Blog blessing Saturday

Seeing that I will be unable to post tomorrow, I am going to share the blessings from the blog one day early this week

1. "Faith by Hearing" is collecting an incredible amount of good audio content (and categorizing it for you).
2. Ever wanted to see Dr. Al Mohler's library (you will never guess how many books he has). See in it in a video (runs 50+ minutes) for the upcoming Together for the Gospel Conference. I hope to attend this conference next year. I am hoping some of you will join me.
3. One of the pastors of parenting at Covenant Life Church (where C. J. Mahaney and Josh Harris pastor) gave this talk last week on proactive parenting. Here are some follow-up questions for parents to discuss with each other and here are some for you to discuss with your children growing toward adulthood.
4. Abraham urges parents to tell your kids Bible stories like life depended on it.
5. A great quote when "bad" things happen to you and you want to blame God.
6. John Piper writes a stirring piece on the partial birth abortion ban by the Supreme Court. His brief quote (which is included in Justice Kennedy's paper) by a nurse observing the PBA procedure is absolutely heart-wrenching.
   
7. Read this letter that exposes a missionary's heart.
8. Some great deals here on books (and low shipping at that!). But the sale ends soon!

Living for God!

How are we to live for God? Some Christians try to live for God by their own willpower. But we all know that "the arm of the flesh will fail" us and we dare not trust ourselves. So, many Christians have embraced the popular "let go and let God" method of the Christian life which has no biblical basis. Most then opt for the "Lord, help me" method which sounds reasonable, but often masks an attitude which says, "Lord, I can handle my life up to a certain point, but beyond that point, I really need your help." Living like this looks good for we usually begin the day by praying, "Lord, help me", but by mid morning we are doing just fine we think handling life on our own. Then the crisis comes after lunch and we scream, "Lord, help me." This method is inadequate because it demonstrates partial dependence on God at best or uses God as a crutch at worst. It results in disappointment and frustration, especially when the Lord doesn't respond the way that we think he should have.

The heart attitude that says, "Lord, enable me to do what you command or will me to do" is the right way to live for God. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). John Owen rightly observed, "We don'’t have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is the law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform the duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover. So we recognize that God calls us to use all our faculties (our mind, our will, our affections) in order to live out the Christian life, but we do it with utter dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Abiding it Christ indicates an all out effort on our part but doing so in a conscious and total dependence on the Spirit to give us the life of Christ. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Colossians 1:29). Yes, we must labor and strive in the spiritual life but if we don't do so in the Lord's strength and through his enablement we will fail.

Again Owens says, "The spiritual life which I have is not my own. I did not induce it, and I cannot maintain it. It is only and solely the work of Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. My whole life is His alone."

So we should pray like this, "Lord, enable me today to worship You and commune with You today. Without You my mind is dead and my heart is like stone." "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). As Psalm 127:1 reminds us,

"Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain."

What is the gospel

The guys over at Together for the Gospel are giving some very clear definitions of the gospel that I think are well worth chewing over.

Al Mohler writes, " I would define the Gospel as the good news that God saves sinners through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ [1 Cor. 15:3-4]. This good news tells us that we are sinners, who deserve only death and cannot save ourselves. The Gospel points to the cross of Christ as the propitiation for our sins, the substitutionary sacrifice for our transgressions [Romans 3:21-26] and to the empty tomb as the promise of our resurrection unto eternal life [1 Cor. 15]. This Gospel is God's gift, as is the faith that justifies sinners. Salvation is all of grace, so that no sinner can boast of his salvation. Saving faith is made visible in those who confess with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead [Romans 10:9].

C. J. Mahaney quotes Jeff Purswell who writes, "The gospel is the good news of God'’s saving activity in the person and work of Christ. This includes his incarnation in which he took to himself full (yet sinless) human nature; his sinless life which fulfilled the perfect law of God; his substitutionary death which paid the penalty for man's sin and satisfied the righteous wrath of God; his resurrection demonstrating God's satisfaction with his sacrifice; and his glorification and ascension to the right hand of the Father where he now reigns and intercedes for the church.

"Such news is specific: there is a defined "‘thatness"’ to the gospel which sets forth the content of both our saving faith and our proclamation. It is objective, and not to be confused with our response. It is sufficient: we can add nothing to what Christ has accomplished for us--it falls to us simply to believe this news, turning from our sins and receiving by faith all that God has done for us in Christ."

Mahaney (quoting Ryle) identifies some of the major threats to the gospel: substituting something else for the gospel, adding something to the gospel, distorting the gospel by exaggerating certain secondary truths and diminishing truths of first importance or by confusing the gospel. Two other threats to the gospel that are very common in the lives of believers is assuming the gospel or neglecting the gospel in our lives. This is why we have to preach the gospel to ourselves every day!

A new category of age: kidults!

Over at the Rebelution, the Harris twins give a biblical perspective on a rising phenomenon. They write, "Social scientists have discovered a new category of age: adultescence. TIME Magazine announces in its January 2005 cover article ‘Meet The Twixters:’ “In the past people moved from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood, but today there is a new, intermediate phase along the way." This is one of six articles that parents should take the time to read.

Part one: Adolesence is permanent
Part two: Peter Pans that shave
Part three: Ruining our lives with fun
Part four: Choosing to grow up
Part five: I won't grow up and you can't make me
Part six: Pursuing the inevitable

Need some help on family worship

Family worship is an area that we are trying to grow in. I recently read two excellent short posts that I have stimulated my thinking regarding family worship. If you struggle with this area or just want some extra encouragement, check these out!

Hamilton Family Worship

Training Children to Worship God

Our response to Christ's substitutionary atonement

If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him." --C. T. Studd

"It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed."--Charles Spurgeon

In sharing the gospel with his son Chad, C. J Mahaney says, "This is what I hold out to my young son as the hope of his life: that Jesus, God's perfect, righteous Son, died in his place for his sins. Jesus took all the punishment; Jesus received all the wrath as he hung on the Cross, so people like Chad and his sinful daddy could be completely forgiven."--Living the Cross Centered life

Death: A Carnival of Worms

Charles Spurgeon, speaking from Matthew 28, in a sermon entitled "A Visit to the Tomb" reminds us that there are several truths that we should see in the empty tomb. One of them is that one day we should die. Reflecting on death he writes:

What a solemn sight is presented to us by a dead body! When last evening trying to realize the thought, it utterly overcame me.

The thought is overwhelming, that soon this body of mine must be a carnival for worms; that in and out of these places, where my eyes are glistening, foul things, the offspring of loathsomeness, shall crawl; that this body must be stretched in still, cold, abject, passive, death, must then become a noxious, nauseous thing, cast out even by those that loved me, who will say, “Bury my dead out of my sight.”

Perhaps you can scarcely, in the moment I can afford you, appropriate the idea to yourselves. Does it not seem a strange thing, that you, who have walked to this place this morning, shall be carried to your graves; that the eyes with which you now behold me shall soon be glazed in everlasting darkness; that the tongues, which just now moved in song, shall soon be silent lumps of clay; and that your strong and stalwart frame, now standing to this place, will be unable to move a muscle, and become a loathsome thing, the brother of the worm and the sister of corruption?

You can scarcely get hold of the idea; death doth such awful work with us, it is such a Vandal with this mortal fabric, it so rendeth to pieces this fair thing that God hath builded up, that we can scarcely bear to contemplate his works of ruin.

Now, endeavour, as well as you can, to get the idea of a dead corpse, and when you have so done, please to understand, that that is the metaphor employed in my text, to set forth the condition of your soul by nature: “And you . . . were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).

Just as the body is dead, incapable, unable, unfeeling, and soon about to become corrupt and putrid, so are we if we be unquickened by divine grace; dead in trespasses and sins, having within us death, which is capable of developing itself in worse and worse stages of sin and wickedness, until all of us here, left by God’s grace, should become loathsome beings; loathsome through sin and wickedness, even as the corpse through natural decay.

Understand, that the doctrine of the Holy Scripture is, that man by nature, since the fall, is dead; he is a corrupt and ruined thing; in a spiritual sense, utterly and entirely dead. And if any of us shall come to spiritual life, it must be by the quickening of God’s Spirit, vouchsafed to us sovereignly through the good will of God the Father, not for any merits of our own, but entirely of his own abounding and infinite grace.

Reflections on Resurrection Sunday

God graced us with a wonderful Resurrection Sunday this year. Preaching from Matthew 28, we viewed this day through the eyes of the women who visited the tomb and who, no doubt, reflected on the greatness of that day often for the rest of their lives.

Here is a tomb by Samuel Medley called "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" that captures the conviction that all true Christians possess regarding the significance of the resurrection.

I know that my Redeemer lives;
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives, He lives, who once was dead;
He lives, my ever living Head.

He lives to bless me with His love,
He lives to plead for me above.
He lives my hungry soul to feed,
He lives to help in time of need.

He lives triumphant from the grave,
He lives eternally to save,
He lives all glorious in the sky,
He lives exalted there on high.

He lives to grant me rich supply,
He lives to guide me with His eye,
He lives to comfort me when faint,
He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.

He lives to silence all my fears,
He lives to wipe away my tears
He lives to calm my troubled heart,
He lives all blessings to impart.

He lives, my kind, wise, heavenly Friend,
He lives and loves me to the end;
He lives, and while He lives, I’ll sing;
He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King.

He lives and grants me daily breath;
He lives, and I shall conquer death:
He lives my mansion to prepare;
He lives to bring me safely there.

He lives, all glory to His Name!
He lives, my Jesus, still the same.
Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives,
I know that my Redeemer lives!

The Gospel and Marriage

"'Nothing is more important to your marriage than your theology (what you believe about God), and nothing is more important to your theology and hence your marriage) than the gospel.'

'When we grasp the depth of God's love for us revealed in the gospel, when we rest in the joy of God's forgiveness toward us in the gospel, when we experience God's transforming power in us through the gospel, and when we begin to emulate the pattern of humility and obedience we see in the gospel, what a wonderful difference this will make in our lives and marriages! Nothing is more essential to a marriage, and nothing brings more hope, than applying the gospel of Jesus Christ.'

Gary and Betsy Ricucci, Love That Lasts: When Marriage Meets Grace, pp. 21, 23"

What will they come up with next?

First, we have to deal with the Da Vinci Code (coming to a theater near you May 20). ABC is rolling out a new Ten Commandment movie that has its share of problems. And now we have one scientist who theorizes that Jesus really didn't walk on water, but rather he walked on ice--and the Washington Post reports this as newsworthy. And then a week ago came the "scientific study" that demonstrated that prayer doesn't really work when it comes to healing people. Finally, there is the National Geographic story and special on the lost and now found "Gospel of Judas" that have some people saying that this will demand a total reformulation of Christianity and our understanding of Jesus and his relationship to Judas.

This demonstrates why as Christians we must be rooted in the Word of God. We must know this Word and we must be able to discern truth and error and be ready to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered for the faith. To help equip you to that end I would recommend the following articles:

• Don Whitney on why a scientific study on prayer is inherently flawed. See also Al Mohler's response.
• On "Jesus walking on ice" see Al Mohler's response
• And for a thorough rebuttal on the "Gospel of Judas", read Mohler here and listen to his radio program here.

Paul's prophetic word is true: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

William Carey and his praying sister

God has assigned every Christian a place of humble service in the body of Christ. There are no exceptions. You have a function to fulfill in this body. Willam Myers in his book, Pray: How to be Effective in Prayer, tells of two remarkable people: William Carey, missionary to India, and Carey’s bedridden, almost paralyzed sister. William Carey accomplished a Bible translation of work unequaled in missionary history and has been called “the father of modern missions.” We don’t even know his sister’s name. She is mentioned only as Carey’s sister. But while Carey labored in India translating and printing parts or all of the Bible into forty languages, his sister lay on her back in London and prayed hour after hour, month after month, for all the details, problems, and struggles of her brother’s work. In telling this story of Carey and his sister, Myers asks the question, “To whose account will God credit the victories won through this remarkable man?”

In Honor of Bill Davis: Communion with God

April 8th is the birthday of a dear friend of mine, Bill Davis. Bill lived valiantly with cancer for several years. Last May God ushered him into his presence very quickly before any of us were able to bid him farewell. His dear wife Fran remains in our prayers, especially on this day as we remember Bill. The best way to honor Bill would be to honor His Savior. John Owen was Bill's spiritual hero and so today in his honor I am posting a brief meditation by Owen on the loveliness of Christ from his Communion with God:

Lovely in his person—in the glorious all-sufficiency of his Deity, gracious purity and holiness of his humanity, authority and majesty, love and power.

Lovely in his birth and incarnation; when he was rich, for our sakes becoming poor—taking part of flesh and blood, because we partook of the same; being made of a woman, that for us he might be made under the law, even for our sakes.

Lovely in the whole course of his life, and the more than angelical holiness and obedience which, in the depth of poverty and persecution, he exercised therein—doing good, receiving evil; blessing, and being cursed, reviled, reproached, all his days.

Lovely in his death; yea, therein most lovely to sinners—never more glorious and desirable than when he came broken, dead, from the cross. Then had he carried all our sins into a land of forgetfulness; then had he made peace and reconciliation for us; then had he procured life and immortality for us.

Lovely in his whole employment, in his great undertaking—in his life, death, resurrection, ascension; being a mediator between God and us, to recover the glory of God’s justice, and to save our souls—to bring us to an enjoyment of God, who were set at such an infinite distance from him by sin.

Lovely in the glory and majesty wherewith he is crowned. Now he is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high; where, though he be terrible to his enemies, yet he is full of mercy, love, and compassion, towards his beloved ones.

Lovely in all those supplies of grace and consolations, in all the dispensations of his Holy Spirit, whereof his saints are made partakers.

Lovely in all the tender care, power, and wisdom, which he exercises in the protection, safe-guarding, and delivery of his church and people, in the midst of all the oppositions and persecutions whereunto they are exposed.

Lovely in all his ordinances, and the whole of that spiritually glorious worship which he has appointed to his people, whereby they draw nigh and have communion with him and his Father.

Lovely and glorious in the vengeance he takes, and will finally execute, upon the stubborn enemies of himself and his people.

Lovely in the pardon he has purchased and does dispense—in the reconciliation he has established—in the grace he communicates—in the consolations he does administer—in the peace and joy he gives his saints—in his assured preservation of them unto glory.

Bill is enjoying the perfection of communion with Christ now. And one day I look forward to renewing sweet fellowship with him as we worship at the Throne together.

Gospel Trust in the Sovereignty of God

Here is another quote that Lignon Duncan shares over at Together for the Gospel. This one from Calvin on gospel trust in the sovereignty of God:

"It is essentially necessary, if we would fortify our minds against temptation, to have suitably exalted views of the power and mercy of God, since nothing will more effectually preserve us in a straight and undeviating course, than a firm persuasion that all events are in the hand of God, and that he is as merciful as he is mighty. The man who disciplines himself to the contemplation of these two attributes, which ought never to be dissociated in our minds from the idea of God, is certain to stand erect and immovable under the fiercest assaults of temptation; while, on the other hand, by losing sight of the all-sufficiency of God, (which we are too apt to do,) we lay ourselves open to be overwhelmed in the first encounter."

Ryle on Heart Religion

One of my favorite blogs is Together for the Gospel. Lignon Duncan one of the contributors shares a few quotes past men of God that stirred my spirit today. Here is one from Ryle on the importance of the heart in Christian faith:

What is the first thing we need, in order to be Christians? A new heart. — What is the sacrifice God asks us to bring to Him? A broken and a contrite heart. — What is the true circumcision? The circumcision of the heart. — What is genuine obedience? To obey from the heart. — What is saving faith? To believe with the heart. — Where ought Christ to dwell? To dwell in our hearts by faith. — What is the chief request that Wisdom makes to everyone? "My son, give me thine heart."