So many of us cavalierly gloss over what he has done and zero in on what we’re to do, and that shift, though it might seem slight, makes all the difference in the world. Our obedience has its origin in God’s prior action, and forgetting that truth results in self-righteousness, pride, and despair.
See the rest of this article here.
"I have a growing concern that younger evangelicals do not take seriously the Bible’s call to personal holiness. We are too at peace with worldliness in our homes, too at ease with sin in our lives, too content with spiritual immaturity in our churches."
Piper here does an excellent job in simply explaining how a Christian should relate to the Law's of the OT/NT:
Are Christians under the 10 commandments?
No. The Bible says we're not under the law.
I love Romans 7:4-6. By way of analogy, it says that you are married to the law. And you better stay married because if you leave this husband and go marry another you are going to be called an adulterer. But if your husband dies, then you can go and remarry.
And then Paul draws the analogy out—a little complex the way he does it—saying that you died to the law. You aren't married anymore, you can have another husband, namely Christ. He's raised from the dead.
So, our approach towards ethics is different. We don't ask the question, "Am I under the law?" We are under grace. The law is already fulfilled perfectly by Jesus. We are in Jesus and as far justification goes, God sees it as completed for you, one-hundred percent. He says, "You've trusted my Son. You've been grafted in him. You are in Christ Jesus and he fulfilled the law perfectly. He covered all your sins." God sees you in and through Christ, therefore, as far as final judgment goes God is 100% for you. That is settled and nothing is going to change it.
Now, shall we sin that grace may abound? Paul says, "Dead men don't sin." If you've died to sin, how can you still live in it? The new birth is the writing of the law on our heart so that we are not under it, it is under us. It is just coming out.
The way we strive towards being obedient, holy and loving people is not by getting up in the morning and pulling the list out of our pocket. No! We get on our knees and we open ourselves to the whole counsel of God in the Bible. We saturate and shape ourselves by everything he has done, he is doing and he will do. We stake our lives in the gospel and then instead of serving the law, we serve one another in love.
Love is the fruit of faith in Jesus—faith working through love. And if you ask, "What does love look like?" First John says, "It keeps the commandments." That brings us back to the question, which commandments? I would say, the ones that are loving.
Love God and do as you please is not bad advice, if you're bent on holiness. If you're bent on love the ten commandments are really important. You should hang them on your wall and you should measure your life by them, but in a very different way than when you were under them, because they have been kept for you.
You are now married to the risen Christ. You are not married to the law and the oldness of the letter, but to the newness of the Spirit. Our whole approach towards transformation, love and life is different than list keeping.
See the article and video here:
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2587_christians_and_the_10_commandments/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DGBlog+(DG+Blog)
Recently a firefighter in our church was told by one of his colleagues that belief in Jesus was for weak people. I found that ironic coming from a firefighter.
I have a fire hydrant in our side yard. I have never looked at the fire hydrant and felt any shame. I drive by a firehouse every day. I never think, “If this community didn’t have weak people than we would never need firehouses.” Every month when I pay my property taxes, which go towards financing fire departments, I never get angry at myself, thinking, “if I could just handle fire myself I wouldn’t have to write this check.”
Imagine a person whose house is on fire. The fire is raging out of control and the fire truck pulls up, sirens blaring. The person runs out of his house in a rage and says, “How dare you come to my house and think that I can’t handle this fire myself! Firefighters are for weak people, not for me.”
What would you think of someone like that? Insane.
We know that fire departments are for “weak” people because a power exists that we simply can’t deal with on our own: fire. Actually, we admire firefighters because they are people who have committed themselves to take on the power of fire at personal expense.
Christians are weak in the same sense that a community is “weak” for having fire departments. They are people who acknowledge that a power exists that they can’t confront and live — the holiness of God. This, however, is not cause for shame, because there was one man who dealt with that power at personal expense, on a cross. And, as every firefighter can admit, when someone is rescued from the flames, they’re not thinking about their weakness; they’re overjoyed that someone would risk it all to save them.
http://theresurgence.com/firefighters_are_for_weak_people
In this article, Anthony Bradley discusses the role of twenty-something men in the church and how they can commonly be misled.
Quote: "When a younger brother says to me that “he feels called to ministry,” I usually understand that to mean that he craves and needs validation and would like to use the church to make him feel good about himself. Or even worse, as Leon Podles explains in his book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, many young men feel called to the church because uninitiated men find the church to be “a safe place, a refuge from the challenges of life and therefore attracts men who are fearful of making a break with the secure world of childhood dominated by women.”"
My kind of article...check it:
http://online.worldmag.com/2010/06/02/mishandling-twentysomethings/
Jesus died on the cross to atone for the guilt of our sin before a holy God. This is amazingly good news. But the cross of Christ also liberates us from our enslavement to sin’s power. Peter captures this when he writes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).
On one hand we rejoice in our legal justification before God. On the other hand we rejoice that we have been liberated from the tyranny of sin, liberated to obey, liberated to pursue godliness, liberated to holiness. This is good news. Or is it?
In a 1994 sermon, John Piper asked:
Does this feel like good news to you? Or does it feel like the good news of the cross is being given with one hand and taken away with the other. Does it feel like good news that the message of the cross on the one hand is a lifting of guilt and on the other hand is a laying on of burden? …
There are many people today who feel the first work of the cross as liberating good news and who feel the second as burdensome bad news. For them, the grace of the cross is one thing: liberation from guilt and shame. And when they hear that the grace of the cross is not just liberation from the guilt of sin, but is also liberation from the power of sin, it doesn’t feel as good. …
Yet, he writes,
the design of the cross to liberate from the enslaving power of sin as well as the guilt of sin does not diminish the good news; it doubles it.
HT: Miscellanies
Check out these three videos which give you a quick summary of the three main views on the end times: amillenialism, premillenialism, and postmillenialism.
http://headhearthand.posterous.com/tag/endtimesqampa
This article was mostly about Starbucks claiming to provide a cup of coffee that will bring about community in your life and save the world (which apparently it doesn't...who knew!?). If that interests you, check the link.
However, I liked something DeYoung said at the very end of the article:
Enjoy your Starbucks coffee, but don’t imagine you are the “global Good Samaritan” for doing so. You may have noticed from books like Stuff White People Like and Hipster Christianity that there is something of a backlash afoot against pretentious coolness. Please here me (and see point 3): there’s nothing bad, and probably lots good, about listening to emo bands, drinking fair trade coffee, and reading Wendell Barry at Panera Bread. Just don’t wear it all as a badge of spiritual honor.
Those who like McDonalds more than Starbucks and Bell’s Pizza more than Magdalena’s Tea House need to be extra careful that in an effort to defend the “uncool” they don’t end up demonizing the “cool.” Some people like the things that “hipsters” like. No problem. They need Jesus too. We all need Jesus. The battle is between God and the devil, between good and evil, between sin and righteousness, not between bourgeois and bohemian.
Forget hip and unhip. Don’t try to be cool. Don’t revel in being uncool. Just be who you are and love your neighbor as yourself.
I'd probably lean more to glorying in the "uncool" and judging the "cool", but it's all the same. Let's "be who we are" and boast in the cross.
On Loving Your Coffee and Your Neighbor – Kevin DeYoung
One of the many reasons why multi-tasking is stupid:
The More You Multitask, the Worse You Get at It : What’s Best Next
A graph depicting statistically that Canadians love hockey:
What If Everybody in Canada Flushed At Once?
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2010/02/25/hello-my-name-is-john-daker/
Go to the site. Watch the videos. Then laugh really hard.
The cartoon one is amazing.
“The Bible Was Only Written by Men...and Men Make Mistakes.”
Greg Koukl's answer:
First, it doesn’t follow that because the Bible’s written by men, that it therefore must be in error. Human error is possible, not necessary. If human error were always necessary in anything man said, this challenge would be self-refuting (“suicide tactic”). If all human claims were necessarily in error, then the claim that the Bible was written by men and men make mistakes would also be in error because it’s a claim made by men who err, defeating itself. It is possible for human beings to produce something without errors. It’s done all the time. What is 2+2? What is the formula for nuclear fission?
Second, this is circular reasoning. If there’s good evidence the Bible can be trusted, then the issue of man’s involvement is moot. A simple question illustrates this: “Are you suggesting with this objection that if God does exist, He’s not capable of writing what He wants through imperfect men?” This is hard to affirm. If the answer is “No,” then the objection vanishes. If the answer is yes, then ask, “Did you ever own a dog? Could you get your dog to sit? If you can get a dumb dog to sit, what makes you think an all-powerful God can’t get a man to write just what He wants him to?” If you first establish that the Biblical record can be trusted, then the second problem—human involvement is irrelevant. If God inspires it then it doesn’t matter if men or monkeys did the writing; they’ll still write exactly what God intends.
Another way of stating it: God can’t err; the Bible is God’s Word; therefore, the Bible can’t err, even if men are involved.
HT: Stand to Reason
Man, I love Tim Keller's writing. His article titled "All of life is Repentance" rocked my world.
On a less world rocking note (yet still typical Keller goodness), Timmy K recently read and reviewed the best selling novel "The Shack". It has sold 7.2 million copies in 2 years and makes some bold claims about God and suffering.
I haven't read it, and truthfully, I don't plan on it. But, Keller definitely read it, and see what he thinks:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/01/27/the-shack-impressions/
If you haven't heard, there was an earthquake in Haiti the other day and it's projected that over 500,000 people are dead.
They need your money badly. Abraham Piper gives you 11 different organizations that you can donate to. DO IT!
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DGBlog/~3/82VQOekOhPo/
What can indecisive, hyper-spiritualized Christians learn from Game Theory?
Some folks seem to think that rational people must be super smart, never making a mistake, looking over each and every possible thing that could happen to them, working out the exact costs and benefits of every conceivable course of action. That is nonsense. Nobody is that smart or diligent, nor should they be. Actually, checking our every possible course of action, working out everything that could possibly arise, is almost never rational, at least not as the term is used in my world. It is never rational to continue searching for more information, for example, when the cost of finding out more is greater than the expected benefits of knowing more. Rational people know when to stop searching–when enough is enough. (I try to impart this message to my students. When they tell me they want to make their term papers as good as possible, I please with them not to. A paper that is worked on until is as good as possible will never be finished.) (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The Predictioneer’s Game, 16)
If you feel like you need to exhaust every possible option before you get married, you’ll never get married (or you’ll make someone very unhappy when you do). If you want every sermon or cleaning chore to be the best if can possibly be, you’ll be a menace to yourself and others. If you have to know everything about everything before making a decision, you’ll go crazy (perhaps literally).
We are not gods. Therefore, our knowledge can never be exhaustive. Sometimes, the most rational thing to do is to stop searching and just do something.
Hmm, there’s gotta be a book in there somewhere.
HT: DeYoung
Offended?
Kevin DeYoung discusses the tendency among all people-liberal, conservative, christian, atheist-to be offended. Brit Hume, who on national television recently encouraged Tiger Woods to turn to Christianity for a forgiveness that no other religion (he expressly mentioned Buddhism) could provide, has started an eruption of offended people on both sides of the spectrum.
Yet, like a lamb led to the slaughter, Christ suffered wrong. Read the post, it's good.
In his note on Romans 9:14 in The Reformation Study Bible, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson writes:
Paul recognizes that his previous statement, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' cannot be allowed to pass without further comment. Could the distinguishing sovereign purpose of God throw into jeopardy His attribute of perfect righteousness? The idea is clearly unthinkable — 'By no means!' (Rom. 6:2, 5; 7:7). Paul explains why by citing two biblical texts (Ex. 33:19; 9:16) in vv. 15, 17, from which he concludes that God is righteous in showing mercy to some while He hardens the hearts of others. When God shows mercy it is not a person receiving a reward earned by one's own efforts, but God's sovereign free grace extended to persons who are morally incapable of any acceptable effort (Rom. 1:18-3:20). God owes mercy to none, so there is no injustice when mercy is not shown. Mercy is a divine prerogative; it rests on God's good pleasure. When God 'hardens' Pharaoh's heart (Rom. 9:18), He does not create fresh evil in it, but gives Pharaoh over to his already evil desires as an act of judgment, resulting eventually in God's display of 'power' (Rom. 9:22) in the destruction of Pharaoh's army (Ex. 14:17, 18, 23-28).
HT: Ligonier
Bob Kauflin-Worship Director for Sovereign Grace Ministries-just turned 55 and offered 9 reflections, one of which I thoroughly enjoyed:
6. Worship leaders can be cool. Biblical worship can’t be.
By nature, “cool” describes something that the world esteems as hip, desirable, elitist, and perhaps elusive. Biblical worship is very un-hip, hated by the world’s value system, and a gracious gift from God to those he has redeemed. It involves magnifying the glory of Christ and minimizing our own glory. It means acknowledging our sinfulness before a holy God, expressing gratefulness for the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ for our sins, and responding in humble obedience to his commands. All very uncool activities. So, no need to worry that I’m twice as old as a lot of the people I lead corporate worship with.
ALSO, Bob Kauflin just so happens to be the artist behind the greatest worship CD I own. CHECK IT
Hilarious comparison between James Cameron's gazillion dollar movie and the story of Pocahontas (sp?).
http://twitpic.com/wt1lk
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A.W. Tozer is a brilliant author who in this book goes through all the attributes of God in an effort to proclaim His excellence. |
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It's a book about the redemtion of sinful man...and it's an English Standard Version. |
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Studies show that this devotional dominates lives. |
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It's a commentary... He comments on things. |
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