Union with Christ and Sanctification

"We could not take one step in the pursuit of holiness if God in His grace had not first delivered us from the dominion of sin and brought us into union with His risen Son. Salvation is by grace and sanctification is by grace."

— Jerry Bridges
The Discipline of Grace
(Colorado Springs, Co.: NavPress, 1994),

"Imagine a world flooded with powerful happiness...."

-- from Ray Ortlund, Jr.

"Imagine a world flooded with overwhelmingly powerful happiness.  A world with no painful memories for you.  A world where you can drive though any part of town and you feel no negative associations with anything at all.  Nothing is there to kidnap your moment and take you back into sorrow.  It is a world where every new experience, every moment, only increases your joy.

"Imagine a world with a new you.  Not only is your willpower freed from hesitation but even your brain, your chemicals, your psychological pathways all work together to intensify your focused happiness.  You never need to fear yourself.  No more caution.  No more restraint.  Nothing within you but beauty, reflecting the beauty of God himself.

"Imagine a world with no hope of heaven, because it has become heaven.  All hopes are realized.  All the waiting is over.  No more distance.  No more absence.  No more discipline.  Nothing but the happiness of your Father pouring over you in full measure.  You are experiencing the fulfillment — the full fulfillment — of all the promises of the Bible.  The only expectation left is that his presence will keep getting better, exponentially, with asymptotic intensity, forever.

"Imagine a world populated by a vast number of human beings of every race, every language, every culture — the various forms of dress and humor and music and art and play and thought — all represented in the people around you, every person fascinating, every person radiant, every person your new best friend.

"That, for starters, is the world where Jesus will reign.  Imagine!

"For now — this coming Sunday — our privilege is to foreshadow that world, to some modest but felt degree, in our churches.  Gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture, where more people can taste the powers of the age to come and join us in Christ."

Spurgeon on Not Compromising the Call to Conversion

"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

In glorious thoughts of this let my soul live...

"By his cross, divine holiness and justice were exalted, and through his triumph, grace and mercy are poured out to the full. In glorious thoughts of this let my soul live, and in believing it let my soul die. And let the present wonder of this glory make way for the eternal enjoyment of it in its beauty and fullness.

"One view of Christ’s glory by faith will scatter all the fears, answer all the objections and disperse all the depressions of poor, tempted, doubting souls. To all believers it is an anchor which they may cast within the veil, to hold them firm and steadfast in all trials, storms and temptations, both in life and in death."


— John Owen
The Glory of Christ

What Christianity Cannot Be

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.
The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” -- C.S. Lewis

"Embracing the Strangeness of Christianity with Clarity"

A compelling perspective from Russell Moore (excerpted by Justin Taylor).

"When I am afraid...."

"When I am afraid, I put my trust in you." (Psalm 56:3)

"The condition of the psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind, for he adds, I will trust in thee. It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment.

"We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present, and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him. If I fear man I have only to trust God, and I have the best antidote. To trust when there is no cause for fear, is but the name of faith, but to be reliant upon God when occasions for alarm are abundant and pressing, is the conquering faith of God’s elect."

— Charles Spurgeon
The Treasury of David

Where your treasure is....

"Those who 'treasure' (i.e., set their hearts on and supremely value) the things of the kingdom of God have an invulnerable happiness, since what they treasure cannot be lost or destroyed….not so for those who supremely value something/someone here on earth." (cp. Matt. 6:19-20; Col. 3:1-4; 1 Pet. 1:4). – Jon G. Baldwin

"The gospel spirit is a catholic spirit"

“The gospel spirit is a catholic spirit, a noble and unconfined benevolence, like unto that of our Creator, not confined to any particular part of mankind exclusive of others. . . . To make the wickedness of men the cause of contention and strife in us is to make one sin the cause of another. We cannot please the devil better than by hating men’s persons under pretense of duty.”

-- Jonathan Edwards, quoted in George M. Marsden, "Jonathan Edwards: A Life" (New Haven, 2003), page 97.

Love-based Repentance

"In fear-based repentance, we don’t learn to hate the sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake.

"But when we rejoice over God’s sacrificial, suffering love for us — seeing what it cost him to save us from sin — we learn to hate the sin for what it is. We see what the sin cost God.

"What most assures us of God’s unconditional love (Jesus’s costly death) is what most convicts us of the evil of sin. Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves. Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin."


— Tim Keller
"Counterfeit Gods"

"How we forgot the holiness of God"

"He may not be cruel and capricious, but don't pretend he isn't dangerous."    A crucially important article from Drew Dyck (Christianity Today online)

Even though the world is upside down...

"Upstarts frequently usurp the highest places, while the truly great pine in obscurity. The world is upside down, and therefore, the first are last and the last first . . . This is a riddle in providence whose solution will one day gladden the hearts of the upright. Patience, believer; eternity will right the wrongs of time . . . We were not new created to allow our passions to rule over us, but that we, as kings, may reign in Christ Jesus over the triple kingdom of our spirit, soul, and body. Let us not disturb the divine arrangement, but ask for grace that we may keep ourselves under subjection to our great King." --C.H. Spurgeon (edited), MORNING AND EVENING

Your Thoughts and Feelings, or God's Word?

"You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the Word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you." - Martin Luther

No Awful Beyond

"In Christ all things are ours. There is now for us no awful Beyond of mystery and fear. We cannot, indeed, explain the world, but we rejoice now that we cannot explain it. To us it is all unknown, but it contains no mysteries for our Saviour; He is on the throne; He is at the centre; He is ground and explanation of all things; He pervades the remotest bounds; by Him all things consist. The world is full of dread, mysterious powers; they touch us already in a thousand woes. But from all them we are safe."


— J. Gresham Machen
What Is Faith?
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 116-17

What This Life Is and Isn't

This life, therefore,
is not righteousness but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.

We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.

-- Martin Luther