Not Just An Addition

Via @Challies

Real Food

"Everything else we eat is a shadow compared to Christ" (John 6:53-54)

            - Matthew Henry

Believing Bigger, Deeper, Brighter

"Christian growth, in other words, does not happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in bigger, deeper, brighter ways what Christ has already secured for sinners. I need my family and friends to remind me of this all the time.

The bottom line is this, Christian: because of Christ’s work on your behalf, God does not dwell on your sin the way you do. So, relax and rejoice…and you’ll actually start to get better. The irony, of course, is that it’s only when we stop obsessing over our own need to be holy and focus instead on the beauty of Christ’s holiness, that we actually become more holy! Not to mention, we start to become a lot easier to live with!"

                                 -Tullian Tchividjian at The Resurgence

Escaping the Performance Treadmill

"That’s why we need to intentionally bathe our minds and hearts in the gospel every day. Remember, we need the gospel not only as a door into an initial saving relationship with Christ, but also . . . to keep our daily lives from becoming a performance treadmill. As we rely on Christ’s righteousness in this manner, far from leading to a license to sin, it actually motivates us to deal with the sin we see in our lives."

–Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington, The Bookends of the Christian Life (Crossway 2009), 39-40

HT: Dane Ortlund and  Already Not Yet

Dead People Alive

"Only the gospel can truly save you.  The gospel doesn't make bad people good; it makes dead people alive.  That's the different between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshipped deity is.  But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do."

   - Tullian Tchividjian, Surprised By Grace, page 56 (italics in the original)

All We Have, All We Need

“You don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.”
- Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods (New York, NY: Dutton, 2009),



Hat Tip: Of First Importance

Why the Son Became a Man

“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

- C.S. Lewis

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

Why People Try to Be Good

"The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or — if they think there is not — at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."

- C. S. Lewis

Hat Tip: Christians in Context: from orthodoxy to orthopraxy

Ten Looks to One

"... remember this rule from Robert Murray M’Cheyne:

For one look at yourself,
take ten looks at Christ!"

Hat Tip: Resolutions and Regret – Justin Taylor

The One Necessity

“We never feel Christ to be a reality until we feel him to be a necessity.”

- Austin Phelps, quoted by Gordon Keddie in Preacher on the Run: The Message of Jonah (Hertfordshire, England: Evangelical Press, 1986), 85.

Hat Tip: The Necessity & Reality of Christ « Of First Importance

Speaking of Christ

When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ.

--St. Ambrose of Milan

Hat Tip: Elysa at Musings from Graceland

“You are a Sinner.” = Comforting Words

“Luther taught that every time you insist that I am a sinner, just so often do you call me to remember the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not upon mine, lie all my sins. So, when you say that I am a sinner, you do not terrify, but comfort me immeasurably.”

—Thomas Oden, The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 2002), 5

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

The One Who Both Speaks and Hears the Word for Us

Here's a Christmas thought from the Andrrew Purves book which I've been reading (and quoting, and highlighting profusely)

The point is that Jesus is both God's Word spoken in our flesh and received and heard as a man is a truly radical theological insight...

...The argument presupposes that even were God to speak, outside of the Spirit of the Son hearing on our behalf, we would not hear and receive that Word, for only the Son can hear the Word of the Father. So Christ is not only the One who spoke forth the Word of God, but also the One who received the Word of God when he took flesh, not for his own sake, but for our sakes. (The Crucifixion of Ministry, page 81)