A Story of Rescue

Skip & Barbara Ryan Story of Rescue from PCPC Video on Vimeo.

Pictures of Grace

A testimony from Tullian Tchividjian's church, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church.



Everything we so desperately seek and long for, Christ offers to us in himself. Jesus is the end of the endless treadmill of trying to be good enough. Jesus is the end of having to constantly compare yourself to others to see if you stack up.  All the acceptance and worth we so desperately want, in Jesus, we already have. 

Being Clean

"It's not what goes into your body that defiles you; 

you are defiled by what comes from your heart."

Mark 7:15

One of the many reasons I love Mark's account of Jesus' life is the way Mark depicts Jesus as confrontational. From the very beginning of Mark, Jesus comes proclaiming the Kingdom of God. In doing so, he confronts our tendency to make ourselves the king of our own little kingdom. He challenges our reality by confronting our misconceptions of who we are, and who we think God is. 

One passage in which Jesus does this is in Mark 7:1-23. You see, going all the way back in the Old Testament, there is a big problem. Because humankind fell into sin, we cannot come into the presence of God unless we are clean (spotless, without blemish, blameless, without sin). In fact, this is a very big deal to God. That is why in Leviticus there are extensive rules about cleanliness and purity. That is why  there was a day of atonement once a year, and the high priest who was to go before God and atone for the sins of the people had to spend a week preparing himself, washing himself, making sure he was clean. 

This may seem odd, but think of it this way. When we go to meet an important person or have an important event, we also prepare for it. We will take a shower, get a haircut, put on make up, wear our nicest clothes, etc... The same goes for how we are supposed to approach God.

Imagine you own a house. It is perfectly white. It is painted white on the outside, the carpet is white, all the couches are white, the walls are white, the tables are white; everything is bright shining white. Now imagine a person covered in mud comes to your door and wants to come in. It's not going to happen. This is also a reality between us and God. This is why there were the Old Testament purity laws. 

And this is where Mark 7 comes in. Jesus, interacting with the pharisees, confronts their misconceptions. In this passage, the Pharisees had a problem because Jesus' disciples weren't following the traditional purity laws. For example, they weren't washing their hands before they ate, they don't wash their cups and plates the proper way. For the pharisees, this was how we maintained our purity before God. 

I love how Jesus challenges the Pharisees. He doesn't come at them attacking their zeal to be pure. Rather, he gets at the heart of the problem (literally and figuratively). Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah and says to them, 

"These people honor me with their lips, 

but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship is farce, 

for they teach man-made ideas as the commands from God" Mark 7:6-7

The problem was that the pharisees thought they could make themselves clean by their own actions. They thought they could be pure before God through religious acts. Jesus confronts this by stating the real problem. The real problem isn't that on the outside they are unclean or impure, it's that their hearts are jacked up. The real problem is a heart problem. The pharisees may have performed religious acts of cleanliness, but their hearts were filthy. 

At this point, it's easy to point at the pharisees and jeer at their ignorance. However, we are not any different. We may not look to Old Testament laws to save face before God, but in some way, shape, form, or fashion, we are all trying to become clean before God. We all look to 'DO" something in order to make us right, to give us worth, or to give our existence significance. 

And this is is where Jesus speaks to us. By confronting the Pharisees, Jesus is telling us that the thing that really makes us unclean is our heart. The problem isn't the externals as much as it is the internal. Further, this is a problem we ALL have. It isn't just the Pharisees. It is us! And as long as we are looking to "DO" something to fix it, it will never work. We could never possibly clean ourselves up enough to be perfectly pure before the eyes of God. 

Back to the white house example (not the presidents home, but a house that is purely white). What Jesus is saying is that while we are standing outside the house that is sparkling white, we could never scrub hard enough to make ourselves worthy for entrance. It doesn't matter what we try to use (religion included), it won't work. What we need is a heart transplant from the inside out. 

This is where the good news of the gospel comes in. When Jesus came to earth and died, he essentially came and lived the pure, clean life that we should have lived, and he died the death of someone who was impure. He did this is substitution for our uncleanliness. Further, because he was the only one who lived a truly pure life, he offers to us his very life. He sees us sitting outside the white house, scrubbing hard, and says to us, "That will never work. But receive me. I will make you clean from the inside out. I can get you on the VIP guest list into the white house." And with one touch, we are made clean. Further, he stays by our side, continuing to transform our hearts from those of stone, to those who desire to walk with and worship the living God. 

What is a Disciple?

What is a disciple? I think Dallas Willard offers a helpful definition. 

"A person who by the power of the Spirit has arranged their life under the life and teachings of Jesus"

A couple quick things that I like about this definition. 

1. A person does not become a disciple by their own power. It is God's gracious initiative. It is by the Spirit's power that we grow. 
2. Discipleship is arranges your LIFE. We have tendency to compartmentalize our spiritual life and our normal life, or our church life and our during the week life. Discipleship flows into all areas of life. It is all encompassing. It is an overarching identity. 
3. At the heart of discipleship is being under the life of Jesus. We are disciples by virtue of our union with Christ. As a disciple, our new life is found in Christ.  We are united to his death, wherein our old self is dead, and united in his resurrection, where we now have new life. If you want to see this. Read Paul's letters (especially Ephesians). 

J.I. Packer on Our Communion with God

I found this post from Justin Taylor to be helpful, especially as I've been reading Donald Fairbairn's book, Life in the Trinity, which is about the very subject of our communion with God, and its central importance.  Here is J.I. Packer writing about the subject. 

J. I. Packer:

. . . whereas to the Puritans communion with God was a great thing, to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing.

The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way that we are not.

The measure of our unconcern is the little that we say about it.

When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology—but rarely of their daily experience of God.

Modern Christian books and magazines contain much about Christian doctrine, Christian standards, problems of Christian conduct, techniques of Christian service—but little about the inner realities of fellowship with God.

Our sermons contain much sound doctrine—but little relating to the converse between the soul and the Saviour.

We do not spend much time, alone or together, in dwelling on the wonder of the fact that God and sinners have communion at all; no, we just take that for granted, and give our minds to other matters.

Thus we make it plain that communion with God is a small thing to us.

But how different were the Puritans! The whole aim of their ‘practical and experimental’ preaching and writing was to explore the reaches of the doctrine and practice of man’s communion with God.

—J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (reprint ed., Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), p. 215 (chapter 12).

The Christian Life and the Trinity

"This doctrine of the Trinity is not an abstraction whose connection with Christian life is tenuous or even nonexistent. Rather, the doctrine of the Trinity is the gateway to understanding Christian life. A God who was completely alone would have had nothing relational to offer us in salvation; he could have offered only a right status before him or something of that sort. But because God has eternally existed as a fellowship of three persons, there is fellowship within God which we can also share."

Donald Fairbairn, Life in Trinity, 50.

These are marvelous truths with incredible implications. At the heart of the Christian faith is not simply an abstract change of status. More so, it is a completely new relationship with God. The heart of the Christian life is a sharing in the life of the Trinity. We receive new life in Christ because we are brought into this relational fellowship with God. As Christians, we can now be confident in all the benefits of salvation because they are rooted in Christ's relationship to his Father. We aren't merely forgiven of our sins as a simple declaration. Rather, we are seen as perfectly righteous. We are beloved children whom God 100% delights in. This is all because we share in the relationship that Christ has with the Father. The Father now sees us as he sees his only Son. Being a Christian is being brought into this relationship. It is sharing in this life. This is the source of the Christian life. 

Sharing in Christ's Sonship

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, 

but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, 

by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'"

Romans 8:15

At the heart of our relationship with God is our being adopted as true children. I sometimes wonder how this is possible and what this actually means. Becoming an adopted son of God is more often an abstract concept rather than the concrete reality in my life. So, how does this happen? And what does it mean?

The answer in our adoption does not lie in us. We were made to be sons and daughters of God, but we broke the relationship beyond human repair. Our hope is not in our ability to remake ourselves as sons and daughters. Rather, our adoption is rooted in the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Christ has perfect sonship with the Father. Our only hope of ever again becoming true children of God lies in our sharing in Christ's sonship that he already has with the Father. This is the good news of the gospel: that the Son of God became the Son of Man, so that he could unite men and women with God. He is able to do this because he is fully God and fully man, thus being able to mediate between the two and unite us to God. This is the foundation to our relationship with God. 

But, what does this mean on a day to day basis? Being united to Christ, and thus being made a son or daughter of God means that we are adopted into the same relationship the Son of God has with the Father.  In our adoption, we don't so much receive something from Christ, as much as we receive Christ himself. Jesus gives us his very self, and this is the heart of what we receive in adoption. Everything that is true of the Jesus Christ is now true of us. Jesus was God's beloved son, with whom God was well pleased. This is now true of us. Jesus and the Father were one. In Christ, we are now one with God. Jesus was sinless and incorruptible. We are now seen as sinless.  Jesus conquered death, resurrecting from the grave. Likewise, we will also be raised to life on the last day. 

One quick note on some of the things I just said. As those who have been adopted, we now share in the life of Christ and possess the many benefits of salvation. However, we do not share in the same substance that God has. We are still human. We are not divine. Yet, we are being restored to what it means to be made in God's image and what it means to be truly human. 

Unless We Had Been United

"The Word of God was made man, and he who was the Son of God

became the Son of Man, that man, having been taken into the Word, 

and receiving adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means

could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality,

unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality"

Irenaeus of Lyons writing on the Christians' participation in God

This quote is kind of a mouthful. It doesn't help that it was written around the year 180 A.D. But, Irenaeus  so beautifully captures such a central tenant to the gospel. The wonderful news of the gospel is this (and this is slight translation of what Irenaeus wrote above):

The 2nd person of the trinity, who had existed from all eternity, became man. The Son of God became the Son of Man. This is who Jesus Christ is. He did this, so that man (us), might be united to the Son of God (Jesus Christ), so that we could receive the same sonship that he has. We can be adopted as sons of God because we are directly united to the Son of God. We can only be restored to spotless perfection and eternal life by being united to the very one who himself is spotless, perfect, and from eternity. 

The Christian life is not a bunch of rules to follow or information to believe. It is living in this union with Christ. It is sharing in this life. 

Easter Weekend

Below is an update on my Easter weekend. It was originally posted to the Rebirth: East St. Louis blog (where I work). Enjoy reading it. For the full posts, and some sweet pictures and video, check out:
An East St. Louis Easter
Video and Pics

I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. Mine was a particularly good Easter. I was able to go home, be with family, see friends and enjoy some really good food! What made it even better, is that I had the unique opportunity this weekend to share all of those things with a couple of our East St. Louis guys, Cortez Spencer and Luther Wright. Yes, that is correct. This weekend I had the privilege of having Cortez and Luther come up and spend Saturday and Sunday with my family and me. The weekend was an awesome experience on many different levels.

 First, the weekend was a great chance to simply spend some quality time with Cortez and Luther, continuing to build our relationship and get to know them better. We were able to play some pickup basketball, meet several of my teammates from college, cookout on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday, and have an Easter feast with the rest of my extended family. I really think the weekend, and being in a different context, allowed for several unique conversations about God, life, circumstances, etc… As you can imagine, an entire weekend along with a 4.5 hour car ride is a great chance to share in some good conversation.

 Also, as I reflect back on the weekend, I think it was a great picture of reconciliation. In the gospel, Jesus breaks down all the existing barriers and walls that both separate us from God, and that separate us from each other. Because of Good Friday (Christ’s death) and Easter (Christ’s resurrection), these barriers are completely shattered. The gospel reconciles us to God, and also reconciles us to each other. For those who don’t know, I grew up in Wheaton, IL, which, socio-economically, may be the polar opposite of East St. Louis. It’s affluent, the crime rate is nearly non-existent, and the population is mostly white. Having Cortez and Luther up was a huge reminder of how Jesus unites us. Only the gospel can bring together a random guy from Wheaton, IL and two sophomore high schoolers from East St. Louis together.  As the Apostle Paul writes, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” In other words, Jesus breaks down the religious, racial, ethnic, geographic, and economic barriers that would otherwise separate us. He completely shatters the hostility that exists between us (Ephesians 2). I think Cortez and Luther coming up to Wheaton was a picture of how Christ has broken down certain barriers for all of us. It was a beautiful scene to be sitting around a table, sharing meals with each other, learning from one another, and mutually enjoying good fellowship with one another. There are many differences that exist between us, but in Christ, we are one. We are united under the good news of Jesus. Praise God for the way he not only reconciles us to God, but also reconciles us to each other!

 I think the coolest thing about the weekend was simply the opportunity for Cortez, Luther and I to mutually share in each other’s lives’. Shane and I spend a great deal of time in East St. Louis. We are at the school, in the kids’ neighborhoods, on the football field. We have tons of opportunities to share in their life. This weekend was such a great chance to have two guys share and be a part of my life. I can’t even describe how blessed I have been through guys like Cortez and Luther, and in particular, how much of a blessing it was to have them spend the weekend with my family. This weekend wasn’t a one-way exchange. I can recall how Cortez was able to play the piano with my nana (Grandma). At one point, she was improvising Amazing Grace on the piano while Cortez was belting out the words. Imagine that! An 86 year old Italian women from the south side of Chicago collaborating with a 17 year old African-American from East St. Louis to play a rendition of Amazing Grace. It was priceless! It was also cool to see the way in which Cortez and Luther were able to encourage the many people they met this past weekend. Their stories, and the evident ways in which God is working in their lives were such a blessing to those who they met. This weekend certainly was not a one-way exchange. Rather, I’d argue Cortez and Luther were much more of a blessing to my family and I than we were to them. Their courage in traveling up to a completely foreign place, to stay with a bunch of strangers is not only commendable, but is an inspiration. I am thankful for these guys!

The Sheer Excitement of Knowing God

Brought to my attention by Danny Hindman:

Here is Jim Elliot's final diary entry. Talk about a guy who had tasted the sweetness of knowing God. I long for this kind of affection for Christ and am convicted at my own lack of passion.

It is exalting, delicious, to stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree, with the wind tugging at your coattails, and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and give oneself again to God -- what more could a man ask?  Oh the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!  I care not if I never raise my voice again for him, if only I may love him, please him...if only I may see him, touch his garments, and smile into his eyes -- ah then, not stars...shall matter, only himself. 

 

O Jesus, Master and Center and End of all, how long before that glory is yours which has so long awaited you?  Now there is no thought of you among men; then there shall be thought for nothing else.  Now other men are praised; then none shall care for any other's merits.  Hasten, hasten, Glory of Heaven, take your crown, subdue your kingdom, enthrall your creatures. 

Luke 9: 23-24

"If anyone would come after me, 

let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 

For whoever would save his life will lose it, 

but whoever loses his life for my sake wills save it."

Luke 9:23-24

I remember reading this passage on a late night in the summer of 2004. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school, and it was around this time that God began to overwhelmingly grip my heart with the gospel. God used this passage in a special way to bring me to faith and to convince me of what it meant to be a Christian. 

Reflecting on this passage now, I am once again reminded of God's radical call on his disciples. There is no such thing as a nominal Christian. There is no such thing as domesticated disciple. Following Jesus may not cost you your physical life, but it will cost you everything. Growing as a disciple of Jesus means increasingly denying yourself, and increasingly finding your life in him. It is not a half-hearted thing. It's not a both/and. It is either/or. Either you are following Jesus and are living as one of his disciples, or you are not. To most ears, the call to deny yourself, lose your life, and die is a ridiculous call. It is unreasonable. But in the words of my favorite professor, "Reasonableness is one of the greatest enemies of Christian discipleship." 

When you let go of yourself and cling solely to Jesus, then there is true life. When you are denying your cross and following Jesus wherever he leads you, then there is true joy. I praise God for gripping my heart in the summer of 2004. It hasn't been easy, but by losing my life, God has saved me and given me true life. 

The Essense of the Christian Faith

"The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our past or present, but Christ's past and present.

'How then does it work?' It works like this. God accepts this righteousness of Christ, this perfect righteousness face to face with the Law, which He honored in every respect. He has kept it and given obedience to it [through his perfect life], and he has borne its penalty [through his death]. The Law is fully satisfied. God's way of salvation, says Paul, is that. He gives to us the righteousness of Christ. If we have seen our need and go to God and confess it, God will give us his own Son's righteousness. He imputes Christ's righteousness to us, who believe in Him, and regards us as righteous, and declares and pronounces us to be righteous in Him. That is the way of salvation, the Christian way of salvation...

To make it quite practical let me say that there is a very simple way of testing yourself to know whether you believe that... [After] I have explained the way of justification...to them, then I say: 'Well, then, you are now ready to say that you are a Christian?' And they hesitate. And I know they have not understood. Then I say: 'What is the matter, why are you hesitating?' And they say: 'I do not feel that I am good enough.' At once I know that in a sense I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian, good enough to be accepted with Christ. They have to do it! 'I am not good enough.' It sounds very modest, but it is the lie of the devil, it is a denial of the faith... The essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!

As long as you go on thinking about yourself and saying: 'Ah, yes, I would like to, but I am not good enough; I am a sinner, a great sinner,' you are denying God and you will never be happy. You will continue to be cast down and disquieted. You will think you are better at times and then again you will find that you are not as good as you thought you were... How can I put this plainly? It does not matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell, if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin, it does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God. You are no more hopeless than the most respectable...person in the world. Do you believe that?"  

D.M. Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression

The Gospel Journey

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross."

Colossians 2:13-14

As Tullian Tchividjian puts it in his book, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, this is the Gospel journey. It is a journey from being dead, to being made alive. It is a journey of being under the guilt and shame of our trespasses, to being forgiven. The Christian life is not primarily one of trying to fix ourselves so as to make ourselves look clean. Rather, it is realizing we are not clean, and trusting solely in the work of Jesus on our behalf. The Christian life is gazing more intently upon the One who canceled our debt that stood against us and who triumphed over the powers of evil. The Christian life is growing in gospel-awareness. At the cross, Jesus accomplished our forgiveness, our life, our deliverance. He did what we could never do ourselves. 

I don't really like new years resolutions, so I'm not going to call this a new years resolution. But, as we begin this new year, I am making it my aim to grow in a deeper heart understanding of this Gospel. I want to know more fully the all encompassing sufficiency of Christ's work on my behalf.  All the acceptance, security, approval, status, love, and life that I consistently long for, in Christ, I already have. My hope is to become increasingly saturated with this truth. 

Beyond Description!

"What Christ acquired by this sacrifice is beyond description. For himself he acquired by it his entire exaltation, his resurrection, his ascension to heaven, his seating at the right hand of God, his elevation as head of the church, the name that is above every name, the glory of the mediator, power over all things in heaven and on earth, the final judgement. In addition he acquired for his own, for humanity, for the world, an interminable series of blessings. In his person he is himself the sum of all those blessings: the light of the world (John 8:12), the true bread (6:35), the true vine (15:1), the way, the truth, the resurrection, and the life (11:25; 14:6), our wisdom, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30), our peace (Ephesians 2:14), the firstborn and the firstfruits who is followed by many others (Romans 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:23), the second and last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the head of the church (Eph. 1:22), the cornerstone of the temple of God (Eph. 2:20); and for that reason there is no participation in his benefits except by communion with his person."


Herman Bavinck, "Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ", 339. 


Great point by Bavinck at the end of the paragraph. None of the benefits of these glorious blessings are possible apart from a living union with the Son of God, by grace, through faith. 

The Result of Our Adoption

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God"

Romans 8:14

Adoption is one of most glorious doctrines in the Christian faith. It is also one that makes Christianity unique from other religions. Most religions in a general sense teach that if we follow some code of rules or perform certain rituals, then we are good with God. He is then beholden to bless or favor us. However, Christianity teaches that there is nothing we could ever do to earn God's favor and that we are enslaved to sin, unable to free ourselves. We are too far gone, lost, and without hope. Yet, from eternities past, God had a marvelous plan to bring lost humanity back to him. He had a plan for cosmic redemption, in which lost, hopeless, broken sinners would be supernaturally adopted into God's family. The gospel is essentially how God has redeemed His people from the bondage and penalty of sin, and has then brought them into His family. He has done this through his Son Jesus. We are adopted by being inseparably united to Jesus. This adoption is not temporary, but eternal. It is not conditional, but unconditional. It is not breakable, but unbreakable. We don't maintain our status as adopted children by good works, or performance, rather we are fully considered sons or daughters of Christ because of Christ's finished work. This is our assurance. 

And what is the result of our adoption in Christ.....

• Every spiritual blessing in Him (Ephesians 1:3)
• Forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7)
• United to Christ and indwelled with God's Holy Spirit (Romans 8:15)
• God is now our Father to whom we have intimate access (Romans 8:15)
• God assures of our salvation (Romans 8:16)
• We have a family inheritance (Romans 8:17)
• We have a family resemblance (Romans 8:14,17)
• We receive fatherly discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11)
• We have a sure hope in our final redemption (Romans 8:19-24)

God All-Sufficient

O Lord of Grace...

Accept His worthiness for my unworthiness,
his sinlessness for my transgressions,
his purity for my uncleanliness,
his sincerity for my guile,
his truth for my deceits,
his meekness for my pride,
his constancy for my backslidings,
his love for my enmity,
his fullness for my emptiness,
his faithfulness for my treachery,
his obedience for my lawlessness,
his glory for my shame,
his devotedness for my waywardness,
his holy life for my unchaste ways,
his righteousness for my dead works,
his death for my life.

-Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

Observation # 4: Justification is Rooted in Our Union With Christ

We are only able to receive the benefits of Christ through our present union with Him. Because we are united to Him, we are seen as if we achieved His righteousness. The imputation of Christ's righteous to us finds its roots in our union to him. The Bible comes back to this teaching time and time again. Here are just a few verses that talk about our justification being 'in him', which is the equivilent to being united in Christ.

"It is because of him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God- that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30

"God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might became the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

"...that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." Philippians 3:8-9

These 3 verses specifically refer to our righteousness before God, that is, our justification, as being rooted in our present union with Christ. It is 'in him' that we have attained a righteousness. We receive this righteousness because we are in him. 

Jesus Our Benefactor

From 'Valley of Vision'.

My dear Lord,

I depend wholly on thee,

wean from me all other dependencies.

Though are my all, thou dost overrule all and delight in me.

Thou art the foundation of goodness,

how can I distrust thee?

how be anxious about what happens to me?

In the light of thy preciousness the world

and all its enjoyments are infinitely poor:

I value the favor of men no more than pebbles.

Amid the blessings I receive from thee

may I never lose the heart of a stranger. 

May I love thee, my benefactor, in all my benefits,

not forgetting that my greatest danger arises from all my advantages.

Produce in me self-despair that will make Jesus precious to me,

delightful in all his offices,

pleasurable in all his ways,

and may I love his commands as well as his promises.

Help me to discern between true and false love, 

the one consisting of supreme love to thee, the other not,

the former uniting thy glory and man's happiness

that they may become a common interest,

the latter disjointing and separating them both,

seeking the latter with neglect of the former.

Teach me that genuine love is different in kind 

from that wrought by rational arguments or the motive of self-interest,

that such love is a pleasing passion affording joy to the mind where it is.

Grant me grace to distinguish between the genuine and the false,

and to rest in thee who are all love. 

A great prayer for this morning. That we would lean more wholly upon Christ and trust in His benefits and that Jesus would be increasingly precious to us. 

There is Only One Good Guy

A great post from my close friend Dan Orr

My little guy Isaac loves playing good guys vs. bad guys.  The game usually ends up with him tackling Lily, his little sister. For whatever reason, he talks about good guys and bad guys all the time.  Here’s a gospel truth that I share with him that you’ll hopefully be encouraged by:

1. We’re all bad guys.
2. There was only one truly good guy that has ever lived.
3. That one good guy has declared that his bad guys are now good, and he’s now on a mission to make them good like himself.

Of No Value

"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations-"Do no handle, Do not taste, Do not touch"(referring to things that all perish as they are used)-according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh" Colossians 2: 20-23

Paul writes to the Colossians asking why they are still falling under the 'elemental' spirits of the world. The phrase 'elemental spirits' comes from a word meaning 'order', specifically, 'alphabetical order'. So in other words, Paul is asking why the Colossian Christians are following the ABC's of the world, as if the orders or regulations of the world can give life. What are the ABC's of the world? What is the world 'order'? Given the following verses, I think Paul is referring to the worlds system of religion. Religion is obeying God in order that He will accept you. Religion is trying to climb a ladder to heaven. Religion is finding comfort in your goodness. Religion is sin management. It's like putting a band aid on a gaping open wound. Religion is lifeless.

In verse 23, Paul states that the ABC's of the world, mans system of being right with God indeed has the appearance of wisdom. It looks good. They have the appearance of piety. Yet, as Paul goes on in chapter 3, true life comes from our union with Christ, wherein we are given a new self. Because the Colossians are united to Christ, just as he has been raised, they too are raised to newness of life. Because Christ died to sin, so they too are dead to sin. Their lives are hidden with Christ. (ch. 3). Why then would they spend their time following the ABC's of the world, trying to get to God by religion? It is of value. They must look to their union with Christ. They must look at the work of another. Everything in the Christian life flows from this.

This makes me ask myself, in what ways am I looking to self-made religion in order to move closer to God. Am I depending on the ABC's of the world for my justification, sanctification, redemption and wisdom? In what ways am I using religion as a cover up, to give the appearance of asceticism? In what ways do I try to look good so people and God will approve of me? This is of no value. This is lifeless. What is of value is Christ. He is the only one who can give life to a dead corpse. True life is found in Him only. And, we aren't to just look to Christ for our 1 time conversion event, where we are given new life. We are to look for Him for life everyday. Our present union with Christ is the grounds for everything in this Christian life.