Reformed Spirituality

A Prayer for the New Year

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Cades Cove Snow

O Lord, Length of days does not profit me
except the days that are passed in Your presence,
in Your service, to Your glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,
sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from Thee,
but may rely on Your Spirit
to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire
to show forth Thy praise;
testify Thy love,
advance Thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
with Thee, O Father as my harbor,
Thee, O Son, at my helm,
Thee O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.
Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to Thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

Give me Thy grace to sanctify me,
Thy comforts to cheer,
Thy wisdom to teach,
Thy right hand to guide,
Thy counsel to instruct,
Thy law to judge,
Thy presence to stabilize.

May Thy fear by my awe,
Thy triumphs my joy.

~ adapted from Valley of Vision

 

Inebriated by the Gospel

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Smoky Mountain Moonshine

Great grace laced imagery from Robert Capon:

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievilism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace – of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel – after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps – suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started… Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super-spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.

Two Contents, Two Realities

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Francis Schaeffer said: “there are four things which are absolutely necessary if we as Christians are going to meet the need of our age and the overwhelming pressure we are increasingly facing.” These four things are two contents and two realities:

The First Content: Sound Doctrine 

The Second Content: Honest Answers to Honest Questions 

The First Reality: True Spirituality

The Second Reality: The Beauty of Human Relationships

Each link above will take you the substance of the respective  Contents and Realities. I am convinced they are worth consideration.  Why? Because I believe Schaeffer was right when he wrote:

[W]hen there are the two contents and the two realities, we will begin to see something profound happen in our generation.

7 Maxims of Repentance

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

Jesus said:

“This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”  (Luke 26.46-47)

Seemingly few recognize that repentance is part of the message of the Great Commission.  But that is clearly what Luke records Jesus as saying.  Not only is a call to repentance connected to the forgiveness of our sin, but I am convinced that repentance is one of the ways in which we express “obedience” to everything Jesus commanded us. As Martin Luther postulated in the first of his 95 Theses:

When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said “Repent”, He willed that the whole life of believers be lived out in repentance.

Yet, just as seemingly few are aware that repentace is part of the Great Commisson, seemingly fewer realize repentance should be a way of life for the Christian. Building upon Luther’s observation, contemporary pastor/theologian Sinclair Ferguson declares:

“According to Scripture, the Christian Life is repentance from beginning to end! So long as the believer is at the same time righteous and yet a sinner, it can be no other way.”

In his masterful book on the subject, Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel, Richard Owen Roberts offers a series of lists, including 7 Maxims of Repentance:

  1. True Repentance is a Gift of God
  2. True Repentance is NOT a Single Act but an Ongoing and Continual Attitude
  3. True Repentance is NOT Merely Turning From What You Have Done but From What You ARE
  4. True Repentance is Not What you Do for yourself but What You do for God
  5. True Repentance is Not Merely of the Fruits of Sin but of the Very Roots
  6. True Repentance is Not Secret but Open
  7. True Repentance is Both Negative and Positive

While I would wholeheartedly commend the reading of Roberts’ book, merely pondering this list will itself offer some rewarding insights as to the nature and benefits of repentance.  While some maxims are more immediately understood than others, all are discernable.

Calvinist When Calvinism Wasn’t Cool

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment
comet-mcnaught

To paraphrase Barbara Mandrell, “I was a Calvinst when Calvinism wasn’t cool.”   Historically Calvinism had a long day of being cool.  Then it was cool no more.  Now from all appearances it is cool once again.

This resurgence of Reformed Spirituality is not new news.  Christianity Today, among others, has been talking about it for several years now. But I was not aware that this trend was so apparent that even the non-religious cultural obsevers were aware.  But this week Time Magazine publically recognized that Calvinism  is COOL.  Published under the section: 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now, The New Calvinism ranks third. (Just behind  Jobs the New Asset and Recycling the Suburbs.)

I’m pretty sure that the editor of this piece doesn’t get the message behind Calvinism.  And while rightly attributing to Piper, Driscoll, and Mohler some of the influence toward growing popularity, I am disappointed that they neglected to mention the Presbyterian Church in America and Reformed University Fellowship.

Nevertheless, the article is worth reading.