Responding to Satan's Accusations

“Satan accuses Christians day and night. It is not just that he will work on our conscience to make us feel as dirty, guilty, defeated, destroyed, weak, and ugly as he possibly can; it is something worse: his entire play in the past is to accuse us before God day and night, bringing charges against us that we know we can never answer before  the majesty of God’s holiness.

What can we say in response? Will our defense be, ‘Oh, I’m not that bad?’ You will never beat Satan that way. Never. What you must say is, ‘Satan, I’m even worse than you think, but God loves me anyway. He has accepted me because of the blood of the Lamb.’”

— D. A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 98-99

All the Way: At Work for Me - Mack Tomlinson

All the Way: At Work for Me

                                                                   -Mack Tomlinson

This morning in prayer, the thoughts came to me in a way they never have -- "You have been intimately and lovingly active in my life personally every moment since the womb until right now 60 years later."

So for 60 years, or 720 months, or 21,900 days, or  525,600 hours, or 31,536,000 seconds -- God has personally been intimately active toward me, with me, for me, and concerning me. Let us think for a moment of all of His actions toward us every second of our lives.

• He created me and placed me in exactly the place and period in history best for me.
• He put me with exactly the people (family and setting) best for me ultimately to mold me into His purpose.
• He shaped and kept me in life, even though I had no knowledge of His love, His work, or His ways with me.
• He kept me from life-destroying and life-ending choices and accidents numerous times.
• He kept me from marriage relationships that would have been wrong.
• He led me to the right education places best for me.
• In just the right year, at just the right age, in the exact month, and on the very best day possible, He revealed Himself to me and saved me, at just the right age.
• He began to teach me His ways even from the first week of my conversion.
• He brought me several excellent books in the first year of my walk that were the best ones I could have read.
• He gave me Christian friends who helped me as a new believer.
• He called me to the gospel ministry, though I was unfit and unworthy of it ever.
• He brought into my life the people, books, influences, and experiences that would best shape me for Christian life and ministry.
• He has patiently endured my ignorance, weakness, and mediocrity.
• He has kept me from dying in accidents that happened that would have certainly killed me otherwise.

Let us think of all He does for us, not only all through life, but every day, and every moment --

My Heavenly Father, through the Saviour's mercies, has been with me, led me, taught me, forgiven me, been gracious and long-suffering toward me, provided for me, kept me through many dangers and snares, preserved me from wrong decisions, forced me toward right decisions, lavished kindnesses and blessings upon me when least deserved, kept my heart beating and lungs breathing every second for 60 years, given me many dearest Christian friends, sent encouragements and provisions when most needed, answered hundreds upon hundreds of prayers. He thinks about me, loves me freely and unconditonally, is continually with me, sustains me, is patient  with me, daily condescends to be near me, love and encourage me, makes His Word fresh to me, gives me guidance and help in preaching and pastoring, loves me in spite of my many short comings, and  . . . . . . . . . . .  I could go on and on and on and on.

If the Psalmist says, as he does in Psalm 139, that His thoughts of us are more than can be numbered, then what am I to think of that--what am I to do with that? Just humble myself and let me heart love Him more.

How good, how gracious, and kind, loving, tender, merciful, and large-hearted has my God and Saviour been to me. Deserving not even one of the least of His mercies, He has lavished untold and unbelievable grace, kindnesses, and loving acts upon me.

This morning, Lord, thank you for all of it-- thank you for being who You are, thank you for all you have ever done, for every way and time you ever worked and acted in my behalf, and how you have kept me all my days, totally by the power of God and not because of anything in me.

All the way, God has been at work for me and great grace has been my portion and I am thankful.

- Mack Tomlinson

Jesus and Human History

“God could have poured out judgment on mankind in the Garden, therefore the only reason there is any history is because God has purposed to send his Son into the world, to pour out judgment on him and thereby bring salvation. Jesus is the only reason there is human history, and therefore he is the goal of human history. Thus everything God says and does in history explains and prepares for the salvation of his Son.”

-Tim Keller, "Preaching the Gospel in a Post-Modern World," 34

HT: Of First Importance

Life in the Realm of Forgiveness

I listened to THIS message again today, and was struck all over again by the power and encouragement of simple Gospel truth. Every minute of this message is worth hearing!

All the Radical I Can Manage

THIS was a real blessing to me today. A snippet:

Sometimes all the radical I can manage is that death grip on faith as I’m tossed to and fro. No, it’s not society-reforming, world-altering, life-changing mission. It’s just how I make it; without it I wouldn’t have a life at all.

Read the rest HERE.

HT: Denny Burk

"How is too hard"

Articles like THIS are difficult to read, but we need to read them. See two previous posts (HERE and HERE) for more context.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." (Romans 12:15)

Jesus Worked a "Secular" Job

From Jerram Barrs:

Sometimes, Christians will insist that the only work that is truly worthwhile, pleasing to God, and spiritual is the work of serving the proclamation of the gospel across the world. This view suggests that, if we were all truly earnest Christians, we would leave our “secular” jobs, in which we are simply making a living, providing for our families, and ruling the world, and we would all join the “sacred” work of mission.

But if we stop and think about Jesus’ life, we see that he was doing so-called secular work as a carpenter or a fisherman for many more years than he was a preacher and teacher. It would be blasphemous to suppose that during these years Jesus was living in a manner that was not fully godly and completely pleasing to his Father in heaven.

-Jerram Barrs, Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature, and the Arts (Crossway 2013), 21

HT: Dane Ortlund

How I Know My Wife Married the “Wrong” Person

Some excellent thoughts from Tyler McKenzie.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

What Makes for a "Good" Church?

Discerning a Sound Ministry or Church

It is so easy to be misled by current views of what a solid and sound ministry or church is. How can we judge between what is true and what seems to be good or impressive, but is in reality, man-centered? Here are a few ways to judge properly--

1. There will be no manipulation at all of people by the leaders, whether in their private lives, their financial giving, or pressure used to produce any outward responses to messages, in the form of altar calls--no manipulation at all. When you see any, you know to run the other way.

2. True leaders will serve and support the saints of God under their care, not the other way around.

3. The church services will be substantive, biblical, and have reality, and will not be a performance in any way.

4. Sound churches and ministries will desire for men to see what God can do, not what man can produce.

5. Their chief concern will be long-term spiritual benefit, not immediate results.

6. They will focus on inward change and not on outward response.


These characteristics always mark a genuine ministry or church.

-- Don Currin and Mack Tomlinson

Why Christian Growth Often Begins Strong but Then Goes So Slow

From Archibald Alexander:

"It seems desirable to ascertain, as precisely as we can, the reasons why Christians commonly are of so diminutive a stature and of such feeble strength in their religion.

"When persons are truly converted they always are sincerely desirous to make rapid progress in piety; and there are not wanting exceeding great and gracious promises of aid to encourage them to go forward with alacrity. Why then is so little advancement made? Are there not some practical mistakes very commonly entertained, which are the cause of this slowness of growth?

"I think there are, and will endeavour to specify some of them.

"And first, there is a defect in our belief of the freeness of divine grace.

"To exercise unshaken confidence in the doctrine of gratuitous pardon is one of the most difficult things in the world; and to preach this doctrine fully without verging towards antinomianism is no easy task, and is therefore seldom done. But Christians cannot but be lean and feeble when deprived of the proper nutriment. It is by faith, that the spiritual life is made to grow; and the doctrine of free grace, without any mixture of human merit, is the only true object of faith.

"Christians are too much inclined to depend on themselves, and not to derive their life entirely from Christ. There is a spurious legal religion, which may flourish without the practical belief in the absolute freeness of divine grace, but it possesses none of the characteristics of the Christian’s life....Even when the true doctrine is acknowledged, in theory, often it is not practically felt and acted on. The new convert lives upon his frames, rather than on Christ; and the older Christian still is found struggling in his own strength . . . and then he sinks into a gloomy despondency. . . .

"Here, I am persuaded, is the root of the evil; and until religious teachers inculcate clearly, fully, and practically, the grace of God as manifested in the gospel, we shall have no vigorous growth of piety among professing Christians."

-Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1844)

HT: Justin Taylor