Refining Fire

From "Mining & Refining" by Paul Tripp:

...Why do we experience painful suffering and burdensome trials? Why do we face unexpected complications and uninvited delays? Because God is in the process of refining His children that He has mined from the mass of humanity.

You see, God's "boiling process" or "refining fire" (Malachi 3:2) is always for our benefit. It will often be painful, but think again about the metallurgy example: a refining process is always meant to produce the highest level of beauty and strength. If you want your best life now, it will be achieved through the process of refinement.

John Piper says it this way: "He is a refiner's fire, and that makes all the difference. A refiner's fire does not destroy indiscriminately like a forest fire. A refiner's fire does not consume completely like the fire of an incinerator. A refiner's fire refines. It purifies. It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the silver and gold intact."

THE GOSPEL OF REFINEMENT

During these moments of refinement, you will be tempted to believe two anti-gospels:

1. These moments of refinement are signs of God's unfaithfulness and inattention. Incorrect! The gospel tells you that refinement is the sure sign of God's presence and love in your life!

1. God's love is shown to me by giving me whatever I want, whenever I want it.False! If you were wise, you wouldn't want all the things your sinful heart desires, and, God's love will actually remove those things for your benefit.

So, friends, when these trials and grievances come your way, preach the gospel to yourself and to others. God could not love you and be satisfied with leaving you as a piece of ore. You have so much potential in Christ, and the Lord will refine you so you can reach your highest level of strength and beauty!

Our Dissatisfied Messiah

"The One on whom we wait is a dissatisfied Messiah. He will not relent, he will not quit, he will not rest until ever promise he has made been fully delivered. He will not turn from his work until every one of his children has been totally transformed. He will continue to fight until the last enemy is under his feet. He will reign until his kingdom has fully come. As long as sin exists, he will shower us with forgiving, empowering, and delivering grace.

He will defend us against attack and attack the enemy on our behalf. He will be faithful to convict, rebuke, encourage, and comfort. He will continue to open the warehouse of his wisdom and unfold for us the glorious mysteries of his truth. He will stand with us through the darkness and the light. He will guide us on a path we could never have discovered or would never have been wise enough to choose. He will supply for us every good thing that we need to be what he’s called us to be and to do what he’s called us to do in the place where he’s put us.

And he will not rest from his work until every last microbe of sin has been completely eradicated from every heart of each of his children!"

            — Paul David Tripp,  "Psalm 27: Inner Strength"

Pull Your Sorry Self Across the Line

From Jared Wilson - Sanctifying Success is the Lord’s 

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  – 1 Thessalonians 5:23

Not a single one of us is a perfect repenter. And not a single one of us ever will be. I do believe we cooperate in the work of our sanctification, working out what God has worked in (Phil. 2:12-13), striving to lay hold of the holiness with which God has already laid hold of us (Phil. 3:12), holding true to what we’ve already attained (Phil. 3:16), but the power and the success of sanctification must be the Lord’s alone, if only because only he sees all we need cleansing from.

It is a mistake to think that as we progress in sanctification we have less sin to address. We walk through victories, successions of freedoms, but my experience has been that the further into Christ’s righteousness I press, the more of my own unworthiness I see, not the less. And even as the Spirit bears more and more fruit in my life, even as I learn to trust more and more, when I do finally cross that heavenly finish line, there will nevertheless still be sins unrepented, especially among the sins I don’t even remember or don’t even see. And I will pull my sorry self across that line, some stupid sin still entangled around my ankle, and I will look up to see Christ the Judge standing over me, looking down, considering my pitiful soul. And do you know what he will say? “Well done.”

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.– Jude 1:24-25

My sorry self says amen and thank the Lord for this kind of grace! 

An Excuse or A Reason

From MyBible.com

Fueled for Life

On April 6, 2014, Scotty Smith preached a sermon at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church entitled “Gospel-Fueled Sanctification.” Here's an excerpt:


   

Click HERE for the sermon notes.

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

Meditation on Truth

“It is the unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the exposing of our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character.”

      — Maurice Roberts  The Thought of God   (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1993), 11

HT Of First Importance

Home Renovation

One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

— C. S. Lewis  Mere Christianity(London: William Collins, 1970), 172

HT: 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

A Matter of Wonder

Do you understand the gospel? Do I? More profound Keller wisdom below:

"If you think you really understand the gospel – you don’t. If you think you haven’t even begun to truly understand the gospel – you do. As important as our ‘gospel theologizing’ is, it alone will not reach our world. People today are incredibly sensitive to inconsistency and phoniness. They hear what the gospel teaches and then look at our lives and see the gap. Why should they believe? We have to recognize that the gospel is a transforming thing, and we simply are not very transformed by it. It’s not enough to say to postmodern people: ‘You don’t like absolute truth? Well, then, we’re going to give you even more of it!’ But people who balk so much at absolute truth will need to see greater holiness of life, practical grace, gospel character, and virtue, if they are going to believe. 

Traditionally, this process of ‘gospel-realizing,’ especially when done corporately, is called ‘revival.’ Religion operates on the principle:I obey; therefore I am accepted (by God). The gospel operates on the principle: I am accepted through the costly grace of God; therefore I obey. Two people operating on these two principles can sit beside each other in church on Sunday trying to do many of the same things – read the Bible, obey the Ten Commandments, be active in church, and pray – but out of two entirely different motivations. Religion moves you to do what you do out of fear, insecurity, and self-righteousness, but the gospel moves you to do what you do more and more out of grateful joy in who God is in himself. Times of revival are seasons in which many nominal and spiritually sleepy Christians, operating out of the semi-Pharisaism of religion, wake up to the wonder and ramifications of the gospel. Revivals are massive eruptions of new spiritual power in the church through a recovery of the gospel. In his sermon on Mark 9 Lloyd-Jones was calling the church to revival as its only hope. This is not a new program or something you can implement through a series of steps. It is a matter of wonder. Peter says that the angels always long to look into the gospel; they never tire of it (I Pet. 1:12). The gospel is amazing love. Amazing grace."

                                 - Tim Keller

Hat Tip:  Vitamin Z

Ruthless Perfection

We are, I am, being changed by a God of ruthless perfection.

This week I listened to an old album by Christian singer Kim Hill from the  late 90's called "The Fire Again." This song, Ruthless Perfection, grabbed me with both its words and tune. A good message to meditate on and pray through this morning.

Iron sharpens iron, deep cries to deep
The roar of the lion rouses from sleep
All who would heed the call of their election
He will baptize them with fire, and work His ruthless perfection

Is it any wonder, is it any guess
How He will respond to the one who answers yes?
I will yield to your love and to Your correction
In mercy severe He will work His ruthless perfection.

As we behold Him, we will be like Him
Changed from glory into glory into glory again.
As we behold Him, we will be like Him
Changed from glory into glory into glory again.

Let's call on His kindness, and fall on our face
Surrender the flesh to His judgement and grace
Comes the cross, so comes the resurrection
Let us be made new, by a work of ruthless perfection.

"Ruthless Perfection", words by Judie Lawson, music by Kate Miner

 

Swim in the Reality of What You Have

Some of the best writing on the meaning of grace and acceptance in Christ continues to come from Tullian Tchividjian:

"Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free, justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to.

This means that real change happens only as we continuously rediscover the gospel. The progress of the Christian life is “not our movement toward the goal; it’s the movement of the goal on us.” Sanctification involves God’s attack on our unbelief—our self-centered refusal to believe that God’s approval of us in Christ is full and final. It happens as we daily receive and rest in our unconditional justification. As G. C. Berkouwer said, “The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification.”"

From:  Tullian Tchividjian - Rethinking Spiritual Growth

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z

Radical Change

A little Twitter wisdom from RT @DailyKeller: 

"The more you understand how your salvation isn't about your behavior, the more radically your behavior will change."

Amen!

Starting Wtth "You Are Accepted"

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”

Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

Hat Tip: Ray Ortlund and Already Not Yet

Do You Know "The -ations"?

As we approach Good Friday, I wonder how many of us know and can list the -ations of The Cross:

No, not the stations. The -ations.

Mediation -- There is a gulf between us and God, held in tension by his justified wrath owed to us for our sin. At the cross, the sinless Christ does the work of mediation both necessary and ordinarily impossible.

Condemnation -- The mediator must accept the place of the guilty in order to exchange his innocence. Therefore he goes to the cross willingly, because it is the foreordained place of condemnation where we all belong. He becomes the substitute condemned and takes on the condemnation.

Propitiation -- A blood debt is owed, legally speaking, because without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sins. But we cannot make this payment because we have no currency with which to do so. We are morally bankrupt, every last one of us. So at the cross, Christ makes this payment with the riches of himself, supplying his life to take the debt upon himself and thereby satisfying the law's demands. God's wrath is thereby appeased.

Imputation -- By propitiating the debt of sin, he takes it off of the condemned onto himself as he becomes the condemned on the cross, but in doing that, he conveys his innocence to those actually guilty. He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. His righteousness is imputed to us; this means that we are counted righteous despite our sin.

Expiation -- But Jesus doesn't stop there. With his life given sacrificially on the cross, he doesn't just take on our debt, he eradicates it completely. He takes it upon himself like the scapegoat to carry our sins into the void. Another way to say this is that Jesus' work on the cross doesn't just reckon us righteous, it actually makes us righteous.

Sanctification -- An ongoing work of the Spirit, to be sure, but thanks to Christ's expiating work on the cross, we are also declared sanctified on the cross, which is to say, cleansed by his blood. (1 Corinthians 6:11)

Justification -- Nearly all of Christ's crosswork put together merits what we receive through faith: right standing before God. Because of the cross, we for whom there was no justification are now justified.

Reconciliation -- And since we are justified before God, we are reconciled to him. The gulf is bridged, the wrath appeased, the debt canceled and cast into the void, the soul cleansed. Christ's wide-open arms at the cross reveal to us the means of the Father embracing his once-lost children. Through the cross, Christ reconciles us to God. (Colossians 1:20)

Nations -- Who is Christ's crosswork for, exactly? (1 John 2:2)

From: The Gospel-Driven Church

Rewrite Your Personal Story

This is a great quote on letting God rewrite your personal narrative with the Gospel.  Good Stuff!

“….Through union with Christ, you are righteous (having been justified), new (regenerated), and holy (definitively sanctified). In this unbreakable union with Christ we are given a new history, a new identity, and a new destiny.

• We are given a new history, because his past counts as our past: his perfect life and obedient death is credited as ours. His death to the ruling power of sin counts as ours, securing our freedom from sin’s tyranny.

• We are given a new identity, because when we are joined to Christ, God sees us in his Son. In fact, we become saints, children of God, and heirs with Christ.

• We are given a new destiny, because in the resurrection of Christ, the age to come has dawned. His resurrection guarantees that we will be raised from the dead as well, and, in fact, empowers us to live in newness of life in the here and now.

Jesus has not just given us a ticket to heaven. He has changed our essential identity. He has irrevocably altered the effect of our past on our present and future by causing his death and resurrection to count as ours. We really are new creatures, even as we press on by God’s grace to become more holy.

The point is that sanctification (freedom from the dominion of sin), no less than justification (freedom from the guilt of sin), comes through faith in Christ alone.[v] Everything we need for life and godliness is found in him! Transformation can happen in no other way.”

Brian G. Hedges, Christ Formed in You: The Power of the Gospel for Personal Change, (Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania: Shepherd Press, 2010), p.103

Hat Tip:  The Gospel Rewrites Our Stories « Already Not Yet

"The Discomfort of the Justified Life"

"God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death.

So we should learn to live with the discomfort of the justified life. We should accept the fact that as still-growing Christians we will always be dissatisfied with our sanctification. But at the same time, we should remember that in Christ we are justified. We are righteous in him"

--Jerry Bridges, 'The Discomfort of the Justified Life,' in Justified: Modern Reformation Essays on the Doctrine of Justification (ed. Ryan Glomsrud and Michael Horton; Modern Reformation, 2010), 94

Hat Tip: Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology
 

The Journey We Are On

This life therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness;
not health but healing;
not being but becoming;
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.

                   - Martin Luther

Hat Tip: The Journey of Sanctification - Desiring God

Living Free

“Telling a slave to be free is to add insult to injury. But telling a liberated slave to be free is an invitation to enjoy his new freedom and privilege.”

- Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, Ill.; Crossway, 2010), 49.

From:  Liberated in Christ « Of First Importance