Woops To Wow

"Redemption is God saving us from our whoops and restoring back to us our original wow. "

— John Ensor, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007), page 37

HT: Of First Importance

Relief

From AnnVoskamp.com

Not An Afterthought

"One of the sweetest statements from the lips of Jesus is this: ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt. 25:34b).

There is a plan of God designed for your salvation. It is not an afterthought or an attempt to correct a mistake. Rather, from all eternity, God determined that He would redeem for Himself a people, and that which He determined to do was, in fact, accomplished in the work of Jesus Christ, His atonement on the cross.

Your salvation has been accomplished by a Savior, One who did for you what the Father determined He should do. He is your Surety, your Mediator, your Substitute, your Redeemer. He atoned for your sins on the cross. "

— R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross, (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust Pub., 2007), 152-153

HT: Of First Importance

The Blessed Bad

"..contrary to popular assumptions, the Bible is not a record of the blessed good, but rather the blessed bad. That's not a typo. The Bible is a record of the blessed bad. The Bible is not a witness to the best people making it up to God it's a witness to God making it down to the worst people.  Far from being a book full of moral heroes whom we are commanded to emulate, what we discover is that the so-called heroes are not heroes at all. They fall and fail; they make huge mistakes; they get afraid; they're selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work  of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. Which means that the Bible is not first a recipe book for Christian living but a revelation book of Jesus who is the answer to our un-Christian living."

-Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, page 31

Never Hopeless

From @DeailyKeller

The Process of Recovery

“For just as sin, addiction, and misery typically go together, so do confession, healing, and the long process of redemption. We need redemption not just from our sins and addictions but also from their miseries — particularly those miseries that occasion more sin and deeper addiction. As all recovering sinners know, this process of healing and liberation, this ‘conversion unto life,’ this set of lessons to teach us how to dance again will prove to be as cunning, baffling, powerful, and patient as addiction itself.”

— Cornelius Plantinga  Not the Way It's Supposed to Be
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 149.

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

He Is Our....

"He is our sanctification, as himself being purity, that the pure may be encompassed by his purity.

He is our redemption, because he sets us free who were held captive under sin, giving himself as a ransom for us, the sacrifice to make expiation for the world.

He is our resurrection, because he raises up, and brings to life again, those who were slain by sin."

      - Gregory of Nazianzus (4th Century)

Hat Tip:  Kingdom People -Trevin Wax

Worship Your Way Out

How do you get rid of a bad habit or sinful patter in your life? Certainly not by willing it away, or just fighting it directly, From much personal experience, I can assure you that does not work! Sin must be "expulsed" by a higher affection.

"The Puritan preacher Thomas Chalmers, in his sermon the Expulsive Power of a New Affection, said that desires for God and desire for sin cannot coexist in the human heart. They are two opposing 'affections' - one will push out the other. So, he said, "the only way to disposses [the heart] of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one. (See Gal. 5:16-17) You can't just 'stop it,' because the it is always more than behavior. It is always rooted in your affections, in what you love - what you worship. Chalmers points the way forward: we worshiped our way into this mess and, by God's grace, we'll worship our way out."

                     -Mike Wilkerson, Redemption, Page 38

We get in by false worship; we get out by true worship. I like it!

Already Part of New Order

"..when the Bible says you are a new creation, it means that you have already been made part of that whole new order of things. Jesus is the first of the new creation, and in him you too are a new creation (see 2 Cor. 5:17; cf. 1 Cor. 15:23). In Christ, we are transformed.  Idolators, thieves, liars, sexual perverts, addicts, abusers, and victims - all of us already get new names, new identities, and new hearts with new desires (see 1 Cor. 6:9-11). Already, he is healing our wounds, covering our shame, and freeing us from the bondage to sin and temptation."

Mike Wilkerson, Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, page 36

Basic Human Wiring

"..to be human is to worship. We reflect God's glory by our worship of him, which means to hold him as the object of our deepest desires and as worth of our imitation. Worship is not just singing songs in church; it's how we live our lives every moment of every day - every thought, word, deed, feeling, and desire. You worship what you live for, whatever is most worthy of you attention and devotion. It is what drives you at the core, and it flows from the essence of who you are. You can't turn off worship. It's your basic human wiring. To not worship is to not live."

Mike Wilkerson, Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, page 29

The Ground for Inherent Dignity

 "..you have great dignity as a human being, not primarily because of your own goodness but because you are made of the kind of stuff that is capable of making God's much greater goodness visible to others. This is the bedrock upon which the enduring dignity of every person is established - no matter how sinful, abused, impaired, or oppressed. Male and female from the womb, every race - we are all created in his image and likeness."

 Mike Wilkerson, Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, page 29

Rewrite!

Truth!

"Rather than trying to write God into our stories, we would be wiser to sit patiently with our Father and let him tell us his. We would surely find ourselves in his story and learn that we are not defined by our hurts or our sins, as we may have believed.  As he tells us his story, we must be willing to let go of the stories we've told to make sense of our lives. We must let his story rewrite ours and sweep us up into something much greater than ourselves."

 Mike Wilkerson, Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry, page 27

An Offensive Claim

“Perhaps the most offensive claim of the gospel is that a hate-filled cannibalistic child molester finds the same redemption and has an equal status in the eyes of God as your dear old church lovin’, bake-sale havin’, baby burpin’ granny.”

 From Challies.com

If this statement offends you, perhaps you need to meditate on how much God has forgiven you.

The Comfort of Being A Sinner

“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: Eerdmans, 2002), 5

Hat Tip:  Of First Importance

Jesus is Greater....

"Jesus is greater": This should be a complete sentence all by itself. However, I love how those three simple words are continued in this little piece by Justin Buzzard:

Jesus >

Jesus is greater.

JESUS > Sin + Fear + Guilt + Regret + Discouragement + Need + Pain + Shame + Failure

Jesus is greater than sin, he took on, paid for, and beat your sin.

Jesus is greater than fear, he is bigger than whatever makes you afraid.

Jesus is greater than guilt, he has made a complete atonement for our guilt.

Jesus is greater than regret, he redeems our broken past.

Jesus is greater than discouragement, he is never discouraged even though he knows the worst about you, your circumstances, and life in this broken world.

Jesus is greater than need, he knows all of your needs and your needs are not difficult for him.

Jesus is greater than pain, he knows your pain and is stronger than what is hurting you.

Jesus is greater than shame, he cleanses dirty people, making us whiter than snow.

Jesus is greater than failure, he loves to work with failure–it’s his specialty.

JESUS > Sin + Fear + Guilt + Regret + Discouragement + Need + Pain + Shame + Failure

Hat Tip: Peter Cockrell

Redemption Video

Good little video from a church's (South Hills Evangelical Church, Missoula, Montana) Easter 2011 celebration, entitled "He Has Sent Redemption."  Well done!

Hat Tip: Challies Dot Com

For Helpless People

“If you read the Scriptures carefully, you will never get the idea that the work of Christ is for well adjusted people who just need a little redemptive boost. It never presents any human condition or dilemma as outside the scope of the gospel. Redemption is nothing less than the rescue of helpless people facing an eternity of torment apart from God’s love.”

— Paul David Tripp  Instruments in The Redeemer's Hands
(Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2002), 195

Hat Tip: Not a little redemptive boost | Of First Importance

Salvation Top 20

When God saves you, He…

1. Regenerates you, moving you from spiritual death to life. (John 3:1-8)
2. Redeems you, buying you out of slavery to sin. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
3. Justifies you, declaring you innocent in His sight. (Romans 5:1-9)
4. Sanctifies you, setting you apart as holy. (1 Cor 1:2,30)
5. Forgives you of all your sins. (Ephesians 1:7)
6. Cleanses you, removing from you the stain of sin. (Hebrews 9:14)
7. Reconciles you to Himself. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
8. Seals you with His Spirit as a guarantee of your future hope. (Ephesians 1:13)
9. Indwells you, sending the Holy Spirit to live in you. (Romans 8:9)
10. Adopts you, making you His child. (Romans 8:14-17)
11. Baptizes you into Christ’s body, the Church. (1 Corinthians 12:3)
12. Illuminates your mind so you can understand the Scriptures. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
13. Makes you a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
14. Reveals you as one of His elect. (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29-30)
15. Grants you eternal life. (John 11:25-27, 1 John 5:11-13)
16. Names you an heir with Christ. (Romans 8:17)
17. Grants you an inheritance. (1 Peter 1:3-4)
18. Declares you a saint. (Romans 1:7, Colossians 1:2)
19. Grants you new citizenship, making your home heaven rather than this world. (Philippians 3:20)
20. Makes you a slave of Christ, a slave with the greatest, most glorious Master that any could ask for. (1 Corinthians 7:22-23)

Praise God for the assurance that comes from these great truths.

HT: Jude St.John, Already Not Yet

At Our Worst & Best

“Imagine your worst moment of guilt and shame, the memory that, when you let it, haunts you and threatens to hound you to the grave. In light of that sin, we sometimes cannot imagine how God could possibly forgive. Yet it was for that moment that Christ died for you. At your worst, God gave you his best. While you were still a sinner — of the worst kind — Christ died for you (Rom. 5:8). The Passover teaches us that no debt of sin is too great to be forgiven because the precious sacrifice of Jesus pays it all.

Now imagine your best day. You’re on your winning streak, behaving well, keeping up with your spiritual disciplines, forgiving those who wrong you, helping those in need and leading non-Christians to Jesus. In light of such stellar Christian performance, we sometimes assume forgiveness, telling ourselves, ‘Of course God forgives me; I’m on his team.’ But the Passover teaches us that we don’t — and never could — deserve God’s forgiveness. Our debt of sin to him is so great that we couldn’t possibly pay God back, not with a thousand years of perfect performance (as if that were possible). On your best day, when you can most easily see yourself as God’s friend, your sin still makes you his enemy and requires Christ’s death so that you might truly become his friend despite yourself. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

— Mike Wilkerson Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols We Worship and the Wounds We Carry (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2011), 75

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

Sounds like ANOTHER book I should read!

Where to Point

"We cannot treat the Bible as a collection of therapeutic insights. To do so distorts its message and will not lead to lasting change. If a system could give us what we need, Jesus would never have come. But he came because what was wrong with us could not be fixed any other way. He is the only answer, so we must never offer a message that is less than the good news. We don’t offer people a system; we point them to a Redeemer."

–Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (P&R, 2002), 9

Hat Tip: Dane Ortlund and Already Not Yet