What 'lovers' are you surrounded by?

Paul Tripp: Tell yourself today that you are surrounded by other lovers seeking to woo you away from the one central love that should shape your life.

It is sentences that change my life

John Piper: What I have learned from about twenty-years of serious reading is this: It is sentences that change my life, not books. What changes my life is some new glimpse of truth, some powerful challenge, some resolution to a long-standing dilemma, and these usually come concentrated in a sentence or two. I do not remember 99% of what I read, but if the 1% of each book or article I do remember is a life-changing insight, then I don’t begrudge the 99%.

(The Quote is from a sermon preached by John Piper on July 12, 1981, titled "Quantitative Hopelessness and the Immeasurable Moment: For the Encouragement of Sunday School Teachers)

(HT: C.J. Mahaney)

Remember ... you've got thumbs!

"The next time life’s got you down, just remember (you’ve got thumbs!)"

Below are lyrics to a humorous song about evolution posted on Douglas Wilson's blog (Blog and Mablog) title "Science Fiction."

Lyrics:

Out of the primeval mudpits happened one-celled life (amoebic life!)
And suddenly, for no reason at all, this life began to multiply (multiply!)
And the evening and the morning were the first 3 zillion years.

Pretty soon the ocean was filled with little beasties (it was filled!)
And then these hardy pioneers got more complicated (by accident!)
And the Society for the Prevention of God said amen (ah-ah-a-men!)

But among these children of chance were some malcontents (dissatisfied!)
Said they were tired of the water (waterlogged!)
So they crawled up on the beach and grew nostrils.

Looking back, we see the dry guys made the right choice (their choice was good!)
Because they evolved all the way up to man (and man is good!)
While those who held back only made it up to dolphin.

But does this mean that man is nothing but a mere protoplasmic accident? (no indeed!)
On the contrary, we hold that man is special (man’s unique!).
You see, man has an opposable thumb.

So the next time life’s got you down, just remember (you’ve got thumbs!)
And you don’t know why you exist or where you’re going (but you’ve got thumbs!)
Enough to make you weep for joy.

We overcome on the basis of the blood of the Lamb

“How dare you approach the mercy-seat of God on the basis of what kind of day you had, as if that were the basis for our entrance into the presence of the sovereign and holy God? No wonder we cannot beat the Devil. This is works theology. It has nothing to do with grace and the exclusive sufficiency of Christ. Nothing.

Do you not understand that we overcome the accuser on the ground of the blood of Christ? Nothing more, nothing less. That is how we win. It is the only way we win. This is the only ground of our acceptance before God. If you drift far from the cross, you are done. You are defeated.

We overcome the accuser of our brothers and sisters, we overcome our consciences, we overcome our bad tempers, we overcome our defeats, we overcome our lusts, we overcome our fears, we overcome our pettiness on the basis of the blood of the Lamb.”

—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103

New Page CXVI hymns album

Page CXVI's new album "Hymns - II" is available at http://www.pagecxvi.com/.

In their own words: Page CXVI is a project started with the idea of making hymns accesible and known again. They are some of the riches, most meaningful, and moving pieces of music ever written."

Visitors to the band's Web site may get the first hymns albums for free this week. The first album is very good. I've listened to the the first two tracks of the album and am not disappointed in the purchase.

Here's the song list of Hymns II:

1.How Great Thou Art
2.Praise to the Lord
3.Jesus I Am Resting, Resting
4.Rock of Ages
5.Abide With Me
6.Battle Hymn of the Republic
7.Doxology

Check it out and pass the word.

Seven sure-fire ways to blow up a church

Chuck Lawless, dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at Southern Seminary, shares seven things he would do if he wanted to “blow up” a church:

1. Begin my ministry as a teacher and refuse to be a learner.
2. Assume that the “honeymoon period” as a church leader is the time to make as many changes as possible.
3. Expect to fix everything overnight.
4. Teach a theological system more than the Bible.
5. Study always and seldom “hang out” with people.
6. Blame undiscipled members for acting like believers who have never been discipled.
7. Pray reactively rather than proactively.

Read his entire post with amplifying comments here.

Definition of justification

Here's Douglas Moo's summary of the biblical doctrine of justification:

The Bible pictures all human beings as defendants in a courtroom: a courtroom in which God is the judge and our sins constitute the evidence against us. The judge weighs the evidence and finds every single one of us guilty of sin and announces that we, therefore, must be condemned. The marvellous news of justification is that God has himself provided for us the means of escaping that condemnation: by responding to his gracious initiative in faith, we become joined with Christ, who died for us and was raised for us. We become joined to Christ, who takes on himself the penalty for our sin and covers us with the ‘righteousness’ that we need to reverse the verdict of condemnation and receive the verdict of ‘justified’, ‘right’ with God. And because we have been joined to Christ, the holy one, and have in that union received the gift of God’s powerful holy Spirit, we, who have been justified, also find our lives transformed so that we love God and neighbour.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

Judgment + hypocrisy = cynicism

"While purporting to 'see through' others' facades, cynics lack purity of heart. A significant source of cynicism is the fracture between my heart and my behavior. It goes something like this: My heart gets out of tune with God, but life goes on. So I continue to perform and say Christian things, but they are just words. I talk about Jesus without the presence of Jesus. There is a disconnect between what I present and who I am. My words sound phony, so other's words sound phony too. In short, my empty religious performance leads me to think that everyone is phony. The very thing I am doing, I accuse others of doing. Adding judgment to hypocrisy breeds cynicism."

- Paul Miller, A Praying Life, page 91

(HT: Joshua Harris)

Heresy

“A heresy is a doctrine that ultimately destroys, destabilizes, or distorts a mystery rather than preserving it. Sometimes a doctrine that was once thought to defend a mystery actually turns out to subvert it. A heresy is a failed attempt at orthodoxy, whose fault lies not in its willingness to explore possibilities or press conceptual boundaries, but in its unwillingness to accept that it has in fact failed.”

From Alister McGrath’s latest, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth (HarperOne, 2009), page 31.

(HT: Miscellanies)

Let his love win your love

“When we go to the cross, we see our God dying for us. If you let any other god down, it will beat you up. If you live for people’s approval or your career or possessions or control or anything else and you don’t make it or you mess up, then you’ll be left feeling afraid, downcast, or bitter. But when you let Christ down, he still loves you. He doesn’t beat you up; he died for you.

Let his love win your love, and let that love replace all other affections. The secret of change is to renew your love for Christ as you see him crucified in your place.”

- Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010), 128.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Bible interpretation In a nutshell

Michael Patton has an excellent article titled "Bible interpretation In a nutshell" at Parchment and Pen, in which he provides "a practical guide to biblical interpretation following a three step process."

The three steps are as follows:

• Step one: Exegetical Statement - What did it mean then?
• Step two: Theological Statement - What does it mean for all people of all places of all times?
• Step three: Homeletical Statement - How does it apply to me?

Patton: The Bible is two-thousand years old and often seems very archaic. This makes it hard to know how it applies to us. It can be very frustrating as all Christians are encouraged to read their Bible daily but often are at a loss as to how to understand it and apply the message to their own lives. This process has served me well and I believe it is representative of the best way to interpret the ancient word of God and apply it to today. I hope that it will alleviate some of the “Bible interpretation anxiety” that is out there, allowing the Bible to become real and relevant to your life.

Read the entire article and view helpful charts here.

By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me

Below are some excerpts from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson's book "By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me." Visit here for more information about the book.

Page xiv - A chief reason for the weakness of the Christian church in the West, for the poverty of our witness and any lack of vitality in our worship, probably lies here: we sing about “amazing grace” and speak of “amazing grace,” but far too often it has ceased to amaze us. Sadly, we might more truthfully sing of “accustomed grace.” We have lost the joy and energy that are experienced when grace seems truly amazing. With the help of Pastor Sibomana’s hymn, these pages reflect on God’s grace from seven angles. Tasting the power of the grace of God can refresh the inner sanctuaries of our being, and banish the spiritual lethargy and indifference that take God’s goodness and love for granted. After all, if we are not amazed by God’s grace, can we really be living in it? By its very nature, God’s grace astonishes those who taste it and amazes those who receive it.

Page 3 - “Most assuredly, I say to you,” Jesus said, “whoever commits sins is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Does this really need to be underlined? Jesus thought it did, and perhaps someone reading these pages may need a little help to understand what Jesus was saying here: • We do not become sinners by committing specific acts. • We commit specific acts of sin because we are sinners. In short, my problem is not the isolated actions that I see as aberrations from what I really am. I am deceiving myself if I think that way. These actions are not aberrations but revelations of what is in my heart. They show that I commit sin because I am in bondage to it.

Page 8 - We can never atone for our own sin. We can never break its power. We can never come to God and say, “God, surely what I have done is enough to compensate for my sins.” Nothing we can do can possibly compensate. But God sent His own Son—think of it, His own Son—who stood in for us, in our place. He lived a perfect life. Since He had no sins of His own to atone for, He was qualified to make a sacrifice for our sins. No sacrifice we could make could ever be adequate to atone for sin. But He was able and willing to do it. Because of that, we can be set free from guilt and from the bondage it creates. Christ also sets us free in another way: through the truth about God—and about ourselves—that He reveals. If we believe in Him, we will come to know the truth, and the truth will set us free (John 8:32). That is His promise.

Pages 24, 25 - The elder brother was Jesus’ portrayal—indeed, His unmasking—of these Jewish leaders. He had poured out grace on sinful men and women, and they had responded to His message about the kingdom of God. They came to Him to receive love, forgiveness, welcome, and restoration. But the Pharisees were repelled by the grace the Lord Jesus displayed and utterly demeaned Him for it—as well as despising those who received it.

Jesus vividly portrayed the spirit of these men in the elder brother. When he hears the sound of celebration, he comes in from the fields, grits his teeth, and demands to know what is happening. He learns the news, but he refuses to go in or share any part of the celebration. Grace, you would think, would make him happy. But it makes the elder brother miserable. He seems incapable of either receiving or rejoicing in grace. What irritates the older brother about grace is precisely that it is grace. In his eyes, the younger son does not deserve what he is receiving. Has his father no sense of justice? The tragedy is that he himself has never enjoyed a relationship of grace with his father.

What a picture of a person whose religion has no place for grace, and who therefore never experiences it. His religion is his bondage, not his freedom. He is held captive by what Paul calls a “spirit of bondage” (Rom. 8:15). He is a tragic figure indeed.

Page 25 - Religion can be bad for your spiritual health. Engaging in religious duties (even good ones) can be very deceptive. It can dis-grace grace.

Page 50 - Contemporary men and women find it almost impossible to conceive that they were made to glorify and to enjoy God. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the very idea of living for the glory of God appears to be many people’s idea of hell. We might rework the famous words in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, “Hell is other people.” To many, hell is the presence of God. But to live for ourselves, that is heaven. Or is it? Tragically, instead of finding profound and lasting pleasure in God’s world, we find only increased alienation there.

Page 59 - Can we really be righteous in God’s sight? Yes, but the truth is even more remarkable—in Jesus Christ, I am as righteous in God’s sight as Jesus Christ Himself. How can that be? The only righteousness with which I am righteous is Jesus Christ’s righteousness. It is as if He has said to me: “Here is my righteousness. Wear it; it is yours. It fits your needs perfectly and completely.” As I stand in God’s presence and He looks at me, I hear Him say: “Where have I seen that righteousness before? Come near. I recognize it now. That is My Son’s righteousness you are wearing. Enter! You are welcome—and safe—here.”

Page 65 - You would not expect a non-Christian to find the grace of God amazing. Sadly, we Christians, who sing about “amazing grace,” sometimes lose sight and sense of its graciousness. It ceases to amaze us. To the extent this is true, we have lost our grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to rediscover how amazing the grace of God is.

Page 71 - Here is the heart of the plan of God and the wonder of the gospel. The best of all men dies as though He were the worst of all criminals. This is not merely a matter of human wickedness destroying a good man. It is the heart of the purpose of God, as Isaiah had long before prophesied (Isa. 53:4–6, 10). Behind the handing over of the Lord Jesus—by Judas Iscariot, by Herod, by the priests, by Pontius Pilate—stood the purposes of His heavenly Father handing Him over to the cross in order to die in the place of sinners. He bore God’s judgment and wrath against our sin. What inexpressible love this is.

Page 84 - Satan cannot ultimately destroy a Christian believer. But he is well able to destroy our assurance and our joy—our pleasure in the gospel. So we need to find in the grace of God a defense against those fiery darts of the Evil One. But the next verse of the hymn speaks about “Satan’s art”: “When evil thoughts arise through Satan’s art.” What is “Satan’s art”? The “art” of Satan is his ability to produce sinister thoughts in the mind of the Christian believer. By this I do not mean what the Bible regards as the works of the flesh or the lust of the eyes. Satan, of course, does work through the “eye gate” and the “passion gate” to produce evil thoughts and deceive believers, as he did in David’s sin with Bathsheba. But ultimately, the most sinister thoughts that Satan insinuates into our minds are not enticements to sin but suspicions about God Himself. He always plots to cause us to “exchange the truth of God for the lie” (Rom. 1:25).

Page 110 - But when you begin to understand that in Christ you died to sin and have now been delivered from the dominion of sin; that you are no longer under its bondage; that you no longer need to be a victim of its subtle paralysis—then you find yourself saying not only “Isn’t this amazing grace?” but “What glorious freedom Jesus Christ has bought for me on the cross.”