A Gift That Keeps On Giving

“God did not give us His gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness.

The wise believer learns this truth early and becomes proficient in extracting available benefits from the gospel each day. We extract these benefits by being absorbed in the gospel, speaking it to ourselves when necessary, and by daring to reckon it true in all we do.”

— Milton Vincent    A Gospel Primer7

HT: Of First Importance

Jesus Changes Everything & Everybody

Some good lessons here for everybody, on what the cost is to follow Jesus- Learning From a Lesbian Visitor to Your Church.

Coming to Jesus means change; change for everybody. He changes our values, priorities, finances, relationships, sexuality...He changes everything. We don't get to set the boundaries. He comes to be King and Lord, or not at all. Change is not just for "them." Change is not just for those we define as "sinners." Change is for you and me, for all of us.

You need to know that. So do I.
   

Healing Is Death

"What good Christians don’t realize is that sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won’t be “healed” by redeeming the context or the genders. Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less. I told my audience that I think that too many young Christian fornicators plan that marriage will redeem their sin. Too many young Christian masturbators plan that marriage will redeem their patterns. Too many young Christian internet pornographers think that having legitimate sex will take away the desire to have illicit sex. They’re wrong. And the marriages that result from this line of thinking are dangerous places. I know, I told my audience, why over 50% of Christian marriages end in divorce: because Christians act as though marriage redeems sin. Marriage does not redeem sin. Only Jesus himself can do that. The audience seemed a little shocked to hear this."

       - From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Controlling Metaphor

[I read a] "little book by F. B. Meyer called The Shepherd’s Psalm (1889). In it, I found what we in English studies call a controlling metaphor (a powerful albeit understated idea that holds all the other parts of a paradigm together). This, I believe, is the controlling metaphor of the Christian life, and one that I first found in Meyer’s book and first seized in that little cozy apartment during my first day in Beaver Falls. Meyer says, “Unbelief puts circumstances between itself and Christ, so as not to see Him…Faith puts Christ between itself and circumstances, so that it cannot see them” (p. 17)."

     - From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Guerrilla Warfare

“A deep spiritual walk with God does not usually happen immediately after conversion. When the Holy Spirit invades the enemy territory of our lives and sets up Jesus Christ as King in the capital city of our heart, his strategy for conquering the rebel forces of the flesh that keep up their guerrilla warfare is different for each person. It may be fast or slow. God’s clean up operations are very strange.” 

— John Piper  "The Danger of Being Merely Human"

HT: Of First Importance

A Soul Overhauled

"Making a life commitment to Christ was not merely a philosophical shift. It was not a one-step process. It did not involve rearranging the surface prejudices and fickle loyalties of my life. Conversion didn’t “fit” my life. Conversion overhauled my soul and personality. It was arduous and intense. I experienced with great depth the power and authority of God in my life. In it I learned—and am still learning—how to love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind. When you die to yourself, you have nothing from your past to use as clay out of which to shape your future."

      - From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Repentance is An Intimate Affair

"In this crucible of confusion, I learned something important. I learned the first rule of repentance: that repentance requires greater intimacy with God than with our sin. How much greater? About the size of a mustard seed. Repentance requires that we draw near to Jesus, no matter what. And sometimes we all have to crawl there on our hands and knees. Repentance is an intimate affair. And for many of us, intimacy with anything is a terrifying prospect."

 - From Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

(Italics added by me for emphasis)
  

Reviewing The Gospel Call

I have recently read a new book on the nature of true conversion,  The Gospel Call & True Conversion by Paul Washer. In full disclosure and in accordance with my book review policy, I did receive a free copy of the book for review, but that does not effect my opinion.

Washer has an interesting background, having been a missionary in Peru for 10 years and founding and leading The Heart Cry Missionary Society. Thus, he has a lot of experience proclaiming the gospel in multi-cultural environments. Also, he is not your typical successful mega-church pastor author who fills his books with personal stories and references to American pop-culture. You won't find any of that in this book.  His writing style is both forceful and direct. This makes the book a little harder to read than most of the books I read, and from most popular Christian best-sellers - not because the words are academic or difficult, but because the content is not frosted over by a familiar style and cultural references.

What you will find in the book is the in-depth exegesis of many Biblical passage dealing with the nature of the gospel and what it means to be truly converted, from both the Old and New Testaments. I was especially intrigued by his analysis and application of Old Testament passages predicting the new covenant and work of Christ in conversion, particularly Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31. This book will be a permanent part of my library, so that I can refer to it  whenever I want to speak or write about the Scripture passages he expounds.I believe this book will an excellent resource for Pastors, Evangelists, Bible teachers and all others who want to clearly understand, communicate and apply the true gospel message in their ministries.

You will also find in Washer's writings a burning conviction that American evangelicals have watered down the gospel into simplistic versions of "saying the sinner's prayer" and "making a decision" for Christ with no true inner transformation and life change. He believes this has hardened the hearts of unconverted people. The solution he recommends is more thorough presentation of the complete gospel message from the Scriptures - repentance and belief in Christ's work on our behalf.

Washer has also written another book, The Gospel's Power & Message. I'd like to get and read that one also.

Assurance

From "How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?"by Justin Taylor:

In the past, when I have tried to help people wrestle with the theological and existential problem of the assurance of salvation, the outline for Don Whitney’s book, How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian? What the Bible Says about Assurance of Salvation (NavPress, 1994), has been very useful. Andy Naselli recently posted on this, and I thought it might be helpful if I reprinted it as well.

1. Assurance of Salvation—Is It Possible?

It is possible, indeed normal, for the Christian to experience assurance of salvation.

It is possible, indeed normal, for a non-Christian to have a false assurance of salvation.

2. Having Doubts about Your Salvation

It is possible, indeed normal, for Christians to have occasional doubts about their salvation.
Doubting assurance is not unbelief.

The causes of doubt are many:

• Spiritual immaturity may contribute to doubts about assurance.

• Sensitivity to sin may cause confusion about assurance.

• Comparison with other Christians may cloud assurance.

• Childhood conversion affects the assurance of some.

3. The Basis of Assurance

The assurance of salvation rests primarily on

• the character of God 

• the works of Jesus Christ

• the truth of God’s promises

More Rosaria

Following up from this post from July 17 (last Wednesday), Here's another interview with Rosaria Champagne Butterfield: It's over an hour, but well worth investing the time.

In a World Where Nobody is a Believer...

I'm fascinated to read about the conversion testimony of well-known lieral political commentator Kristen Powers. From Denny Burk:

Last April, Kirsten Powers went on Focus on the Family to talk about her watershed column shaming the media into covering the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In that interview, she also shares her own story about coming to faith in Christ through the ministry of Tim Keller’s church in New York City. It turns out that Eric Metaxas also had a role in her conversion, and she is surprisingly candid about the whole thing.

I think the entire interview is fascinating, but the part where she shares her testimony begins at 17:20. You can download it here.

Here’s an excerpt:

Really, I mean it was just sort of like God…invading my life. It was very unwelcome. I didn’t like it… I started having a lot of different experiences where I just felt…God doing a lot of things in my life. It’s kind of hard to describe, but I did just have this moment of the scales falling off my eyes, and just saying, ‘this is totally true, I don’t even have any doubt’…

I don’t really feel like I had any courage…when I became a Christian, I just gave in… It wasn’t courageous; I didn’t have any choice. I kept trying to not believe and I… just couldn’t avoid it. If I could have avoided it, I would have. There is nothing convenient about it in my life, in the world I live in. It’s not like living in the South or living somewhere where everybody is a Christian. I live in a world where nobody is a believer.

download (size: 19 MB )

Read more at Gospel Light

Amazing Story of Total Transformation

Please watch this very interesting, provocative, and, in fact, wonderful, testimony of Dr. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. She was once a feminist, a lesbian, very anti-Christian, and a post-modernist college English professor. Now, she is a Christian wife and mother, married to a Presbyterian pastor. Amazing story! It will take some time to listen and watch, but it will be so worth it.





And in this second video, she takes audience questions.





For more of her story, read her book, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith

Hat Tip: Justin Taylor

Only Two Men

The TV sit-com "Two and a Half Men" may soon be down to only two. From CT Gleanings:

The youngest member of CBS's "Two and a Half Men" soon could be walking away from the raunchy show after 10 years—and he's urging other viewers to do the same.

In a YouTube video posted by Forerunner Christian Church, 19-year-old Angus T. Jones calls the show "filth" and encourages viewers to stop watching. Jones says he began to doubt his role on the show—where he earns an estimated $350,000 per episode—after converting to Christianity.

"I'm not okay with what I'm learning, what the Bible says and being on that television show," Jones stated.

He also urged viewers, "If you watch 'Two and a Half Men,' please stop watching ... Please stop filling your head with filth."

According to the Chicago Tribune, "The CBS network and Warner Bros Television, which makes the comedy, both declined to comment on Monday on Jones's remarks."

Chuck Colson Remembered - Video

Prison Fellowship has prepared this video remembrance of the life of their founder, Chuck Colson.

Auctioning Eternity

 From “What About Altar Calls?” – Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile:

I grew up in Southern Baptist churches were altar calls were routine - people were urged to "walk the aisle" to come to Jesus.  This approach to evangelism is a relatively recent phenomena, dating to the work of Charles Finney in the early 19th century. Many Reformed churches do not use altar calls, for some reasons explained at the link above.

What do you think?

"I Was Decided Upon"

Here's how C. S. Lewis described his conversion in his final interview before he died in 1963.

Sherwood Wirt: "In your book Surprised by Joy you remark that you were brought into the faith kicking and struggling and resentful, with eyes darting in every direction looking for an escape. You suggest that you were compelled, as it were, to become a Christian. Do you feel that you made a decision at the time of your conversion?"

C.S. Lewis: “I would not put it that way. What I wrote in Surprised by Joy was that ‘before God closed in on me, I was offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.’ But I feel my decision was not so important. I was the object rather than the subject in this affair. I was decided upon. I was glad afterwards at the way it came out, but at the moment what I heard was God saying, ‘Put down your gun and we’ll talk.’”

-- from The Final Interview of C.S. Lewis, conducted by Sherwood Wirt

Hat Tip: The Gospel-Driven Church: "Put Down Your Gun and We'll Talk"

Necessity of Grace

“We declare on scriptural authority that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained toward Christ.”

- Charles Spurgeon (Sermons, Vol. 4, p.139)

Hat Tip: Of First Importance