“We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and his grace as our justification, hope, significance, and security. We believe the gospel at one level, but at deeper levels we do not. Human approval, professional success, power and influence, family and clan identity- all of these things serve as our heart’s ‘functional trust’ rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control. You cannot change such things through mere willpower, through learning Biblical principles and trying to carry them out. We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves. That is how we grow.”Tim Keller, The Prodigal God, p. 115
Hat Tip: Already Not Yet
During Calvin's ministry, Geneva was terrorized by the plague on five occasions. During the first outbreak, in 1542, Calvin personally led visitations into plague-infected homes. Knowing that this effort likely carried a death sentence, the city fathers intervened to stop him because of their conviction that his leadership was indispensable. The pastors continued this heroic effort under Calvin's guidance, and they recounted the joy of multiple conversions. Many pastors lost their lives in this cause. Unknown to many, Calvin privately continued his own pastoral care in Geneva and other cities where the plague raged. Calvin's pastoral heart, already evidenced by the provision of hospitals for both citizens and immigrants, was further revealed as he collected the necessary resources to establish a separate hospital for plague victims. When believers died, he preached poignant funeral homilies with passion and personal concern. (John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Discipleship, ed. Burk Parsons [Lake Mary, Fla.: Reformation Trust, 2008], 65)
When a devastating plague swept across the ancient world in the third century, Christians were the only ones who cared for the sick, which they did at the risk of contracting the plague themselves. Meanwhile, pagans were throwing infected members of their own families into the streets even before they died, in order to protect themselves from the disease.
Every single ounce of truth; give it to me straight just like it is in the Bible.
I want the whole gospel:Don’t dilute the living water—it might not quench my thirsty soul.
I want the whole gospel:Turn on the light of Jesus Christ and don’t shield my view—I need every beam of His radiant glory to dispel the darkness in me.
I want the whole gospel: Don’t block the door, or I might not get through.
I want the whole gospel:I need an accurate map to the narrow road, because only a few are finding it.
I want the whole gospel:Because I am wholly lost, God’s verdict is wholly just, and my damnation is wholly certain.My heart is wholly depraved and my sin is wholly mine.My efforts are wholly futile and my escapes are wholly hopeless. I need a whole Savior, whose whole suffering, wholly satisfies a holy God.
Please, please don’t cut the corners. It’s appointed unto man once to die and I have to be sure I get it right.
I have to have the whole gospel—give it to me straight. Nothing else will do!
Yes…God help us, let’s give the whole gospel.
“We are not called to build the kingdom of glory, but to carry a cross in the kingdom of grace. To forget the cause of missions is to forget the purpose of Christ in a world still spared from destruction. The purpose of your life must be the purpose of Christ’s death.”
- Edmund P. Clowney, Called to the Ministry
The blog formerly known as "In the Clearing" is now called "Wilderness Fandango." Blogger Bob has been producing some great posts lately, for example Wilderness Fandango: Processing the kingdom 3: The Beatitudes of Lack. This is his conclusion of a meditation on the beatitudes.Good stuff. I need to think on this one for a while.And here's the final point. What belongs to Jesus, even to his very nature, in some sense through my unity with him in faith, belongs to me. But unity with Christ does not mean victorious living in any sense that we usually understand it. The apostle Paul knew that it would mean unity with him in brokeneness, mourning, meekness, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. Paul's goal was to know Christ, and he knew that the fullest and most intimate form of that knowing would have to include a sharing in his suffering, even "becoming like him in his death."Is it all beginning to pierce your heart yet? Because that's what's intended. If your God-view does not leave a lot of room for God to work his blessings through suffering and brokenness, then your God-view needs a rehab. And you know what? I can't do that for you. I can only point the way.There. Over there. On a hill far away. Three crosses. A murderer. A thief. And the Son of God. Go there once again, and be made well.
A source (who will remain nameless) passed on to me this Top Secret Photo of the controversial Air Force One flyby of the Statue of Liberty last week. ;)
Here's Martin Luther on idolatry, from his commentary on the Ten Commandments.Many a one thinks that he has God and everything in abundance when he has money and, possessions; he trusts in them and boasts of them with such firmness and assurance as to care for no one. Lo, such a man also has a god, Mammon by name, i.e., money and possessions, on which he sets all his heart, and which is also the most common idol on earth. He who has money and possessions feels secure, and is joyful and undismayed as though he were sitting in the midst of Paradise. On the other hand, he who has none doubts and is despondent, as though he knew of no God…
So, too, whoever trusts and boasts that he possesses great skill, prudence, power, favor, friendship, and honor has also a god, but not this true and only God. This appears again when you notice how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are because of such possessions, and how despondent when they no longer exist or are withdrawn. Therefore I repeat that the chief explanation of this point is that to have a god is to have something in which the heart entirely trusts…
Thus it is with all idolatry; for it consists not merely in erecting an image and worshiping it, but rather in the heart, which stands gaping at something else, and seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils, and neither cares for God, nor looks to Him for so much good as to believe that He is willing to help, neither believes that whatever good it experiences comes from God.
Ask and examine your heart diligently, and you will find whether it cleaves to God alone or not. If you have a heart that can expect of Him nothing but what is good, especially in want and distress, and that, moreover, renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the only true God. If, on the contrary, it cleaves to anything else, of which it expects more good and help than of God, and does not take refuge in Him, but in adversity flees from Him, then you have an idol, another god.
