An Ocean of Glorious Truth

A quote from John Piper found in the video I posted yesterday.

"Give yourself to this. It's my plea! Give yourself to this. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. Pray that God would show you these things in his word. Swim in the Bible everyday. Don't just give it a little touch before you leave to do what you really like to do. Swim in the Bible everyday. It is an ocean of bright, glorious, weighty, all-satisfying truth from the one from whom you were made!"

Something I need to be reminded of, and something I long to return to.  

The Inexhaustible God

The Promises Of God Are Our Foundation

"Our relationship with God should not be defined by our feelings about ourselves at any one moment, but by the eternal promises of God that we know throughout every moment."

-Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

….

I often fall into a deceiving and foundationless mindset when I awake in the morning. I am burdened by the "daily doing" that lies ahead of me. My attitude and mood can be entirely dependent on my moral successes and failures of the previous day. I can be filled with so much unrest. I lose sight of where I truly stand with God, and seem to forget the joy of my salvation in the gospel.

But, I am brought back to peace when the scripture is spoken to me. God's word empowers me to believe in someone outside of myself, Christ Jesus. When you look at the person of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, you begin to see He is the only answer to yourself. His life is the only explicable and powerful being that can deal with me. May we stay reminded that the Bible's truths are personal. They are corporate. They are defining. They are applicable. They are unchanging, and they are transcendent through all of time. If we embrace each and every moment in light of the truth of the Bible, I believe we will see more and more how they prove to be true!

Walking in a Manner Pleasing to Him

"so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." Colossians 1:10-12

What does it mean to walk in a worthy manner of the Lord, in a way that is pleasing to him?

According to God's Word, it means.....

1) Bearing good fruit

2) Increasing in our knowledge of Him

3) Being strengthened by His power

4) Giving Thanks

Moreover, Paul writes that it is God who qualifies us. We bear good fruit because God's seed has been planted in us, and we are new creations. We now live by the indwelling Spirit, who produces good fruit in us. We Increase in knowledge according to what He lovingly reveals to His children. We are strengthened by His power according to His glorious might. We give thanks because of what He is doing in and through us.

Yet, we are to walk this way. We are called to act. We are to press on to live a life pleasing to God. But we do this by looking to God himself, as the source and qualifier of our faith, who, by His grace, will enable us to bear good fruit, increase in knowledge, be strengthened and give thanks.

The Cause of Christian Piety

"For, properly speaking we cannot say that God is known where there is no religion or piety.....For this sense of the divine perfections is the proper master to teach us piety, out of which religion springs. By piety, I mean that the union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires."

John Calvin

Institutes of the Christian Religion: Book I, Chapter II

I pray that God would give us a deeper knowledge and understanding of the benefits that are in Christ, and that would in turn inspire us to serve Him in humility.

God's Divine Sovereignty

John Calvin writes,

"...unless we are also persuaded that he is the fountain of all goodness, and that we must seek everything in him, and in none but him. My meaning is: we must be persuaded not only that as he once formed the world, so he sustains it by his boundless power, governs it by his wisdom, preserves it by his goodness, in particular, rules the human race with justice and judgement, bears with them in mercy, shields them by his protections; but also that not a particle of light, or wisdom, or justice, or power, or rectitude, or genuine truth, will anywhere be found, which does not flow from him, and of which he is not the cause; in this way we must learn to expect and ask all things from him, and thankfully ascribe to him whatever we receive"

Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter 2