Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Patton on the "profession of faith"
There are many people who are very comfortable in their profession of faith they made so long ago. So comfortable are these people that they never make any further moves in their walk with God. Like my friend, they rely upon the “once-saved-always-saved” doctrine that they were taught immediately upon conversion.
I don’t have a problem with teaching once-saved-aways-saved, but I would qualify it a great deal. Let me be plain and clear. The doctrine of God’s grace is radical. It is absolutely radical. It is unbelievably radical. God gives us an unspeakable gift free of charge. We don’t owe God anything for it. Neither is it on lay-away. In fact, it would be very offensive to God for us to even try to pay for it. It is priceless. Yet this gift, from a human point of view, is received by faith. Faith is the evidence of our salvation. It is the instrumental cause of our salvation. Faith is the evidence that we have entered into the race. But what we fail to emphasize is often more destructive to the Christian faith than not telling the Gospel at all. We fail to tell people that there is a false kind of faith. There is a faith that crosses the starting line, but never completes the race. Their is a faith that does not save.
Paul encourages the Corinthians:
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you– unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5)
The author of Hebrews says:
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (Heb. 4:1)
In Revelation, it is only those who overcome who are promised eternal life:
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” (Rev. 2:7; emphasis mine)
James speaks about a faith that does not save:
“What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” (Jam. 2:14)
Remember in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, there are three types of seeds that sprout (start the race), but only one truly takes root (finishes the race).
I believe that once a person is truly saved, he or she will never lose that salvation. John 10:28 is all I need for this. Yet I think we need to warn people that not all faith is true faith.
Lloyd-Jones on Being Different
Dr. Lloyd-Jones on making a difference by being different:
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first. That is how revival comes. That must also be true of us as individuals. It should not be our ambition to be as much like everybody else as we can, though we happen to be Christian, but rather to be as different from everybody who is not a Christian as we can possibly be. Our ambition should be to be like Christ, the more like Him the better. And the more like Him we become, the more useful to the world we will be.
(HT:Tullian)
The glory of the gospel is that when the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first. That is how revival comes. That must also be true of us as individuals. It should not be our ambition to be as much like everybody else as we can, though we happen to be Christian, but rather to be as different from everybody who is not a Christian as we can possibly be. Our ambition should be to be like Christ, the more like Him the better. And the more like Him we become, the more useful to the world we will be.
(HT:Tullian)
Monday, January 26, 2009
Horton on Lifestyle Evangelism
“Like many Emergent Church leaders, [Dan] Kimball invokes a famous line from Francis Assisi that I also heard growing up in conservative evangelicalism: “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” Kimball goes on to say, “Our lives will preach better than anything we can say.” (We encounter nearly identical statement from [Joel] Osteen…). If so, then this is just more bad news…because despite my best intentions, I am not an exemplary creature. The best examples and instructions –even the best doctrines– will not relieve me of the battle with indwelling sin until I draw my last breath. Find me on my best day –especially if you have access to my hidden motives, thoughts, and attitudes– and I will always provide fodder for the hypocrisy charge and will let down those who would become Christians because they think I and my fellow Christians are the gospel. I am a Christian not because I think that I can walk in Jesus’ footsteps but because He is the only one who can carry me. I am not the gospel; Jesus Christ alone is the gospel. His story saves me, not only by bringing me justification, but by baptizing me into His resurrection life.”
“Conformity to Christ’s image (sanctification) is the process of dying to self (mortification) and living to God (vivification) that results from being regularly immersed in the gospel’s story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection…That my life is not the gospel is good news both for me and for my neighbors… We do not preach ourselves but Christ. The good news…is that what we say preaches better than our lives, at least if what we are saying is Christ’s person and work rather than our own. The more we talk about Christ as the Bible’s unfolding mystery and less about our own transformation, the more likely we are actually to be transformed rather than either self-righteousness or despairing.” (P117, 118)
excerpt from "Christless Christianity"
(HT:Nathan White)
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Fifteen Pro-Life Truths to Speak
(HT:John Piper blog)
"You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." - Jesus Christ
1. Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother's womb (except in the case of abortion).
2. Fetal surgery is performed on babies in the womb to save them while another child the same age is being legally destroyed.
3. Babies can sometimes survive on their own at 23 or 24 weeks, but abortion is legal beyond this limit.
4. Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.
5. Size is irrelevant to human personhood, as we know from the difference between a one-week-old and a six-year-old.
6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood, as we know from the capacities of three-month-old babies.
7. Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.
8. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. All the organs are present, the brain is functioning, the heart is pumping, the liver is making blood cells, the kidneys are cleaning fluids, and there is a fingerprint. Virtually all abortions happen later than this date.
9. Justice dictates that when two legitimate rights conflict, the limitation of rights that does the least harm is the most just. Bearing a child for adoption does less harm than killing him.
10. Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.
11. Justice dictates that a person may not coerce harm on another person by threatening voluntary harm on themselves.
12. The outcast and the disadvantaged and exploited are to be cared for in a special way, especially those with no voice of their own.
13. What is happening in the womb is the unique person-nurturing work of God, who alone has the right to give and take life.
14. There are countless clinics that offer life and hope to both mother and child (and father and parents), with care of every kind lovingly provided by people who will meet every need they can.
15.Jesus Christ can forgive all sins, and will give all who trusts him the help they need to do everything that life requires.
"You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." - Jesus Christ
1. Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother's womb (except in the case of abortion).
2. Fetal surgery is performed on babies in the womb to save them while another child the same age is being legally destroyed.
3. Babies can sometimes survive on their own at 23 or 24 weeks, but abortion is legal beyond this limit.
4. Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.
5. Size is irrelevant to human personhood, as we know from the difference between a one-week-old and a six-year-old.
6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood, as we know from the capacities of three-month-old babies.
7. Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.
8. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. All the organs are present, the brain is functioning, the heart is pumping, the liver is making blood cells, the kidneys are cleaning fluids, and there is a fingerprint. Virtually all abortions happen later than this date.
9. Justice dictates that when two legitimate rights conflict, the limitation of rights that does the least harm is the most just. Bearing a child for adoption does less harm than killing him.
10. Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.
11. Justice dictates that a person may not coerce harm on another person by threatening voluntary harm on themselves.
12. The outcast and the disadvantaged and exploited are to be cared for in a special way, especially those with no voice of their own.
13. What is happening in the womb is the unique person-nurturing work of God, who alone has the right to give and take life.
14. There are countless clinics that offer life and hope to both mother and child (and father and parents), with care of every kind lovingly provided by people who will meet every need they can.
15.Jesus Christ can forgive all sins, and will give all who trusts him the help they need to do everything that life requires.
Scum of the Earth
"We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things." 1 Corinthians 4:13
Christlike people know where they stand with the world -- out with the garbage. The world did not value Jesus, and the world does not value his followers today. In this world of false glories, the cross and all who love it will never measure up to this week's definition of cool. The early church accepted that and triumphed. Now it's our turn. And one thing to gladden us along the way: even below the bottom of the heap is the Lord Jesus Christ, the weakness of God and the foolishness of God, saving everyone low enough to discover him there.
(HT:Ortlund)
The Word
"You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God." Matthew 22:29
"The charge against the Sadducees was not simply that they failed to relate and to correlate knowledge and power. More particularly, it was that they were theologically and experientially ignorant of both revelatory truth and the power of God. Not only were they strangers to God's power but they were unknowing of it. Their detachment from God's power, moreover, was due to a deficient knowledge of Scripture. Jesus here pays to the Scriptures one of his ministry's highest tributes, when he implies that knowledge of Scripture will guard one from theological error and acquaint one with the power of God."
Carl F. H. Henry, Wheaton Alumni magazine, Summer 1996, page 15.
(HT:Ortlund)
"The charge against the Sadducees was not simply that they failed to relate and to correlate knowledge and power. More particularly, it was that they were theologically and experientially ignorant of both revelatory truth and the power of God. Not only were they strangers to God's power but they were unknowing of it. Their detachment from God's power, moreover, was due to a deficient knowledge of Scripture. Jesus here pays to the Scriptures one of his ministry's highest tributes, when he implies that knowledge of Scripture will guard one from theological error and acquaint one with the power of God."
Carl F. H. Henry, Wheaton Alumni magazine, Summer 1996, page 15.
(HT:Ortlund)
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