion. In short, it is all that moves us from being unbelievers to becoming believers.” -- David Wells, "Turning to God"

Christians...Slaves of God

“A person has been converted -- saved (has become a Christian) -- when the message of the Gospel has led him or her to be realigned away from their sin and toward God, turning to Christ in faith (belief/trust/confidence) and repentance (new allegiance), so that they, from then on, habitually respond to Jesus as Savior and Lord, manifesting the ‘obedience of faith’ (following, living, worshiping and working as his slave/doulos), and committing to live in obedience to everything Christ commands in every sphere of life, in accordance with the Scriptures.”

(Matt. 28:18-19; Romans 6:17-23; 1 Thess. 1:9; Acts 11:26; 26:20; Rom. 1:5; 16:26; Eph. 5:5; Col. 1:13-14; 1 John 2:3-6)

Work as a part of Paradise

Tim Keller on how work is a blessing: "The fact that God put work in paradise is startling to us because we so often think of work as a necessary evil or even punishment. Yet we do not see work brought into our human story after the fall of Adam, as part of the resulting brokenness and curse; it is part of the blessedness of the garden of God."

What Do You Do with Temptation?

"Do we struggle with sin? Yes. Is temptation a sin? No. What distinguishes temptation from sin? Temptation clobbers you from the outside and lures you to do its bidding. Sin makes temptation a house pet, gets it a collar and leash, and is deceived to believe that it can be restrained by impositions of civility. What you do with temptation reveals Who owns your heart." -- Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Jesus is not another Moses

"There prevails still a subtle form of legalism which would rob the Saviour of his crown of glory, earned by the cross, and would make of him a second Moses, offering us the stones of the law instead of the life-bread of the gospel."

— Geerhardus Vos
"Grace & Glory"
(Carlisle, Pa.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 102

"Modern Hymns, Choruses and NPR"

Here's an excerpt from a good blog post regarding worship music:

 "Regardless of historical influence or cultural contextualization, the songs of the church must be gospel-infused. Whether the songs we sing are simple and few on words, or have much to say should not be the primary concern. The lyrical influence of the songs we sing must be formed and informed by the Word of God. In congregational worship, style is the servant of substance. The great themes of our faith must be clearly heralded faithfully and intentionally."

For the entire article, click here.

C.S. Lewis on Resisting Temptation

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. You find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later." -- C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

Disillusioned by Your Friends?

"Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together--the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship."

-- D. Bonhoeffer, "Life Together"

Why I'm a Christian....

The answer to that is multi-faceted, but it includes:

-- the evidence regarding the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and especially regarding the reality of his Resurrection
-- the impact of the preaching of the Word of God on me
-- significant times of engaging with God in prayer, worship, contemplation
-- my most ennobling experiences in life have been connected to the times when I’m most in line with his good will
-- the testimony and example of believers who have been formed by His Spirit and Word
-- the times when I engage in preaching and teaching God’s Word, true to my calling and gifts (I believe) have been the times when I feel most fully human and most fully alive.

There is much more that could be said, and I know there are doubters and detractors, but I have come to realize more clearly than ever, in recent days, that I am, bottom line (and in spite of all my failings, weaknesses and backslidings), a believer in Jesus Christ, dedicated to being one of his faithful followers.

To God alone be the glory. (Eph. 2:8-10)

The Resurrection of Christ and Seeing What the World Really Is

“In the face of the resurrection it becomes finally impossible to think of our Christian narrative as only ‘our point of view,’ our perspective on a world that really exists in a different, ‘secular’ way. There is no independently available ‘real world’ against which we must test our Christian convictions, because these convictions are the most final, and at the same time the most basic, seeing of what the world is.” -- John Milbank, The Word Made Strange (Oxford, 1997)

Trust and Obey (C.S. Lewis)

“[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"

"You are not to pamper...presumption"

"If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares that he knows the Lord's will but does not mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his presumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is not saved. Do not suppose that the Gospel is magnified or God glorified by going to the worldlings and telling them that they may be saved at this moment by simply accepting Christ as their Savior, while they are wedded to their idols, and their hearts are still in love with sin. If I do so I tell them a lie, pervert the Gospel , insult Christ, and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness." - Charles Spurgeon

Self-evident Truths and American Perspectives Today

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” As we approach July 4, there are some striking things to take note of in this most famous sentence from the Declaration of Independence. The founding fathers regarded these to be among the ‘self-evident truths’ that were foundational to our republic: “that all men are CREATED equal”, and that “their Creator” (not any human government or governmental institution) was the source of their “inalienable rights.”

So if the Creator is the source of our rights, surely he must be the one who defines them, which makes this statement from Jesus seem especially relevant in our time: “Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,….” (Matthew 19:4).

I am not one to claim that all the founding fathers were orthodox believers, but who can doubt that they and Jesus had the same Person in mind when they refer to the Creator?

It seems that Secularists today are determined to re-define historic cultural institutions, but to do so they have to attempt what even they cannot actually and legitimately do -- which is to re-write history. As John Adams himself said, "Facts are stubborn things...."