What would make you happy?

"It is often tempting to try to strike bargains with God, but life is not a series of strategic negotiations with God; it is a moral drama of wisdom and foolishness, right and wrong, true and false, and good and evil. It plays itself out in even the most mundane situations of our daily lives. At the center of this moral drama is what defines our happiness. Perhaps there is no more important human thought than, “If I had _________, then I would be happy,” because what holds your happiness controls your heart, and what controls your heart conditions your emotions, commands your choices, and shapes your behavior. Because of this, God will not bargain with us. He knows that unless we find our ultimate happiness in him, we will become hopelessly enslaved to things that can never deliver the life that we are seeking. These false messiahs always disappoint us, leaving us more despondent, bitter, and ultimately morally bankrupt. In the purest of jealousies, God fights for our souls, refusing to participate in any bargain that would tempt us to search for life outside of him."

-- Paul David Tripp, "Lost in the Middle" (pp. 152-153). Shepherd Press. Kindle Edition.

On the Relation Between Evangelism and Works That Adorn the Gospel"

A wisely-written article from Duane Liftin:  "Works and Words: Why You Can't Preach the Gospel with Deeds"http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=96239

"Truth Obeyed Will Heal"

J. I. Packer:

"'Truth obeyed,' said the Puritans, 'will heal.' The word fits, because we are all spiritually sick — sick through sin, which is a wasting and killing disease of the heart. The unconverted are sick unto death; those who have come to know Christ and have been born again continue sick, but they are gradually getting better as the work of grace goes on in their lives.

"The church, however, is a hospital in which nobody is completely well, and anyone can relapse at any time. Pastors no less than others are weakened by pressure from the world, the flesh, and the devil, with their lures of profit, pleasure, and pride, and, as we shall see more fully in a moment, pastors must acknowledge that they the healers remain sick and wounded and therefore need to apply the medicines of Scripture to themselves as well as to the sheep whom they tend in Christ's name.

"All Christians need Scripture truth as medicine for their souls at every stage, and the making and accepting of applications is the administering and swallowing of it."

-- J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 1990, reprint (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 65, paragraphing added.


HT:  DesiringGod.org

"What sanctification feels like...."

Practical wisdom from Ray Ortlund Jr.'s commentary on the Book of Proverbs.

For Pentecost Sunday

"There is no deeper revelation of the Spirit beyond the revelation of the Bible. The authentic work of the Spirit is seen, not when people get excited by some new message or miracle, but rather when their eyes are opened and their hearts are filled with an ever-deepening appreciation of the Bible's teaching about what God has done for them in Christ and a growing longing to live in light of all they have received from him."

-- Vaughan Roberts. Authentic Church: True Spirituality in a Culture of Counterfeits. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2011

"Our inconsolable secret"

"What Augustine knew is that human beings want God…God has made us for himself. Our sense of God runs in us like a stream, even though we divert it toward other objects. We human beings want God even when we think that what we really want is a green valley, or a good time from our past, or a loved one. Of course we do want these things and persons, but we also want what’s behind them. Our inconsolable secret, says C.S. Lewis, is that we are full of yearnings, sometimes shy and sometimes passionate, that point us beyond the things of earth to the ultimate reality of God."

-- Cornelius Plantinga

Forgiveness: welcome to a new life

"You see, God’s promise of forgiveness is a welcome to new life. It is an invitation to leave regrets behind and to get up and live again. It is a God-given opportunity to do new and better things. God’s grace gives us new moments to plant new seeds that will lead to a new harvest of good things. Because of God’s promise of forgiveness, you can look your failure in the face and not be overwhelmed or paralyzed. He lifts your burden of guilt and regret and welcomes you to plant and harvest once again."

-- Paul David Tripp,  "Lost in the Middle" (p. 127). Shepherd Press. Kindle Edition. 

You can't turn off worship...

"You can’t turn off worship. It’s your basic human wiring. To not worship is to not live. It’s like a garden hose stuck on full blast. You can aim it at the grass, the car, or the shrubs, but you cannot stop its flow. Or you might imagine yourself as a sort of human billboard, always advertising what you find to be important, valuable, worthy. What you pay attention to, how you spend your time, the way you work, how you relate to others in your life—all these things broadcast your heart’s worship, making visible and advertising what is most important to you. God created you to broadcast him."

-- Mike Wilkerson, "Redemption" (p. 29). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition.

"...that unworldly stimulus..."

“Literacy became virtually universal in Western civilization when and where it began to seem essential for people to be able to read the Bible.  All the immeasurable practical benefits that came with mass literacy, its spectacular utility, awaited that unworldly stimulus.  Clearly mere utility is not sufficient to sustain it at even functional levels, though the penalties of illiteracy are now very severe.”

-- Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (Boston, 1998), page 9.
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.

He is looking down the road for us...

‎"There are many professing Christians who are emotional atheists. 'We may hold onto orthodox ideas about [the Father], but our hearts disconnect,' says Mike Wilkerson; 'our affection cools; we just don’t trust him.' We assume too readily that it is impossible for us to turn back to the face of the Father, but there actually is good news for people just like us. Like the father in the story that Jesus told about the prodigal son, He is looking down the road for us." -- Douglas Wilson, "Father Hunger"

"Freer than thou...."

A wise, helpful (and long) blogpost from Michael Horton about "How wisdom avoids legalism AND license."

The Nature of Idolatry

"Granting something ultimate value does not necessarily mean attributing a set of metaphysical divine attributes; the act of granting ultimate value involves a life of devotion and ultimate commitment to something or someone.

"Absolute value can be conferred on many things... In this extension of worship, religious attitude is perceived not as part of metaphysics or as an expression of customary rituals, but as a form of absolute devotion, an attitude that makes something into a godlike being.

"What makes something into an absolute is that it is both overriding and demanding. It claims to stand superior to any competing claim.... Any nonabsolute value that is made absolute and demands to be the center of dedicated life is idolatry."

-- "Idolatry" by Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp.245-246. (in a footnote, p. 181, of Tim Keller's "Counterfeit Gods")

Holes in your soul?

"...And sitting there before the window, I’m struck, a comet blazing across the empty dark of my life. All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no. Was it because I had never fully experienced the whole of my salvation? Had never lived out the fullest expression of my salvation in Christ? Because I wasn’t taking everything in my life and returning to Jesus, falling at His feet and thanking Him. I sit still, blinded. This is why I sat all those years in church but my soul holes had never fully healed...."

-- Ann Voskamp, "One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are" (p. 40). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

"Right now counts forever"

“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”  2 Corinthians 5:10

"This is our ultimate accountability.  Let’s get ready.  Let’s live with intentionality.  Let’s live in repentance.  Let be aware, moment by moment, that right now counts forever.  What we think, what we say, what we feel, what we do and don’t do — we matter.  We matter to Christ.  We will matter forever.  And very soon we will “report in.”

"This is solemnizing.  This is dignifying.  It is also encouraging.

"What if, as you stand there before Christ your Judge on that great and final day, surrounded by all the redeemed, each one awaiting his or her moment before the Lord — what if, standing there before him, he asks, “Everyone, I want to know who among you appreciated this person’s ministry?  Who would like to bear witness to how he helped you for my sake?”  And no one says anything.  Total silence.  Awkward silence.  Everyone is embarrassed.  Everyone is thinking, “Would somebody please say something?”  You are standing there wondering, “So my entire life comes down to this?  What a failure I am!”  Only one voice breaks that terrible silence.  The Lord himself stands and says, “Well, I appreciated his ministry!”

"It’s an improbable scenario.  But putting it like that does isolate the most urgent question of all.  Is the approval of Jesus enough for you and for me?  Do we love him enough, do we revere him enough, that his judgment is the one we’re living for?

"We care what others think.  We want to please them (1 Corinthians 10:33).  But whose opinion will count forever?"

-- Ray Ortlund, Jr.

What are you becoming?

"A person will worship something, have no doubt about that....  That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character.  Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming."

 --- Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in "Almost Christian" (the opening quotation of the chapter: 'Worshipping at the Church of Benign Whateverism')