People don’t earn God’s approval or receive life and salvation because of anything they’ve done. Rather, the only reason they receive life and salvation is because of God’s kindness through Christ. There is no other way.
Many Christians are tired of hearing this teaching over and over. They think that they learned it all long ago. However, they barely understand how important it really is. If it continues to be taught as truth, the Christian church will remain united and pure — free from decay. This truth alone makes and sustains Christianity. You might hear an immature Christian brag about how well he knows that we receive God’s approval through God’s kindness and not because of anything we do to earn it. But if he goes on to say that this is easy to put into practice, then have no doubt he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and he probably never will. We can never learn this truth completely or brag that we understand it fully. Learning this truth is an art. We will always remain students of it, and it will always be our teacher.
The people who truly understand that they receive God’s approval by faith and put this into practice don’t brag that they have fully mastered it. Rather, they think of it as a pleasant taste or aroma that they are always pursuing. These people are astonished that they can’t comprehend it as fully as they would like. They hunger and thirst for it. They yearn for it more and more. They never get tired of hearing about this truth.
– Martin Luther
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God Made Us to Pray
While studying this afternoon I stumbled upon this thought from J.I. Packer:
It is not too much to say that God made us to pray; that prayer is (not the easiest, but) the most natural activity in which in which we ever engage; and that prayer is the measure of a man in God’s sight. ‘What a man is alone on his knees before God,’ said the saintly Murray McCheyne, ‘that he is, and no more.’
Wheting Our Apetite for Worship
Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite… Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship – it deepens… It overfloows the hour and permeates the week…
– Eugene Petereson
Hard Grace
“Even though we are now in faith, the heart is always ready to boast itself before God and say: ‘After all, I have preached the law, and lived so well and done so much that surely He will take this into account ‘.
We even want to haggle with God to make Him regard our life, but it cannot be done. With men you may boast: ‘I have done the best I could… If anything is lacking, I will still try to make recompense.’ But when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home. Remember to appeal from justice into grace.
But let anybody try this and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter a thing it is for a man who, all his life, has been marred and has worked righteousness to pull himself out of it with all his heart, to rise up through faith in the one mediator.
I myself have been preaching and cultivating it through reading and writing for almost twenty years and still feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something so that He will give me His grace in exchange for my holiness. Still I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace.
Yet I know that this is what I should and must do.”
– Excerpted and edited from Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
The A-to-Z of the Christian Life
“The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others.
Every kind of character flaw comes from this natural impulse to be our own savior through our performance and achievement. On the one hand, proud and disdainful personalities come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are succeeding. But on the other hand, discouraged and self-loathing personalities also come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are failing.
Belief in the gospel is not just the way to enter the kingdom of God; it is the way to address every obstacle and grow in every aspect. The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life.
The gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ — whether a heart, a relationship, a church, or a community. All our problems come from a lack of orientation to the gospel. Put positively, the gospel transforms our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything.”
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Prayer is…
Prayer…is a confessing of impotence and need, an acknowledging of helplessness and dependence, and an invoking of the mighty power of God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves… God means us… to recognize and confess our impotence, and to tell Him that we rely on Him alone, and to plead with Him to glorify His name.
It is His way regularly to withhold His blessings until His people start to pray.
–J.I. Packer, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God
Following Jesus in Different Directions?
I’ve been pondering the following assertion from Ron Sider‘s Living Like Jesus:
“Still, the modern church prefers to accept only half of Jesus. They willingly accept him either as model or as mediator – but not both. Some urge us to follow his example of love and social concern, but they forget about the cross. Others emphasize his death for our sins, but fail to imitate his actions. But Christianity is strong only when we embrace the whole Christ.”
Faith & Hope
The question occurs to us, What difference is there between faith and hope? We find it difficult to see any difference. Faith and hope are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Still there is a difference between them.
First, hope and faith differ in regard to their sources. Faith originates in the understanding, while hope rises in the will.
Secondly, they differ in regard to their functions. Faith says what is to be done. Faith teaches, describes, directs. Hope exhorts the mind to be strong and courageous.
Thirdly, they differ in regard to their objectives. Faith concentrates on the truth. Hope looks to the goodness of God.
Fourthly, they differ in sequence. Faith is the beginning of life before tribulation (Hebrews 11). Hope comes later and is born of tribulation (Romans 5).
Fifthly, they differ in regard to their effects. Faith is a judge. It judges errors. Hope is a soldier. It fights against tribulations, the Cross, despondency, despair, and waits for better things to come in the midst of evil.
Without hope faith cannot endure. On the other hand, hope without faith is blind rashness and arrogance because it lacks knowledge. Before anything else a Christian must have the insight of faith, so that the intellect may know its directions in the day of trouble and the heart may hope for better things. By faith we begin, by hope we continue.
– from Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians
Pastors Near Pastures
The following words, along with Francis Schaeffer’s No Little People, were helpful to me when last year we accpted the opportunity to return to East Tennessee rather than pursue opportunities with churches in larger cities:
“Few men have the courage to seek obscurity for the sake of its advantages, but there can be no doubt of the intellectual advantages of a quiet country charge. When I hear men complain of the lack of stimulus in a rural parish, or find them longing to preach to audiences more cultivated and worthy of their talents, I feel disposed to think that the poor quality of their intellectual fabrics is due not so much to lack of proper appliances, but rather to a dearth of raw material. Many a man will tell you that he owes all that he afterward became, to the circumstance that, under God, he enjoyed the quiet rural solitude, and had opportunity of uninterupted thought and reading.”
– Francis Patton, in his biography of A.A. Hodge
The Advantages of Pleasing God Rather than Men
The following dozen points are about the advantages to us in seeking to please God, instead of living for the approval of other people. They were originally written by the great English Puritan, Richard Baxter.
I have attempted to clean up the language a little, hopefully without dulling the wisdom:
1. If you seek first to please God and are satisfied with that, you have but one to please instead of multitudes; and a multitude of masters are harder pleased than one.
2. And God is one who puts nothing upon you that is unreasonable, as far as quantity or quality.
3. And God is one who is perfectly wise and good, not liable to misunderstand your case and actions.
4. And God is one who is most holy, and is not pleased in iniquity or dishonesty.
5. And He is one that is impartial and most just, and is no respecter of persons. Acts 10:34
6. And He is one that is a competent judge, who is both fit and has authority, and is acquainted with your hearts, with your every circumstance and every reason behind your actions.
7. And He is one who perfectly agrees with himself, and does not subject you to contradictions or impossibilities.
8. And He is one who is constant and unchangeable; He is not pleased with one thing today and another contrary thing tomorrow; nor is He pleased with one person this year, whom he will be weary of the next.
9. And He is one who is merciful, and never requires you to hurt yourselves to please him: Nay, he is pleased with nothing from you except that which tends to your ultimate happiness; and displeased with nothing except that which hurts you or others, just as a father that is displeased with his children whenever they defile or hurt themselves.
10. He is gentle, though just, even when he disciplines you; judging accurately, but not harshly, nor making your actions out to be worse than they are.
11. He is one that is not subject to the irrational passions of men, which blind their minds, and carry them to injustice.
12. He is one who will not be moved by tale-bearers, whisperers, or false accusers, nor can be perverted by any misinformation.
The Cross Enforces Three Truths
The Cross enforces three truths:
- about ourselves,
- about God, and
- about Jesus Christ.
1. Our Sin must be extremely horrible.
Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the Cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, nor the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, and cowardice and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away.
2. God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension.
God could quite justly have abandoned us to our fate. He could have left us alone to reap the fruit of our wrongdoing… It is what we deserved. But he did not. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ.
3. Christ’s salvation must be a free gift.
He ‘purchased’ it for us at the high price of his own life-blood. So what is there left for us to pay? Nothing!
– John Stott, The Cross of Christ
Which Way?
Your life hangs on how you relate these two statements:
- “If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous” (1 John 2:1).
- “Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14).
Do you experience the first one weakening the second?
Or do you experience the first one joyfully empowering the second?
Your life hangs on your answer.
– by John Piper , via Missio Dei Suburbia
My Sin is Ever Before Me
‘My sin is ever before me’ -Psalm 51.3
A humble soul sees that he can stay no more from sin, than the heart can from panting, and the pulse from beating. He sees his heart and life to be fuller of sin, than the firmament is of stars; and this keeps him low. He sees that sin is so bred in the bone, that till his bones, as Joseph’s, be carried out of the Egypt of this world, it will not out. Though sin and grace were never born together, and though they shall not die together, yet while the believer lives, these two must live together; and this keeps him humble.
-Thomas Brooks, English Puritan
The Better We Know God
For the better we know God, the more we will want all of our existence to revolve around him, and we will see that the only goals and plans that really matter are those that are somehow tied to God himself, and to our eternity with him. Did not Jesus tell his followers to store up for themselves treasures in heaven? (Matthew 6:19-21)
– D.A. Carson in The Cross and Christian Ministry
Seeker Sensitive vs. Cost of Discipleship
In our culture of “seeker sensitivity” and radical inclusivity, the great temptation is to compromise the cost of discipleship in order to draw a larger crowd. With the most sincere hearts, we do not want to see anyone walk away from Jesus because of the discomfort of his cross, so we clip the claws on the Lion a little, and we clean up a bit the bloody Passion we are called to follow.
–Shane Claiborne, in The Irresistible Revolution
GRACE & PEACE 
