The Normal Christian Life - Chapter Two

Here are some quotes from chapter two:

But here is our problem. We were born sinners; how then can we cut off our sinful heredity? Seeing that we were born in Adam, how can we get out of Adam? Let me say at once, the Blood cannot take us out of Adam. There is only one way. Since we came in by birth we must go out by death. To do away with our sinfulness we must do away with our life. Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death—and it is just this way of escape that God has provided. Death is the secret of emancipation. “We... died to sin” (Romans 6:2).

But how can we die? Some of us have tried very hard to get rid of this sinful life, but we have found it most tenacious. What is the way out? It is not by trying to kill ourselves, but by recognizing that God has dealt with us in Christ. This is summed up in the apostle’s next statement: “All we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3).

But if God has dealt with us ‘in Christ Jesus’ then we have got to be in Him for this to become effective, and that now seems just as big a problem. How are we to ‘get into’ Christ? Here again God comes to our help. We have in fact no way of getting in, but, what is more important, we need not try to get in, for we are in. What we could not do for ourselves God has done for us. He has put us into Christ. Let me remind you of I Corinthians 1:30. I think that is one of the best verses of the whole New Testament: ‘Ye are in Christ’. How? “Of him (that is, ‘of God’) are ye in Christ.” Praise God! it is not left to us either to devise a way of entry or to work it out. We need not plan how to get in. God has planned it; and He has not only planned it but He has also performed it. ‘Of him are ye in Christ Jesus’. We are in; therefore we need not try to get in. It is a Divine act, and it is accomplished.

Now if this is true, certain things follow. In the illustration from Hebrews 7 which we considered above we saw that ‘in Abraham’ all Israel—and therefore Levi who was not yet born—offered tithes to Melchizedek. They did not offer separately and individually, but they were in Abraham when he offered, and his offering included all his seed. This, then, is a true figure of ourselves as ‘in Christ’. When the Lord Jesus was on the Cross all of us died—not individually, for we had not yet been born—but, being in Him, we died in Him. “One died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14). When He was crucified all of us were crucified.

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“Of him are ye in Christ Jesus.” The Lord God Himself has put us in Christ, and in His dealing with Christ God has dealt with the whole race. Our destiny is bound up with His. What He has gone through we have gone through, for to be ‘in Christ’ is to have been identified with Him in both His death and resurrection. He was crucified: then what about us? Must we ask God to crucify us? Never! When Christ was crucified we were crucified; and His crucifixion is past, therefore ours cannot be future. I challenge you to find one text in the New Testament telling us that our crucifixion is in the future. All the references to it are in the Greek aorist, which is the ‘once-for-all’ tense, the ‘eternally past’ tense. (See: Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20; 5:24; 6:14). And just as no man could ever commit suicide by crucifixion, for it were a physical impossibility to do so, so also, in spiritual terms, God does not require us to crucify ourselves. We were crucified when He was crucified, for God put us there in Him. That we have died in Christ is not merely a doctrinal position, it is an eternal fact.

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The Lord Jesus, when He died on the Cross, shed His Blood, thus giving His sinless life to atone for our sin and to satisfy the righteousness and holiness of God. To do so was the prerogative of the Son of God alone. No man could have a share in that. The Scripture has never told us that we shed our blood with Christ. In His atoning work before God He acted alone; no other could have a part. But the Lord did not die only to shed His Blood: He died that we might die. He died as our Representative. In His death He included you and me.

We often use the terms ‘substitution’ and ‘identification’ to describe these two aspects of the death of Christ. Now many a time the use of the word ‘identification’ is good. But identification would suggest that the thing begins from our side: that I try to identify myself with the Lord. I agree that the word is true, but it should be used later on. It is better to begin with the fact that the Lord included me in His death. It is the ‘inclusive’ death of the Lord which puts me in a position to identify myself, not that I identify myself in order to be included. It is God’s inclusion of me in Christ that matters. It is something God has done. For that reason those two New Testament words “in Christ” are always very dear to my heart.

The death of the Lord Jesus is inclusive. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is alike inclusive. We have looked at the first chapter of I Corinthians to establish the fact that we are “in Christ Jesus”. Now we will go to the end of the same letter to see something more of what this means. In I Corinthians 15:45,47 two remarkable names or titles are used of the Lord Jesus. He is spoken of there as “the last Adam” and He is spoken of too as “the second man”. Scripture does not refer to Him as the second Adam but as “the last Adam”; nor does it refer to Him as the last Man, but as “the second man”. The distinction is to be noted, for it enshrines a truth of great value.

As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second Man He is the Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one relating to His death and the other to His resurrection. In the first place His union with the race as “the last Adam” began historically at Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the tomb. In it He gathered up into Himself all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death. In the second place our union with Him as “the second man” begins in resurrection and ends in eternity—which is to say, it never ends—for, having in His death done away with the first man in whom God’s purpose was frustrated, He rose again as Head of a new race of men, in whom that purpose shall be fully realized.

When therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, He was crucified as the last Adam. All that was in the first Adam was gathered up and done away in Him. We were included there. As the last Adam He wiped out the old race; as the second Man He brings in the new race. It is in His resurrection that He stands forth as the second Man, and there too we are included. “For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:5). We died in Him as the last Adam; we live in Him as the second Man. The Cross is thus the power of God which translates us from Adam to Christ.

The Blood of God - Octavius Winslow

It would seem impossible, by any illustration or argument, to over-estimate the intrinsic value of Christ's atoning blood. There are some things in religion of which we may entertain a too exalted and exaggerated conception. For example, we may have too high a view of the Church of Christ, exalting it above Christ Himself. We may hold too exaggerated and too exclusive views of Church ordinances, displacing and magnifying them, substituting their observance for vital religion, for a change of heart, for faith in Christ exclusively for justification. But no such danger lies in our study of the blood of Christ. Here our views cannot be too high, our contemplation too profound, our hearts too loving and adoring.

Consider for a moment, beloved, the ends that were accomplished by the shedding of Christ's blood. We often estimate the value of a mean by the end it secures. The Atonement of Christ was to meet the claims of God's moral government. By man's sin its holiness had been invaded, its authority contemned, its sanctions, laws, and commands outraged. Over all its glory a cloud had passed. God's eternal purpose was to save man. But He could save him only by an expedient that would remove that cloud and cause the glory it shaded to shine forth with deeper and more resplendent luster. The expedient that would thus meet the claims of the Divine government must be Divine. The Atonement that would link justice with mercy, and holiness with love, in the salvation of the Church, must be infinite in its character, and priceless in its worth. Such, in a few words, were the two grand ends to be secured, and which were secured, by the offering up of the Lord Jesus Christ. Viewed only in this light, how precious does the blood of Christ appear! Blood that could harmonize the Divine attributes—uphold the righteousness of the Divine government, making it honorable and glorious in God to save sinful man—must be precious.

It is precious blood, because it is virtually the 'blood of God.' This is a strong but a scriptural expression. Paul, in his parting address to the Ephesian elders, employs it—"The Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." This it is which stamps the atoning blood of the Savior with such dignity and virtue—it is the blood of Jehovah-Jesus. It possesses all the worth and glory of the Godhead—all the divine virtue and efficacy of the Deity. From this it derived its power to satisfy, its virtue to atone, its efficacy to cleanse. And this is the reason why one drop of this precious blood, falling upon a sin-burdened conscience, in a moment dissolves the weighty load, and fills the soul with joy and peace in believing. And this is why there exists not a stain of human guilt which the atoning blood of Immanuel cannot utterly and forever efface. Why, in a word, it is blood that "cleanses from ALL sin."

Taken from The Precious Things of God by Octavius Winslow

HT: Grace Gems

A Book I Want my Friends to Read

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I recently read Revolution in World Missions, by K.P. Yohannan. Please hear me out. It was very good. If you have ever had a desire to be a missionary or to support missionaries in some way (which I hope you do), this book would be well worth reading. For those of you familiar with HeartCry, K.P.'s ministry is similar in many ways. The biggest similarity is his advocating indigenous missionaries.

The book for me was good in at least three ways. One, it opened my eyes to more of what the Lord is doing in the 10/40 window. Two, it's message continues to convict me of my lack of sharing material resources that God has blessed me with just by nature of the fact that I was born in the US. I don't want to be an ungrateful and materialistic hog! Three, it has really made me rethink mission endeavors even more than the rethinking I did when I was in college.

And, ok, due to my love and appreciation for Paul Washer, I have got to share this bit of insider info. Hopefully, you hearing about it will want to make you read the book as much as it made me want to read it. One of the biggest reasons why I read the book was because I have a friend that works for Gospel for Asia (K.P.'s ministry) who also knows Paul. He said when he talked to Paul in person asking him if he had read the book or knew of K.P. Yohannan, Paul said that this book was actually sent to him when he was a missionary in Peru. He said he received the book in a package with no return address and reading it was what made him decide to start HeartCry! If you get the book don't be fooled by it's attractive professional cover. It was originally printed in 1986. Needless to say, the link to HeartCry brought it close to home for me and I knew I had to read the book. It has in fact turned out to be very stirring for me.

My friends please read the book. If you want I'll get you a copy. Just let me know.

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These are what seemed to be his main points, of which, by the way he has won me over:

• Westerners are materialistic and outside of the will of God. Christians need to be purposeful and thoughtful not to adopt the mindset of the culture around them. By and large, Christians in the west are not doing a good job in this area.

"In 1998, personal expenditures in the United States averaged $19,049 per person, of which $1,276 (6.7 percent) went for food, leaving a comfortable $17,773 for other expenses. In India, the average person had only $276 to spend, of which $134 (48.4 percent) went for food, leaving a scant $142 for other needs for the entire year.

"To my horror, the food and "fellowship" frequently cost more than the money they had just given to missions."

"American families routinely eat enough meat at one meal to feed an Asian family for a week."

"Throughout Scripture, we see only one correct response to abundance: sharing."

"If all of your concern is about your own life, your job, your clothes, your children's good clothes, healthy bodies, a good education, a good job and marriage, then your concerns are no different from someone who is lost in Bhutan, Myanmar or India."

"I believe most Asian Christians give a far greater portion of their income to missions than do Westerners."

• Indigenous missionaries by and large do a better job of evangelizing their countries than western missionaries.

"There was a time when Western missionaries needed to go into these countries in which the Gospel was not preached. But now a new era has begun, and it is important that we officially acknowledge this. God has raised up indigenous leaders who are more capable than outsiders to finish the job."

"Today it is outrageously extravagant to send North American missionaries overseas unless there are compelling reasons to do so. From a strictly financial standpoint, sending American missionaries overseas is one of the most questionable investments we can make."

"It is hard for some to hear me reinterpret the stories told by Western missionaries of hardship and fruitless ministry as indicators of outdated and inappropriate methods."

• Social "gospel" efforts that don't make preaching the gospel primary are in fact not gospel efforts.

"I met poor, often minimally educated, native brothers involved in Gospel work in pioneer areas. They had nothing material to offer the people to whom they preached -- no agricultural training and no medical relief or school program. But hundreds of souls were saved..."

"To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted life of a drug addict is to see the evidence of Satan's hold on this world. He is the ultimate enemy of mankind, and he will do everything within his considerable power to kill and destroy people. But to try to fight this terrible enemy with only physical weapons is like fighting tanks with stones."

• The indigenous missionaries to the 10/40 window are very poor and often going without food and witnessing materials. Therefore affluent western Christians should support them.

"Why can't we at least earmark 10% of our Christian giving for the cause of world evangelism?"

"There are, of course, many other ways to get involved. Some cannot give more financially, but they can invest time in prayer and help recruit more sponsors. And a few are called to go overseas to become more directly involved."

• There were also many many eye opening statistics about the sheer number of people who die every day in the 10/40 window without ever having heard the name of Jesus. These countries have way more people than the US and way less gospel witness.

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If any of this seems unbalanced, please just read the book. I didn't pick any quotes on the balanced side of things, and there are some important ones believe me.

Jesus Idealized by Cult Followers

I talked to a girl on campus yesterday. She was very closed off to submitting to God, especially the Christian God, but was quite open to talking about how closed off she was. I tried to plead and reason with her in every way that I thought could be helpful. I told her about her sin of not loving God and centering her universe around herself. I tried to expose the fallacy of her claiming that there were no absolute standards of right and wrong (by appealing to the Holocaust, which actually seemed to strike a chord with her). I tried to show her that she wasn't living up to her own standard of right and wrong even by her own definition. She wouldn't budge. I told her she had no idea the kind of danger she was in and I told her that I hoped at some point soon she would realize her great need for God and seek the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ.

Out of all her objections, one stuck out to me (and is the purpose of this post). She said, after having grown up in church, the Christian message was totally lacking for her. The best she could figure as to the origin of the gospels was that Jesus probably said and taught a lot of good things, but like so many “cult-followings” (and she actually apologized for associating Jesus with being a cult leader) Jesus was probably just idealized to the extreme by his disciples, even to the place where they were willing to die for him. After all, many cult-followers will go through terrible things to follow their leaders.

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This proposal as to the origin of Christianity a very common one. “Jesus was a good teacher and nice guy but his disciples blew him out of proportion after his death because they were so obsessed with him.”

Here is the problem. Jesus is too great. Read about his life, the things he said and taught, the things he claimed for himself, the fulfillment of prophecies, the unparalleled morality he laid down, his sinlessness and compassion for the outcasts. It's all too much. As Phillip Schaff (and Charles Leiter) have pointed out, it would take someone as great as Jesus to invent Jesus. See the problem here? Not even the greatest religious gurus could have invented him, and the disciples weren't even close to being gurus. They were fishermen!

And then the whole question of motivation should be considered. If their motivation was to make money or gain power, perhaps it could be true that a religious genius could have conceived of Jesus. But the “inventors” of Jesus knew going into it that they were going to die for their faith. The only way that a person can idealize and inflate a normal person so much that they are willing to follow them to their death is if they are out of their mind. But if they are out of their mind followers, they would not be sane or genius enough to invent Jesus now would they?

So by examining the impossibility of coming up with the greatness of his person, and by examining the issue of motivation, her proposal is totally unreasonable. What is very straightforward and reasonable however is that Jesus himself really was as great as he is claimed to be because he was indeed the Son of God and that's why his fishermen disciples had the motivation to follow him to death. Who was leaping into the dark here, her or I?

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Now, did I tell her this? No. She didn't need to hear more arguments. Again, she definitely had a heart issue, and that's what I tried to press home. I'm learning not to wrangle with people in this manner when witnessing. When you are dealing with a person bound up in lies and self-deceit a lot of times what they need is the truth in raw form, straight from the word of God. Don't try to massage it too much.

Nevertheless, these things can be good for Christians to think about. Hopefully it encourages you all to think about the great Lord that we follow. He's beyond creation.

Paul Washer on Being Relevant

I was preaching somewhere in a town of 5,000 people and this guy [who was a street preacher] . . . had earrings and everything and hair all moussed and all this stuff because man, he was working the street. . . . He’s the dude, he’s the man you know, Serpico for Jesus type thing . . . and he’s like you don’t understand, you’re in context, you know, you’re preaching . . . [And I said] look, I worked inner city Dallas, I lived with male prostitutes, alright? And I’ll tell you how I dressed: I wore a pair of blue jeans, tennis shoes, a shirt, and my hair was combed. ‘Cause I want to be honest with you, those guys down there selling their bodies and the other guy’s selling drugs, and the girls dying of AIDS, they could care less whether I looked like them or not. What they wanted was someone who loved them. So that whole idea of you gotta look like them to be relevant–no, you gotta love them to be relevant.

- Paul Washer

HT: RN

Thoughts From Tozer

"We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum."
-A.W. Tozer

So much for "engaging culture".

HT: Reformed Voices

More From "The Normal Christian Life"

Here is a bit more from chapter one. These are longer quotes, but well worth reading all the way through:

Every one of us knows what a precious thing it is to have a conscience void of offense in our dealings with God. A heart of faith and a conscience clear of any and every accusation are both equally essential to us, since they are interdependent. As soon as we find our conscience is uneasy our faith leaks away and immediately we find we cannot face God. In order therefore to keep going on with God we must know the up-to-date value of the Blood. God keeps short accounts, and we are made nigh by the Blood every day, every hour and every minute. It never loses its efficacy as our ground of access if we will but lay hold upon it. When we enter the most Holy Place, on what ground dare we enter but by the Blood?

But I want to ask myself, am I really seeking the way into the Presence of God by the Blood or by something else? What do I mean when I say, ‘by the Blood’? I mean simply that I recognize my sins, that I confess that I have need of cleansing and of atonement, and that I come to God on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus. I approach God through His merit alone, and never on the basis of my attainment; never, for example, on the ground that I have been extra kind or patient today, or that I have done something for the Lord this morning. I have to come by way of the Blood every time. The temptation to so many of us when we try to approach God is to think that because God has been dealing with us—because He has been taking steps to bring us into something more of Himself and has been teaching us deeper lessons of the Cross—He has thereby set before us new standards, and that only by attaining to these can we have a clear conscience before Him. No! A clear conscience is never based upon our attainment; it can only be based on the work of the Lord Jesus in the shedding of His Blood.

I may be mistaken, but I feel very strongly that some of us are thinking in terms such as these: ‘Today I have been a little more careful; today I have been doing a little better; this morning I have been reading the Word of God in a warmer way, so today I can pray better!’ Or again, ‘Today I have had a little difficulty with the family; I began the day feeling very gloomy and moody; I am not feeling too bright now; it seems that there must be something wrong; therefore I cannot approach God.’

What, after all, is your basis of approach to God? Do you come to Him on the uncertain ground of your feeling, the feeling that you may have achieved something for God today? Or is your approach based on something far more secure, namely, the fact that the Blood has been shed, and that God looks on that Blood and is satisfied? Of course, were it conceivably possible for the Blood to suffer any change, the basis of your approach to God might be less trustworthy. But the Blood has never changed and never will. Your approach to God is therefore always in boldness; and that boldness is yours through the Blood and never through your personal attainment. Whatever be your measure of attainment today or yesterday or the day before, as soon as you make a conscious move into the Most Holy Place, immediately you have to take your stand upon the safe and only ground of the shed Blood. Whether you have had a good day or a bad day, whether you have consciously sinned or not, your basis of approach is always the same—the Blood of Christ. That is the ground upon which you may enter, and there is no other.

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What then of our attitude to Satan? This is important, for he accuses us not only before God but in our own conscience also. ‘You have sinned, and you keep on sinning. You are weak, and God can have nothing more to do with you.’ This is his argument. And our temptation is to look within and in self-defense to try to find in ourselves, in our feelings or our behavior, some ground for believing that Satan is wrong. Alternatively we are tempted to admit our helplessness and, going to the other extreme, to yield to depression and despair. Thus accusation becomes one of the greatest and most effective of Satan’s weapons. He points to our sins and seeks to charge us with them before God, and if we accept his accusations we go down immediately.

Now the reason why we so readily accept his accusations is that we are still hoping to have some righteousness of our own. The ground of our expectation is wrong. Satan has succeeded in making us look in the wrong direction. Thereby he wins his point, rendering us ineffective. But if we have learned to put no confidence in the flesh, we shall not wonder if we sin, for the very nature of the flesh is to sin. Do you understand what I mean? It is because we have not come to appreciate our true nature and to see how helpless we are that we still have some expectation in ourselves, with the result that, when Satan comes along and accuses us, we go down under it.

God is well able to deal with our sins; but He cannot deal with a man under accusation, because such a man is not trusting in the Blood. The Blood speaks in his favour, but his is listening instead to Satan. Christ is our Advocate but we, the accused, side with the accuser. We have not recognized that we are unworthy of anything but death; that, as we shall shortly see, we are only fit to be crucified anyway. We have not recognized that it is God alone that can answer the accuser, and that in the precious Blood He has already done so.

Our salvation lies in looking away to the Lord Jesus and in seeing that the Blood of the Lamb has met the whole situation created by our sins and has answered it. That is the sure foundation on which we stand. Never should we try to answer Satan with our good conduct but always with the Blood. Yes, we are sinful, but, praise God! the Blood cleanses us from every sin. God looks upon the Blood whereby His Son has met the charge, and Satan has no more ground of attack. Our faith in the precious Blood and our refusal to be moved from that position can alone silence his charges and put him to flight (Romans 8:33,34); and so it will be, right on to the end (Revelation 12:11). Oh, what an emancipation it would be if we saw more of the value of God’s eyes of the precious Blood of His dear Son!

Clip from "ER"

I wouldn't normally post a clip from a television show on here, but this is really pretty amazing. This is from the show "ER" and shows a hospital chaplain (who is obviously clueless about the gospel) talking to a dying man who has questions about atonement and forgiveness. No commentary is necessary; it speaks for itself:

HT: Justin Taylor

C.J. Mahaney on the Doctrine of Adoption

Here is a wonderful quote by C.J. Mahaney from a sermon on Galatians 4:1-7. I spent a lot of time studying adoption a couple of years ago, and I'm feeling the need to do so again. I'm becoming more and more convinced that it is one of the most important, yet neglected, doctrines for Christians to receive instruction on.

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… Notice God’s purpose was both to redeem and to adopt — “to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (v. 5).

I’m sure you will agree that redeeming us from slavery to sin and the penalty of sin would have been sufficiently astounding. But God’s purpose did not conclude with redemption, it culminated with adoption. He made slaves into sons through the death of His Son. And here in this phrase, and this passage, we encounter the deepest insights into the greatness of God’s love!

Now, historically in Covenant Life Church and Sovereign Grace Ministries, we have taught more on the doctrine of justification than we have on adoption. I don’t think we should ever teach less on the doctrine of justification. I do think we should teach more on the doctrine of adoption. Actually, the doctrine of justification must always remain primary because all saving benefits depend on justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone. One can’t understand adoption apart from justification. Adoption depends on justification. Grasping justification positions us to fully appreciate adoption.

There are those who speak about the Fatherhood of God without reference to the Cross or the doctrine of justification. We cannot, we should not, and we must not, speak of the Fatherhood of God apart from the Cross and apart from the doctrine of justification.

So with those qualifying remarks let us distinguish between justification and adoption without separating justification and adoption. Let’s distinguish between them because they are not the same thing.

Understanding the differences is of critical importance to experiencing adoption. Dr. J.I. Packer helps us understand the difference and has written the following helpful remarks:

“That justification – by which we mean God’s forgiveness of the past, together with his acceptance for the future – is the primary and fundamental blessing of the gospel is not in question. Justification is the primary blessing, because it meets our primary spiritual need. We all stand by nature under God’s judgment; his law condemns us; guilt gnaws at us, making us restless, miserable, and in our lucid moments afraid; we have no peace in ourselves because we have no peace with our Maker. So we need the forgiveness of our sins, and assurance of a restored relationship with God, more than we need anything else in the world; and this the gospel offers us before it offers us anything else. … But contrast this, now, with adoption. Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship – he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater” [Knowing God, pp. 206, 207].

I love that last sentence – “To be right with God the Judge is a great thing.” I just want to say it is indeed “a great thing” to be right with God the Judge through the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is “a great thing” to be forgiven of sin. It is “a great thing” to be freed from fear of future wrath. It is “a great thing” to know this day that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It is “a great thing” to know that on the final day there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. To be right with God the Judge – that is “a great thing”!

But to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater. Now they are inseparable. There is no greater apart from the great. The great precedes the greater. But it’s possible to understand the great and not comprehend and live in the good of the greater.

And if you are right with God the Judge — through the person and work of Jesus Christ — let me just say that is a “great thing”! But as incomprehensible as it is, there is something greater. The greater is to be loved and cared for by God the Father. That’s the greater. This is part of Paul’s burden in this passage, that we not only experience the great (“redeemed”) but the greater (“adoption”).

Do the words closeness, affection, and generosity describe your perception and experience of God? Do they? If not, perhaps you are more aware of your sin than you are the adopting grace of God.

In order to experience more of the love of God, the affection of God, the closeness of God, the generosity of God, I want to recommend that for a season you study the doctrine of adoption until you are assured and secure in the love of God. If you are unfamiliar with the gift of adoption, I want to encourage you to restrict your spiritual diet (if necessary and for a season) to this topic so that you might experience the greatness of God’s love. If you are a Christian and you are not convinced of God’s love for you then I would recommend you confine yourself to this topic. Confine yourself to your study to this passage and other passages that reference adoption. Confine yourself for a season of time to the study of the doctrine of adoption. Immerse yourself in extended study.

HT: Peter Cockrell

Feeding Thousands

some brief thoughts from the miracle accounts of Christ feeding the five and four thousand (Matt. 14 and 15)...

• “You give them something to eat” (14:16). If people are coming to you to be helped spiritually but you don't feel like you have enough to help them, cry out to God. Don't send them away to the world. Ask God for bread to give them (Matt. 7:9, Luke 11:5).

• Jesus has the disciples distribute the bread (15:36). The invisible God has always used prophets and ambassadors to accomplish his work. Our role is to bring people to Jesus, and to give Jesus' bread to others.

• Jesus is full of compassion (15:32). If you draw away from the world to be with him, he won't send you away empty and fainting. He will abundantly provide, so much so to the point of surplus. You will “eat and be satisfied.” He is the bread of life.

• Jesus doesn't create bread out of thin air, nor from stones. God will use and multiply the little that we have. He takes our humble and weak efforts and energizes them with divine life and surrounds them with either supernatural or providentially favorable circumstances to make them effectual. So, for example, if you despair of the usefulness of trying to invite your neighbor to a bible study, just remember that God doesn't.

The Normal Christian Life - Watchman Nee

I've been feeling the need lately for a change of pace in my reading, so I thought I would pick up The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. I received this book several years ago as a gift, but haven't yet taken the time to really dig into it; I trust the time spent in it will be profitable.

I'll try to post some quotes from the book every now and then as I work my way through it. Here are a couple from the first chapter:

God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to every human need—His Son, Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us He works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness: He lives instead of us for our deliverance. So we can speak of two substitutions—a Substitute on the Cross who secures our forgiveness and a Substitute within who secures our victory. It will help us greatly, and save us from much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one way only, namely, by showing us more of His Son.

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It is God’s holiness, God’s righteousness, which demands that a sinless life should be given for man. There is life in the Blood, and that Blood has to be poured out for me, for my sins. God is the One who requires it to be so. God is the One who demands that the Blood be presented, in order to satisfy His own righteousness, and it is He who says: ‘When I see the blood’, I will pass over you.’ The Blood of Christ wholly satisfies God.

Now I desire to say a word at this point to my younger brethren in the Lord, for it is here that we often get into difficulties. As unbelievers we may have been wholly untroubled by our conscience until the Word of God began to arouse us. Our conscience was dead, and those with dead consciences are certainly of no use to God. But later, when we believed, our awakened conscience may have become acutely sensitive, and this can constitute a real problem to us. The sense of sin and guilt can become so great, so terrible, as almost to cripple us by causing us to lose sight of the true effectiveness of the Blood. It seems to us that our sins are so real, and some particular sin may trouble us so many times, that we come to the point where to us our sins loom larger than the Blood of Christ.

Now the whole trouble with us is that we are trying to sense it; we are trying to feel its value and to estimate subjectively what the Blood is for us. We cannot do it; it does not work that way. The Blood is first for God to see. We then have to accept God’s valuation of it. In doing so we shall find our valuation. If instead we try to come to a valuation by way of our feelings we get nothing; we remain in darkness. No, it is a matter of faith in God’s Word. We have to believe that the Blood is precious to God because He says it is so (1 Peter 1:18,19). If God can accept the Blood as a payment for our sins and as the price of our redemption, then we can rest assured that the debt has been paid. If God is satisfied with the Blood, then the Blood must be acceptable. Our valuation of it is only according to His valuation—neither more nor less. It cannot, of course, be more, but it must not be less. Let us remember that He is holy and He is righteous, and that a holy and righteous God has the right to say that the Blood is acceptable in His eyes and has fully satisfied Him.

Paul's Testimony

This meant a lot today.

Grudem Quote

"It is important to remember that this conviction that the words of Scripture are the words of God does not come apart from the words of Scripture or in addition to the words of Scripture. It is not as if the Holy Spirit one day whispers in our ear, "Do you see that Bible sitting on your desk? I want you to know that the words of that Bible are God's words." It is rather as people read Scripture that they hear their Creator's voice speaking to them in the words of Scripture and realize that the book they are reading is unlike any other book, that it is indeed a book of God's own words speaking to their hearts."

-Grudem on "The Authority of Scripture"

Irrepressible Promptings - Lee Irons

Irrepressible Promptings

by Lee Irons

The great Southern Presbyterian theologian, Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898), described prayer as the Christian’s vital breath. Just as you don’t need to be told to breathe, so you don’t need to be commanded to pray. Even when you are not fully conscious of it, if you are regenerate, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, you have ”irrepressible promptings” to talk to your heavenly Father.

Prayer is the vital breath of religion in the soul. It cultivates our sense of dependence and of God’s sovereignty. By confessing our sins, the sense of sin is deepened. By rendering thanks, gratitude is enlivened. By adoring the divine perfections, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory. From all this it is apparent that prayer is the Christian’s vital breath. If God had not required it, the Christian would be compelled to offer it by his own irrepressible promptings. If he were taught to believe that it was not only useless, but wrong, he would doubtless offer it in his heart in spite of himself, even though he were obliged to accompany it with a petition that God would forgive the offering. To have no prayer is, for man, to have no religion.

[Robert L. Dabney, Systematic Theology, p. 716]

The great danger is to turn the duty of prayer into a law that leaves you feeling guilty for your lack of prayer. The paradox of law-based motivations to godliness is that the more guilty you feel, the less you will do what you know you ought to do. And the more you fail, the more guilty you feel. It is the never-ending spiral of law-sin-guilt from which one cannot be extricated apart from the gospel.

So try something new. Follow Dabney’s encouragement and think of prayer as something that you already do without realizing it. Or, perhaps more accurately, as something that your regenerate heart wants to do, if only you would capitalize on those irrepressible promptings from the Spirit and turn them into conscious prayers. Instead of thinking of prayer as something arduous and requiring tremendous amounts of discipline and effort, see it as something easy. As soon as the thought, “I should pray about this,” pops into your heard, do it right then and there. Just talk to the Lord, even if for the briefest moment, even for a second or two (what I call “arrow prayers”).

Even when you have sunk into a pit of spiritual emptiness, where even the thought of trying to crawl out makes you feel exhausted and hopeless, the irrepressible promptings of the Spirit are there, perhaps nothing more than the simple, abject cry, “Lord, help me!” It is not really the case that we are prayerless. It is just that we have such an exalted conception of prayer that we have overlooked the many prayers that we have despised as unworthy of the name of prayer.

HT: Between Two Worlds

Letter To A Friend - Mack Tomlinson

Here's something from a dear brother, Mack Tomlinson:

Letter to a Friend

A friend emailed me recently sharing some thoughts and struggles; here was a brief reply on continuing to grow in grace:

"Yes, the pain of sanctification is always worth going through whatever our Heavenly Father deems to be necessary;

It is right to pray always for an increased sense of God's presence; David surely did pray that way, and yet we also are not to trust our feelings and emotions, which come and go often like the weather;

Yes, I do feel emotionally at times that the Lord is not near; but there is NEVER a great gulf between He and us; IN CHRIST, we are always accepted, always near, and always the delight of His heart; we cannot be closer that we are in reality as to our position and standing before Him; but the sense of His presence and of His near presence does vary; the reality is that only sin can break our fellowship and when we sin, all we need do is confess (agree with God about it) and thank the Lord Jesus that it was already paid for at the cross and come to Him freely and genuinely; we must remember that sin is never, ever credited to our life or account even once; this is the glory of our justification.

When I feel the way you have mentioned, what do I do? I walk by faith alone, trusting in His wonderful promises; and I plead those promises in prayer and believe them; I feed on the Word daily and believe what God has said in it, whether I see or feel the promises to be true; I cry out in my weakness and neediness for grace to help me through; He is faithful and cannot fail His weakest children; faithful is He who called you.

We do not see first in order for the promises to become real; we believe what God has said and then we trust Him to perform it in our experience; the more we feed on the Word- really feed on it as our daily nourishment-- the more our hearts will know Him and the more we will have a heart that beats for His majesty.

As we long for Him and His purposes, He will give us the desires of our heart-- desires for Him more and more; We must ever be brought back to the truth that it is His will to make us into the image of His Son and this purpose cannot be thwarted; it is predestined-- being confident, Paul said, that He who has begun a good work in you, will complete it until the very day of Jesus Christ; God is always at work in us to will AND to do of His good pleasure; faithful is He who called you, who also will do it. So our growth and our sanctification are the work of God the Holy Spirit; it is always a matter of trusting Him for it all;

You might want also to get a couple of good books; Sinclair Ferguson's The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction by Banner of Truth Trust and then Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the Sermon on the Mount; these are wonderful books for growth;

Also be always reading such men as John Piper, R. C. Sproul, A. W. Tozer, E. M. Bounds, Leonard Ravenhill, Lloyd-Jones, Spurgeon, John Bunyan, J. C. Ryle, Ferguson, Iain Murray; they are among some of the best authors ever;

Your attempts to draw near are never futile; He always sees and responds to a hungry and humble heart that feels needy; don't trust your feelings- trust Christ alone-- he is unchanging toward us always- 1 Jn. 5- "And this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He is hearing us; and if we know that He is hearing us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of reading several chapters daily- as many as you can do with your schedule-- and meditate upon them; pray first, then read for the purpose of feeding your soul on your Father's words; when something speaks to you, stop and pray it; write cross references in the margins and ask Him to make His word a delight to you; He will.

If you can discipline yourself to read at least 1- 1/2 hours per day just in the Word, it will make all the difference in your spiritual life; I read 6 chapters in the Old and 6 in the New Testament every day; divide it up and do it systematically; if you can't do that much, then do 4 & 4 or whatever you can consistently; the benefits, encouragement, strength, the knowledge of God, the timely truths, and help that will come cannot be exagerrated.

Dear brother, please stay in touch; I want to be any encouragement I possibly can.

Your brother and friend,
Mack T.