Truth will readily be exchanged for error when no more sweetness and joy is to be found in it than is to be found in error. When we find any of the good truths of the gospel coming home to our souls with power, giving us gladness of heart and transforming us into the image and likeness of it, the Holy Spirit is then at his work. He is pouring out his oil.
June 18, 2013
June 13, 2013
After our class on the life of William Carey this past Sunday morning, one of the things I realized we did not get to talk about was the way God used him despite all of the things we would call “set backs.” Taking his words, “Expect great things…attempt great things” in the broader context of his life, we would say he lived this out. At any given moment, especially early on in his mission work, you can only imagine how difficult it must have been for him.
I think that we tend to expect great things to happen with ease. Whenever we attempt great things, we only follow through with the attempt if everything is going pretty much according to plan.
It seems we have much to learn here from a man who was much like us. In all that we are called to do, whether we think of it as great or not, there is always the temptation to wait or to get sidetracked by life events. We pursue things that we believe God has called us to do but then we treat hardships as if they were not part of God’s plan. Sometimes the very act of getting started with something we feel strongly that we should be doing never happens because we keep waiting for the right time – a time in which we somehow think that everything will fall perfectly into place in order for us to proceed. Sometimes everything may “fall” into place, but it seems contrary to the way we see things unfold in Scripture (not to mention past experience.)
Here is one of the ways that I think we should find great encouragement from Christian biography. Not only do we learn about a person, but we get to see with some clarity the way God used another man or woman despite their flaws and troubles. This perspective helps us to guard against either viewing ourselves too lowly or too highly. Instead, seeing into the life of another person often brings a clear vision of things that we have great difficulty seeing with clarity in our own lives.
A lot of the information that I used for our class came from this online edition of Christianity Today if you are interested in further reading.
June 11, 2013
Faith is a reasoning trust, a trust which reckons thoughtfully and confidently upon the trustworthiness of God.
June 4, 2013
Glorification is the scriptural name for God’s completion of what he began when he regenerated us, namely, our moral and spiritual reconstruction so as to be perfectly and permanently conformed to Christ. Glorification is a work of transforming power whereby God finally turns us into sinless creatures in deathless bodies.
May 28, 2013
If Christ has died for me – ungodly as I am, without strength as I am – then I can no longer live in sin, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him who has redeemed me. I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend. I must be holy for his sake. How can I live in sin when He has died to save me from it?
- Charles Spurgeon
May 21, 2013
Until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that naught is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; no, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity.
May 13, 2013
I just wrote a book on marriage called “[This] Momentary Marriage.” I’ve been married 40 years this December. I named it “[This] Momentary Marriage” just because Jesus said, “in the resurrection there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.” You get a little window here, and it’s all about a parable of something more permanent, which means that singleness, by the way, can have massive significance in its witness to that later marriage, rather than absolutizing the one that we can enjoy here for a moment. This is a momentary marriage, which means if you risk one of you dying, you have an occasion, like Graham Staines’ wife and his 13-year-old daughter Esther who after he, and his two sons – one six, one ten – burned alive in the back of their SUV in India, were asked “you going home now to Australia after 30 years working with lepers in India?” and she said “why would we go home? We’ve given our life here. We love India. We hold no grudges.” And then they turned to the 13-year-old daughter. Some of you are 13; okay, heads up 13-year-olds. Your dad’s just been burned alive, your two brothers have just [been] killed. What do you think about your dad’s murder?… “It is an honor that my dad was counted worthy to die for Jesus” something like that she said, 13 years old. These are heroes, [are] they not? They will rejoin him very quickly. It will be as nothing. The marriage is over, forever. It’s just going to be better in the age to come. You think marriage is good? You think sex is good? It is. It’s a parable of what’s really good. So every time it happens, or you just dream of it happening as a single person, remember it’s all about something else. Something else a thousand times better than sexual intercourse is coming.
