How we overcome temptation....

"The same Spirit who led Jesus through the wilderness and empowered him to overcome the Evil One now surges through all of us who are joined by faith to Jesus. We overcome temptation the same way he did, by trusting in our Father and hearing his voice." -- Russell Moore, "Tempted and Tried" (Crossway)

Some helps for reading the Bible better

from Justin Taylor...

Some free, concise essays online from the ESV Study Bible in a 10-page PDF.

• J. I. Packer, “Reading the Bible Theologically”
• Leland Ryken, “Reading the Bible as Literature”
• John Piper, “Reading the Bible in Prayer and Communion with God”
• David Powlison, “Reading the Bible for Personal Application”
• R. Kent Hughes, “Reading the Bible for Preaching and Public Worship”

Rise to your rank...

You were redeemed. . . not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the priceless blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 1 Peter 1:18-19

“How do you mean to live? With these precious things about you, do you intend to live like a beggar? I mean, will you be sinful, low, groveling, worldly? Oh, rise to your rank, and as you are so ennobled, walk as becomes saints! Is Jesus Christ precious to you? Then serve Him with your best, give Him your precious things, give Him your lives, give Him your substance, give Him all that you have. Do not give the Redeemer your odds and ends, such as you can afford to give without knowing it. Say, ‘He died to give me Himself. I will give Him myself in return.’ . . . Go and live like those who are rich to all the intents of bliss, and let your cheerful, your godly, your self-denying example be a protest to the unbelieving sons of men that you know the preciousness of Christ.”

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), IV:393.

On being truly human...

“Though grace is above nature, it is not contrary to nature; rather it restores true nature. Our nature is never so truly the nature of man as when it is no longer man’s sinful nature. We truly become men, such as God meant men to be, when we cease to be the kind of men that sin has made men to be.” - Charles H. Spurgeon, Power in the Blood

Learning from Studying

"He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own."

-- Charles Spurgeon

Is this what we secretly dread?

It is a dreadful truth that the state of (as you say) ‘having to depend solely on God’ is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things. But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to him as long as he leaves us anything else to turn to. I suppose all one can say is that it was bound to come. In the hour of death and the day of judgment, what else shall we have? Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who have been forced (however unwittingly) to begin practicing it here on earth. It is good of him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time.”

-- C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady (Grand Rapids, 1967), page 47. Italics original.

Look to Christ Alone

Christ has already borne the curses for our disobedience and earned for us the blessings of obedience. As a result we are now to look to Christ alone — not Christ plus our performance — for God’s blessings in our lives.

— Jerry Bridges
The Discipline of Grace: God's Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness

A faithful young pastor's loving warning.....

...a real warning about a real place.

What Makes the Father Rejoice?

"The returning prodigal is met not only with the tear and the grasp of parental forgiveness, but high festival is kept within these paternal halls. ‘It is fit that we should make merry and be glad.’ The gladdest countenance in that scene of joy is not that of the haggard wanderer, but that of the rejoicing father, exulting over his lost and found son.

‘There is joy in Heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repents’ — but it is a joy which, though spreading through the concentric ranks, and reaching to the very circumference of glory, is deepest in the centre. It begins at the throne — the keynote of that song is struck by God Himself.

— John MacDuff
"The Thoughts of God"

If there really is a Hell....

If there be really a hell of such dreadful and never-ending torments, as is generally supposed, of which multitudes are in great danger—and into which the greater part of men in Christian countries do actually from generation to generation fall, for want of a sense of its terribleness, and so for want of taking due care to avoid it—then why is it not proper for those who have the care of souls to take great pains to make men sensible of it? Why should they not be told as much of the truth as can be?

-- Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God

Do we really believe in everlasting judgment for the lost?

Here is an extremely convicting post from David Platt about the quiet danger of 'functional universalism.'

Nothing is impossible with Him....

"With the Lord Jesus Christ nothing is impossible. No stormy passions are so strong; He can tame them. No temper is so rough and violent; He can change it. No conscience is so disturbed; He can speak peace to it and make it calm. No person ever need despair, if they will only bow down their pride, and come as a humbled sinner to Christ. Christ can do miracles upon their heart. No person ever need despair of reaching their journey’s end, if they have once committed their soul to Christ’s keeping. Christ will carry them through every danger. Christ will make them conqueror over every foe. What if our relatives oppose us? What if our neighbors laugh us to scorn? What if our place be hard? What if our temptations be great? It is all nothing, if Christ is on our side, and we are in the ship with Him. Greater is He that is for us, than all those who are against us."

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985], 85. {Mark 4:35-41}

A Crucial Link

"The link between Christ cancelling my sin on the cross and my sin being conquered is a Holy Spirit empowered will."

— John Piper
I Act the Miracle
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Desiring God Ministries, Feb. 24, 2011)

The Gospel Lifts the Burden of Our Guilt

"The gospel can lift this destroying burden [of guilt for sin] from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden.

"Low views of the God destroy the gospel for all who hold them."

-- A.W. Tozer, "Knowledge of the Holy"

Spurgeon on the Burden Believers Should Have for the Lost

“To be laughed at is no great hardship for me. I can delight in scoffs and jeers. . . . But that you should turn from your own mercy, this is my sorrow. Spit on me, but oh repent! Laugh at me, but, oh, believe in my Master! Make my body as the dirt in the streets, but do not damn your own souls.”

He also passionately exhorts the church: “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one person go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

Further, he instructs: “The Holy Spirit will move them by first moving you. If you can rest without their being saved, they will rest, too. But if you are filled with an agony for them, if you cannot bear that they are lost, you will soon find that they are uneasy, too.”

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon at His Best, ed. Tom Carter (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), pp. 67-68.