Category Archives: Daily Thoughts

Faith and Repentance: Which Comes First?

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When the gospel is proclaimed, it seems at first sight that two different, even alternative, responses are called for. Sometimes the summons is, ‘Repent!’ Thus, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”‘ (Matt. 3:1-2). Again, Peter urged the hearers whose consciences had been ripped open on the day of Pentecost, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ’ (Acts 2:38). Later, Paul urged the Athenians to ‘repent’ in response to the message of the risen Christ (Acts 17:30).
 
Yet on other occasions, the appropriate response to the gospel is, ‘Believe!’ When the Philippian jailer asked Paul what he must do to be saved, the Apostle told him, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved’ (Acts 16:31).
 
But there is no mystery or contradiction here. Further on in Acts 17, we discover that precisely where the response of repentance was required, those who were converted are described as believing (Acts 17:30, 34).
 
Any confusion is surely resolved by the fact that when Jesus preached ‘the gospel of God’ in Galilee, he urged his hearers, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:14-15). Here repentance and faith belong together. They denote two aspects in conversion that are equally essential to it. Thus, either term implies the presence of the other because each reality (repentance or faith) is the sine qua non of the other.
 
In grammatical terms, then the words repent and believe both function as a synecdoche — the figure of speech in which a part is used for the hole. Thus, repentance implies faith and faith implies repentance. One cannot exist without the other.
 
But which comes first logically? Is it repentance? Is it faith? Or does neither have an absolute priority? There has been prolonged debates in Reformed thought about this. Each of three possible answers has advocates:
 
First, W. G. T. Shedd insisted that faith must precede repentance in the order of nature: ‘Though faith and repentance are inseparable and simultaneous, yet in the order of nature, faith precedes repentance’ (Dogmatic Theology 2.536). Shedd argues this on the grounds that the motivating power for repentance lies in faith’s grasp of the mercy of God. If repentance were to precede faith, both repentance and faith would be legal in character, and they would become prerequisites for grace.
 
Second, Louis Berkhof appears to have taken the reverse position: ‘There is no doubt that, logically, repentance and the knowledge of sin precede the faith that yields to Christ in trusting love’ (Systematic Theology, p.492).
 
Third, John Murray insisted that this issue raises ‘an unnecessary question and the insistence that one is prior to the other is futile. There is no priority. The faith that is unto salvation is a penitent faith and the repentance that is unto life is a believing repentance… saving faith is permeated with repentance and repentance is permeated with saving faith’. (Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, p.113)
 
This is, surely, the more biblical perspective. We cannot separate turning from sin in repentance and coming to Christ in faith. They describe the same person in the same action, but from different perspectives. In one instance (repentance), the person is viewed in relation to sin; in the other (faith), the person is viewed  in relation to the Lord Jesus. But the individual who trusts in Christ simultaneously turns away from sin. In believing he repents and in repenting believes. Perhaps R. L. Dabney expressed it best when he insisted that repentance and faith are ‘twin’ graces (perhaps we might say ‘conjoined twins’).
 
But having said this, we have by no means said everything there is to say. Entwined within any theology of conversion lies a psychology of conversion. In any particular individual, at the level of consciousness, a sense of either repentance or trust may predominate. What is unified theologically may be diverse psychologically. Thus, an individual deeply convicted of the guilt and bondage of sin may experience turning from it (repentance) as the dominant note in his or her conversion. Others (whose experience of conviction deepens after their conversion) may have a dominant sense of the wonder of Christ’s love, with less agony of soul at the psychological level. Here the individual is more conscious of trusting in Christ than of repentance from sin. But in true conversion, neither can exist without the other.
 
The psychological accompaniments of conversion thus vary, sometimes depending on the dominant gospel emphasis that is set before the sinner (the sinfulness of sin or the greatness of grace). This is quite consistent with the shrewd comment of the Westminster Divines to the effect that faith (that is, the trusting response of the individual to the word of the gospel) ‘acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof [of Scripture] containeth’ (WCF 16.2).
 
In no case, however, can real conversion take place apart from the presence of both repentance and faith, and therefore both joy and sorrow. A ‘conversion’ that lacks all sorrow for sin, that receives the word with only joy, will be temporary.
 
Jesus’ parable of the sower is instructive here. In one type of soil, the seed sprouts quickly but dies suddenly. This represents ‘converts’ who receive the word with joy — but with no sense of fallow ground being broken up by conviction of sin or any pain in turning from it (Mark 4:5-6, 16-17). On the other hand, a conversion that is only sorrow for sin without any joy in pardon will prove to have been only ‘worldly grief’ that ‘produces death’ (2 Corinthians 7:10). In the end, it will come to nothing.
 
This, however, raises a final question: Does the necessity of repentance in conversion constitute a kind of work that detracts from the empty-handedness of faith? Does it compromise grace?
 
In a word, no. Sinners must always come empty-handed. But this is precisely the point. By nature, my hands are full (of sin, self, and my own ‘good deeds’). However, hands that are full cannot hold onto Christ in faith. Instead, as they take hold of him, they are emptied. That which has prevented us from trusting him falls inevitably to the ground. The old way of like cannot be retained at hands that are taking hold of the Savior.
 
Yes, repentance and faith are two essential elements in conversion. They constitute twin graces that can never be separated. As John Calvin well reminds us, this is true not only of the beginning but of the whole of our Christian lives. We are believing penitents and penitent believers all the way to glory.
 
– Sinclair Ferguson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Conditional Grace

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[God] gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:6–8) 
James teaches us that there is a precious experience of “more grace” and God “drawing near” to us. Surely this is a wonderful experience — more grace and a special nearness of God. But I ask: is this experience of the love of God unconditional? No. It is not. It is conditional on our humbling ourselves and our drawing near to God. God “gives [more] grace to the humble. . . . Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
There are precious experiences of the love of God that require that we fight pride, seek humility, and cherish the nearness of God. Those are the conditions. Of course, the conditions themselves are the work of God in us. But they are no less conditions we fulfill.
If this is true, I fear that the unqualified, biblically careless reassurances today that God’s love is all unconditional may stop people from doing the very things the Bible says they need to do in order to enjoy all the peace that they so desperately crave. In trying to give peace through “unconditionality” we may be cutting people off from the very remedy the Bible prescribes.
To be sure, let us proclaim, loud and clear, that the divine love of election, and the divine love of Christ’s death, and the divine love of our regeneration — our new birth — are all absolutely unconditional. 
And let us declare untiringly the good news that our justification is based on the worth of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, not ours (Romans 5:19, “as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”).
But let us also declare the biblical truth that the fullest and sweetest experiences of the grace of God and the nearness of God will be enjoyed by those who daily humble themselves and draw near to God.
– John Piper
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Small Things and God’s Grace

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Just a couple of weeks ago, Steve Burchett and I loaded up his van and drove to Oklahoma from Kansas City for retreat with the leaders of a well-known international ministry I won’t name. The trip was pleasant, but when we arrived after several hours, the gate of the retreat center was only partially opened and unmovable. Steve decided to slip through the gate on foot to see who could help us. 
 
He found no one to help. So, returning to the car, we drove around to see if there was another entrance. There wasn’t. We finally got in touch with a retreat center worker. They said that the ministry had been there last week. And, they were planning to be there in another month. Not this week? What’s going on? Steve had the emails with the date and had been in contact with the ministry all week in preparation for the retreat.
 
We left to get some gasoline. While there I had the best opportunity for evangelism that I’d had in several weeks, with two very interested employees at the station. I got to answer questions and explain a lot. Finally, we were able to locate the ministry’s director by phone. He was totally embarrassed and profusely apologetic. The date had been changed a long time ago but in switching the person responsible for the retreat among their team members, they had accidentally miscommunicated by using the old date. It was an honest mistake. He had wondered what Steve’s text sent earlier-“68 miles!”-was all about.
 
We turned around and headed home, stopping for a good meal, rejoicing all the way. We weren’t upset about a lost day, because it wasn’t one. Ten hours of great discussions in the van, a wonderful evangelism opportunity which may have been the main reason for the trip, a nice meal, a lesson learned, and the confidence that we had fulfilled the purpose of God for our lives. I’ve done worse some days, for sure. 
 
The Small Things
 
It’s strange, isn’t it, that sometimes we’re upset about very minor things. I handled this lost day in our otherwise busy lives pretty well, but was very aware that I had been upset about several almost incidental turns in events the week before. It’s almost irrational that little things get us, things not worthy of the expenditure of our negative emotions.
 
I’ve been following and communicating with a missionary in Indonesia who is very ill. It came upon him after his 23rd bout of malaria. That’s 23! Now his spleen and liver are compromised and swollen, and he seems to get no relief. He left for Bali to see doctors and to recuperate, but no doctor is helping. He is now considering flying to another place for medical help. 
 
In his struggle, he honestly admits that depression has sometimes come along with the wait and pain, yet God opens doors for speaking of Christ and continues to encourage him. It’s a battle with no predictable outcome. He fights for joy and God helps him, but he also sometimes succumbs to the suffering and simply has to be sick and still and wondering. 
 
I pondered how I might react in his condition. I don’t know how I would do. I anticipate grace would be supplied as needed, but who knows what pain or reversals bring? God doesn’t always deliver in the way we expect. God doesn’t always relieve as quickly as we want. Some people die. Some people get sick and don’t get better-for a long time. Some people live daily with the temptation to be utterly discouraged. Some rise above and praise God immediately, some later, some not enough. Most of us will do some of both. We should learn from all this. And we should read David’s psalms to feel the reality.
 
My wife has been listening to several testimonies about suffering lately, preparing for a retreat. I want to say to her, “Don’t listen to those! God might decide to just make those stories preparation for our own suffering!” In fact, this is likely true in some sense-those stories can be a grace ahead of time for the suffering that certainly will come to each of us. Who will go entirely through life without suffering?
 
The Hotel at the End of the Trail
 
We live in Kansas City, the beginning of the West where the Santa Fe trail began. At the end of the trail, the cowboys came into town looking for a hotel and a real bed. Cows are good, cow pies smell sweet (to some people), and the prairie sky is beautiful, but the cow pokes all anticipated the luxury of the hotel at the end of the cattle drive. 
 
Suffering reminds of us of the whole of creation that groans until the resurrection (Romans 8). We aren’t meant to have all the joy here. We look forward to the inheritance, to the glory of Christ and the new world, to the final victory over the last enemy, death. Jesus himself went through his suffering “looking to the joy that was set before him.” Say it aloud: WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT ALL HERE. We will have trials and difficulties. We can have joy here, yes, but largely because we anticipate unfiltered fellowship and unstifled joy later. 
 
The Man on the Computer
 
There’s a man across the room here in the coffee shop where I’m writing this. I saw him a few nights ago and hope to get to know him. He’s lonely looking, bent over his computer, just as he was the other night.  He’s gambling online. That’s the real suffering that should concern us the most. Emptiness on the way to damnation-darkness on the way to utter darkness. I would far rather suffer as my friend is in Indonesia with Christ and the confidence of future glory, than the way this man is suffering on his way to hell. Wouldn’t you?
 
– Jim Eliff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Small Thingdailys and God’s Grace

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Just a couple of weeks ago, Steve Burchett and I loaded up his van and drove to Oklahoma from Kansas City for retreat with the leaders of a well-known international ministry I won’t name. The trip was pleasant, but when we arrived after several hours, the gate of the retreat center was only partially opened and unmovable. Steve decided to slip through the gate on foot to see who could help us. 
 
He found no one to help. So, returning to the car, we drove around to see if there was another entrance. There wasn’t. We finally got in touch with a retreat center worker. They said that the ministry had been there last week. And, they were planning to be there in another month. Not this week? What’s going on? Steve had the emails with the date and had been in contact with the ministry all week in preparation for the retreat.
 
We left to get some gasoline. While there I had the best opportunity for evangelism that I’d had in several weeks, with two very interested employees at the station. I got to answer questions and explain a lot. Finally, we were able to locate the ministry’s director by phone. He was totally embarrassed and profusely apologetic. The date had been changed a long time ago but in switching the person responsible for the retreat among their team members, they had accidentally miscommunicated by using the old date. It was an honest mistake. He had wondered what Steve’s text sent earlier-“68 miles!”-was all about.
 
We turned around and headed home, stopping for a good meal, rejoicing all the way. We weren’t upset about a lost day, because it wasn’t one. Ten hours of great discussions in the van, a wonderful evangelism opportunity which may have been the main reason for the trip, a nice meal, a lesson learned, and the confidence that we had fulfilled the purpose of God for our lives. I’ve done worse some days, for sure. 
 
The Small Things
 
It’s strange, isn’t it, that sometimes we’re upset about very minor things. I handled this lost day in our otherwise busy lives pretty well, but was very aware that I had been upset about several almost incidental turns in events the week before. It’s almost irrational that little things get us, things not worthy of the expenditure of our negative emotions.
 
I’ve been following and communicating with a missionary in Indonesia who is very ill. It came upon him after his 23rd bout of malaria. That’s 23! Now his spleen and liver are compromised and swollen, and he seems to get no relief. He left for Bali to see doctors and to recuperate, but no doctor is helping. He is now considering flying to another place for medical help. 
 
In his struggle, he honestly admits that depression has sometimes come along with the wait and pain, yet God opens doors for speaking of Christ and continues to encourage him. It’s a battle with no predictable outcome. He fights for joy and God helps him, but he also sometimes succumbs to the suffering and simply has to be sick and still and wondering. 
 
I pondered how I might react in his condition. I don’t know how I would do. I anticipate grace would be supplied as needed, but who knows what pain or reversals bring? God doesn’t always deliver in the way we expect. God doesn’t always relieve as quickly as we want. Some people die. Some people get sick and don’t get better-for a long time. Some people live daily with the temptation to be utterly discouraged. Some rise above and praise God immediately, some later, some not enough. Most of us will do some of both. We should learn from all this. And we should read David’s psalms to feel the reality.
 
My wife has been listening to several testimonies about suffering lately, preparing for a retreat. I want to say to her, “Don’t listen to those! God might decide to just make those stories preparation for our own suffering!” In fact, this is likely true in some sense-those stories can be a grace ahead of time for the suffering that certainly will come to each of us. Who will go entirely through life without suffering?
 
The Hotel at the End of the Trail
 
We live in Kansas City, the beginning of the West where the Santa Fe trail began. At the end of the trail, the cowboys came into town looking for a hotel and a real bed. Cows are good, cow pies smell sweet (to some people), and the prairie sky is beautiful, but the cow pokes all anticipated the luxury of the hotel at the end of the cattle drive. 
 
Suffering reminds of us of the whole of creation that groans until the resurrection (Romans 8). We aren’t meant to have all the joy here. We look forward to the inheritance, to the glory of Christ and the new world, to the final victory over the last enemy, death. Jesus himself went through his suffering “looking to the joy that was set before him.” Say it aloud: WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE IT ALL HERE. We will have trials and difficulties. We can have joy here, yes, but largely because we anticipate unfiltered fellowship and unstifled joy later. 
 
The Man on the Computer
 
There’s a man across the room here in the coffee shop where I’m writing this. I saw him a few nights ago and hope to get to know him. He’s lonely looking, bent over his computer, just as he was the other night.  He’s gambling online. That’s the real suffering that should concern us the most. Emptiness on the way to damnation-darkness on the way to utter darkness. I would far rather suffer as my friend is in Indonesia with Christ and the confidence of future glory, than the way this man is suffering on his way to hell. Wouldn’t you?
 
– Jim Eliff
 

 

Motivating Millennials for Mission

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‘These men who have upset the world have come here also.’ — Acts 17:6
 
How do we motivate the millennial generation to take up the challenge of world evangelization? Many define the millennial generation as those born between 1980 and 2000. In the United States, roughly 75 million millennials were born between 1980 and 1997, which is the largest living generation in American history. By 2020 millennials will make up 50% of the U.S. workforce and by 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be millennials. So it does not take a rocket scientist to see the clear implications for the future of world missions. The millennial generation must ‘step up.’
 
I suggest that older people like me should find a few millennials and disciple them. Offer to spend time with them and give them a vision for the world. Challenge them with something bigger than themselves, which, of course, is what Jesus and his apostles did in equipping people for ministry. Paul told younger Timothy that he was poured out as a drink offering, which means there was nothing left. Model it for them. Let them see you burn with holy zeal for the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Take them with you to evangelize.
 
To go further, motivating millennials to missions begins, as always, in the local church where the preacher is to preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5). To preach Christ crucified entails a vision for a big God, an awareness that every unbeliever is addicted to big sin, that God has provided a big Christ, and that the result of Christ’s death and resurrection is a big atonement for big sin.
 
The prevailing talk in the church today is our ‘brokenness’ or our ‘woundedness’. Have you noticed how rarely we hear preaching on sin, the eternal consequences of sin, and the need to repent of sin? The origin today of being broken or wounded is largely from the field of psychotherapy and not the Scriptures. I have known plenty of people who were sexually abused or came from fatherless homes, whom some would call broken due to their circumstances. They, however, are not necessarily broken in the Biblical sense, for they can still be prideful, rebellious, recalcitrant, and unwilling to repent of their sin, feeling justified to wallow in defeat and misery, rather than believing God can and will give them a growing victory over their sinful propensities. A Biblically broken person, however, according to Scripture, is one who has come to see that he has sinned against God, and God alone (Psalm 51:4). Brokenness has nothing to do with one’s emotional trauma from life’s hardships. David said, ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise,’ (Psalm 51:17). God looks to, shows favor to the humble and contrite of spirit, those who tremble at  his word (Isaiah 66:2).
 
Millennials need to hear preaching which stresses the utter sinfulness of sin before a holy God, who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. They need a clear, precise, and memorable declaration of Christ’s propitiating death (God poured out his wrath on his Son), his expiating death (God washed away the guilt and filth of our sin by Christ’s death at Calvary), his redeeming blood (which pays the ransom price to bring us back to God), and his reconciling death (God’s enmity toward us and ours toward him has been removed).
 
Millennials are often wandering in the wilderness of social justice, political correctness, critical theory, intersectionality, and identity politics, which are a distraction from the gospel. Have you noticed how the word missions has been replaced by missional? Historically, we have spoken of world missions or doing missions, which has always had the idea of leading with evangelism and church planting, followed by establishing Christian schools, hospitals, and other mercy ministry needs. Today, however, the buzzword is missional, which seems to connote reweaving the culture, making the world a better place, and human flourishing (a word, by the way, right out of the play book of the Frankfurt School). Being missional rarely, if ever, leads with intentional direct evangelistic work.
 
Millennials also need a challenge. They need a greater awareness of what God is doing around the world and how they might fit into that great work. One of the best ways to gain this awareness is to be exposed to the work of the gospel in developing nations of the world. Find a few millennials you can disciple and challenge them to go on an extended mission trip with some really hard core guys like PEF evangelist Ben Cohen who goes several times a year to Sudan. Or contact Bob McNabb of Launch Global who is preparing teams to target unreached people groups in the world. Or, challenge a student just graduating from college or who has not yet settled into a career to spend one year in a great missionary internship with Frontline Fellowship in Cape Town, South Africa. The training by Dr. Peter Hammond and the overland trips to various countries in Africa will stretch a person physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Urge those with whom you are working to read daily from Operation World by Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, and pray for the nations and peoples who need the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
And millennials need to develop Biblical convictions on the use of their time, money, and talent. Have you ever noticed how little we hear preachers and church leaders speak of worldliness? We so seldom speak of it because we are so worldly. We are like fish in water which do not notice the water because that is all they have ever known. And parents often are no help in this regard either, reminding their children that they need to get a job which pays lots of money and can purchase the things the world offers. It seems that many parents are embarrassed if their children even entertain the notion of ‘throwing their lives away’ on the mission field. Forget the American Dream. As the great missionary C. T. Studd said, ‘Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop, within a yard of hell.’
 
Finally, challenge millennials to hard things. You know all about ‘helicopter parents’ who have coddled their children, who fight their fights for them, who lavish them with stuff which further softens them, leaving them generally unprepared to face the hardships which are sure to come, sooner or later. Urge them to get out of their comfort zones, to come with me to Africa in January to learn how to evangelize and work really hard for a couple of weeks in an unfamiliar and challenging culture. Even if they remain in a secular job in the United States, they will be far better off for putting themselves in a self-denying, faith building context.
 
– Al Baker

 

No Compromise, Pt 2

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If you’re going to be a true Christian, it will be a lonely life. It’s a narrow way and it becomes narrower and narrower.

Is the world crucified to you or does it fascinate you?

The world has lost the power to blush over its vice and the church has lost her power to weep over it.

The early church was married to poverty, prisons, and persecution; today the church is married to pleasure, prosperity, personality, and popularity.

The only people who want to change the gospel are those who are unchanged by the gospel.

How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don’t have the strength to turn off your TV or computer?

– Leonard Ravenhill

No Compromise, Pt 1

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Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I hope and pray to God that I will have the courage to stand up for the real Jesus of the New Testament.
 
We must not select a few favorite Bible passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
 
An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand.
 
I claim the holy right to disappoint men in order to avoid disappointing God.
 
If God gives you a few more years, remember that those are not yours. Your time must honor God, your home must honor God, your activity must honor God, and everything you do must honor God.
 
To have found God and still pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love.
 
The dangerous thing about going outside of God’s will to get what you want is that you will have to stay outside of his will to keep it.
 
Refuse to be average spiritually; let your heart soar as high as it will go.
 
– A. W. Tozer

Salvation is not a Group Project

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I remember group projects in high school and college. They normally did not go well. Either a brainiac, an egomaniac, or a sluggard usually messed things up. Too many people contributing to one common project caused things to just not be as good as if one person is doing a project.

The reality is, most people think that becoming a Christian is a joint project–they contribute all they can and Jesus finishes the job. They have to contribute something since Jesus died for their salvation. They must do their part and Jesus then does His part. Yes, His part may be bigger and more, but still, I’ve got to contribute at least something to make it sufficient.

But let’s be fully clear about what salvation is not.

— Salvation is not a group project

— Salvation is not a joint effort

— Salvation is not a 50/50 deal

— Salvation is not 2 colleagues both contributing something

— Salvation is not a team effort

— Salvation is not a partnership

— Salvation is not a shared labor

— Salvation is not like a doubles team in tennis

— Salvation is not me trying hard to get better and Jesus helping me improve

Salvation is all of grace with no self-contribution that to some degree, helps, adds to, secures, or improves our acceptability with God.

The only thing that merits anything is Christ’s worth and righteousness, and not anything about us. We indeed must come to Him, but that faith is not meritorious, but rather is simply the means of receiving forgiveness and acceptance. Our faith doesn’t earn anything; it is just how we come empty-handed to receive freely from Christ.

There is absolutely nothing whatsoever we can contribute to help Christ save us. All we give is our sin and our sinful hearts. We only receive, we don’t contribute.

I wonder when people will finally get it. Salvation is all of the Lord or it is not anything. This adds new meaning to Jesus’ words: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

– Mack Tomlinson

More of the Holy Spirit

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[Octavius Winslow, in this encouragement about receiving more of the Holy Spirit, is not saying that believers lack having the Holy Spirit. What he is saying is that we can experience Him more increasingly as we seek and ask. Notice throughout his choice of words about this? “deeper, more, more sensibly applied, more deeply impressed, more rejoicing, so little, measure, receive, influence, pour down, confirm, anointing, give, strengthen, assure, larger degrees, God’s countenance,” etc? He is speaking of deeper working, deeper experiences, and knowing the power of the Spirit in an ongoing and increased way. – M.T.]
 
 
What the Church of God needs corporately, we also equally need as individual Christians—a deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit. Why is it that you are not more settled in the truth and your feet more firm upon the Rock? Why are you not more rejoicing in Christ Jesus, the pardoning blood more sensibly applied to the conscience, the seal of adoption more deeply impressed upon your heart, and “Abba, Father” more frequently on your lips?
 
Why are you, perhaps, so yielding in temptation, so irresolute in purpose, so feeble in action, so vacillating in pursuit, and so faint in the day of adversity? Why is the glory of Jesus so dimly seen, His preciousness so little felt, and His love so imperfectly experienced? Why is there so little close transaction between God and your soul?So little searching of heart, confession of sin, and dealing with the atoning blood?
 
Why does the conscience so much lack tenderness, and the heart brokenness, and the spirit contrition? And why is the throne of grace so seldom resorted to, and prayer itself felt so much a duty and so little a privilege, and, when engaged in, is so faintly characterized with the humble brokenness of a penitent sinner, the confidence of an adopted child, and the rich anointing of a royal priest?
 
Let the small measure in which you have received the Holy Spirit’s influence supply the answer. “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?”—have you received Him as a Witness, as a Sealer, as a Teacher, as an Indweller, as a Comforter, as the Spirit of adoption? Have you not forgotten that your Lord was alive, and upon the throne exalted, to give you the Holy Spirit, and that more readily than a father is ready to give good gifts to his child? That he is prepared now to throw back the windows of heaven, and pour down upon you such a blessing as shall confirm your faith, resolve your doubts, annihilate your fears, arm you for the fight, strengthen you for the trial, give you an unclouded view of your acceptance in the Beloved, and assure you that your “name is written among the living in Jerusalem?”
 
Then as you value the light of God’s countenance, as you desire to grow in a knowledge of Christ, as you long to be more steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, oh, seek to enjoy in a larger degree the presence, the love, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Christ has gone up on high to give to you this invaluable blessing and says for your encouragement, “Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
 
– Octavius Winslow
 
 
 
 
 

What You Need to Know about Suffering

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You never just suffer the thing that you’re suffering, but you always also suffer the way that you’re suffering that thing.
Let me explain what I mean by that phrase, through the experience of my sickness.

In 2014, I went to see a doctor with what felt like minor symptoms. Before I knew what was happening, they admitted me to the hospital for what became an excruciatingly painful ten-day stay.

The abbreviated story is that I was in acute kidney failure, and had I waited another seven to ten days to go to the hospital, you probably wouldn’t be receiving my weekly email devotional.

Four years and six surgeries later, my symptoms are as manageable as possible, but I have been left a physically damaged man.
I learned and was reminded of many things through my suffering. Perhaps one of the most significant principles is this: Our suffering is more powerfully shaped by what’s in our heart than by what’s in our body or the world around us.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. My suffering was real, the dysfunction in my body was real, the pain I went through was horribly real, the damage to my kidneys is real, and the weakness that is now my normal life will continue to be real.

But the way that I experienced all those harsh realities was shaped by the thoughts, desires, dreams, expectations, cravings, fears, and assumptions of my heart.

Yes, I went into my sickness with my theology in the right place, and I did believe that I lived in a groaning world crying out for redemption, but it was battling with something else inside me.

There was this expectation that I would always be as I had been; that is, that I would always be strong and healthy. There was little room in my life, family, and ministry plans for weakness within or trouble without.

So when I realized I was very ill and that weakness and fatigue would be with me for the rest of my life, the blow was not just physical, but emotional and spiritual as well. Honestly, I didn’t suffer just physical pain, but also the even more profound pain of the death of my delusion of invincibility and the pride of productivity.

The same is true for you. Your responses to the situations in your life, whether physical, relational, or circumstantial, are always more determined by what is inside your heart than by the things you are facing.

You never come to your suffering empty-handed. You always drag a bag full of experiences, expectations, assumptions, perspectives, desires, intentions, and decisions into your suffering. What you think about yourself, life, God, and others will profoundly affect the way you interact with and respond to the difficulty that comes your way.

This is why the writer of Proverbs says: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
What are you carrying around in your soul that has the potential to complicate your suffering? What are you preaching to yourself that could allow you to forget the truths of the gospel?

Never forget: No matter what painful thing you’re enduring, as God’s child, it’s impossible for you to endure it all by yourself.
The One who created this world and rules it with wisdom, righteousness, and love is in you, with you, and for you, and nothing has the power to separate you from his love.

– Paul David Tripp