Self-Indulging Work Will Too Pass, Soon

"And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 2: 10-11

Adoration and Action

"There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God's might deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or by actively doing evil. Only those who help the Jews may sing the Gregorian chant, Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly said, in the context of Nazi Germany...Without action in the world, the adoration of God is empty and hypocritical, and degenerates into irresponsible and godless quietism."

Miroslav Volf, "Reflections on a Christian Way of Being-in-the-World," in Worship: Adoration and Action, 211. 

Piper and Keller on Justification, Sanctification, and the Dynamics of Faith

Great stuff from two guys who have had a huge influence on my life. This was originally posted on Desiring God.

Busyness and Prayer

"Tomorrow I plan to work, work from early until late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer."

-Martin Luther

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"Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray. That is a great mistake, for praying is a saving of time."

-Charles H. Spurgeon

You're Free to Stay Put

HT: Tullian Tchividjian

"Martin Luther was once approached by a man who enthusiastically announced that he’d recently become a Christian. Wanting desperately to serve the Lord, he asked Luther, “What should I do now?” As if to say, should he become a minister or perhaps a traveling evangelist. A monk, perhaps.

Luther asked him, “What is your work now?”

“I’m a shoe maker.”

Much to the cobbler’s surprise, Luther replied, “Then make a good shoe, and sell it at a fair price.”

In becoming a Christian, we don’t need to retreat from the vocational calling we already have—nor do we need to justify that calling, whatever it is, in terms of its “spiritual” value or evangelistic usefulness. We simply exercise whatever our calling is with new God-glorifying motives, goals, and standards—and with a renewed commitment to performing our calling with greater excellence and higher objectives.

One way we reflect our Creator is by being creative right where we are with the talents and gifts he has given us. As Paul says, “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God” (1 Corinthians 7:20,24). As we do this, we fulfill our God-given mandate to reform, to beautify, our various “stations” for God’s glory–giving this world an imperfect preview of the beautification that will be a perfect, universal actuality when Jesus returns to finish what he started.

For church leaders, this means that we make a huge mistake when we define a person’s “call” in terms of participation inside the church—nursery work, Sunday school teacher, youth worker, music leader, and so on. We need to help our people see that their calling is much bigger than how much time they put into church matters. By reducing the notion of calling to the exercise of spiritual gifts inside the church, we fail to help our people see that calling involves everything we are and everything we do—both inside and, more importantly, outside the church.

I once heard Os Guinness address a question about why the church in the late 20th century was not having a larger impact in our world when there were more people going to church than ever before. He said the main reason was not that Christians weren’t where they should be. There are plenty of artists, lawyers, doctors, and business owners that are Christians. Rather, the main reason is that Christians aren’t who they should be right where they are.

“Calling”, he said, “is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction.”

So, you’re free to stay put, right where you are."

Confession of Our Righteousness

O Lord, we confess our righteousness

Those thoughts, words and deeds that have taken our eyes off of Christ and His finished work

And put them on ourselves.

We have fooled ourselves into seeing our obedience as a substitute for your perfection.

We have failed to see that even our best works are as filthy rags in your sight.

Father, we confess that we have deserted your Gospel.

We have made a mockery of the Cross.

For the sake of your great name,

have mercy on us.

Refresh us with your love,

that we may remain fixed on Jesus alone.

The Object of our faith: Jesus

I often think if I want to know God better, I best pray harder, read scripture longer and do more work. I put the burden on myself to make it happen. However, I believe seeking to grow as a Christian is not the same as supplementing Christ with religiosity. That is a totally different gospel.

The gospel is...

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

(Romans 3:23-27)

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John Calvin writes about Rom. 4:5 in his Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans...

"Some haves stumbled at this sentence - "his faith is counted for righteousness," and have misapplied it, as though faith were in itself the cause of righteousness, and hence a meritorious act, and not the way and means of attaining righteousness...hence, what is believed, or the object of faith, is what is counted for righteousness."

....

As we seek to grow in our faith, may we not look inwardly to ourselves, but outwardly to Jesus, and what he has done for us all by grace. May we refocus our vision from trying to improve our faith, to the object of our faith itself, Jesus Christ. By humbly clinging to Christ in faith and embracing His saving work on the cross, we are freed from the need to functionally save ourselves by doing more. In other words, may we continue to trust we are completely loved, accepted and justified before God in Christ Jesus already. For now, we are freed to obey, not in order to improve, but in a spirit of thankfulness, because we are united with Christ. In essence, may we allow our finished justification to fuel our daily sanctification.

The verdict is already in...may we grow in this truth as we look to Christ for everything.