John Piper: 1. Do you love the thought that you exist to make God look what he really is — glorious? Do you love the thought that you exist to reflect and display the glory of God? Does that bring joy to your heart and make you tingle with awesome historical destiny? I am on planet earth to make God look glorious, because he is. 2. Do you love the thought that all creation exists to display the glory of God? “The heavens are telling the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Are you glad about it? When you see spring just trying to come in Minnesota — soon the branches will get little bulges and you’ll say, “Come on; come on.” When they come in, the heads that you chop back so far, you wonder if it’ll ever come back, it gets the little green things on it and you say, “God is real and living.” Are you glad that it’s about
Salvation
Two ways to know you are saved
J.D. Greear: I get the question from Christians a lot: “How can I know for sure that I’m saved?” So often, in fact, that I wrote a book addressing it: Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart. I struggled with the question a lot myself until someone pointed me to passage from 1 John that helped open my eyes. In 1 John 5:13–18, John identifies 2 ways that we can be sure of our salvation. 1. We have placed our hopes for heaven entirely on Jesus. (1 John 5:13) “I write these things to you,” John says, “who believe in the name of the Son of God.” It’s so simple that we’re liable to miss it, but assurance comes from believing in Jesus. This is the gospel: when we trust in his name, we cease striving to earn heaven by drawing upon our own moral bank account; instead, we withdraw on his righteous account in our place. The gospel, by its very nature, produces assurance. Because
The Rescuing Love of God
This post by Mike Bullmore is adapted from the ESV Men’s Devotional Bible. A Dire Situation Apart from God, man gets himself into all sorts of spiritually dangerous and eternity-threatening situations. Four such situations are described in Psalm 107. We might not immediately find ourselves relating to what we see here, but if we read carefully and with spiritually attuned eyes, we will find much that maps onto our lives. In each of four successive vignettes the psalmist describes some dire situation (Ps. 107:4, 10, 17, 23). Then, in each one of those scenes, two refrains are repeated exactly word for word: first, “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress” (vv. 6, 13, 19, 28); second, after an account of God’s deliverance, “Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man” (vv. 8, 15, 21, 31). This repeated pattern of distress and
Saved to the Uttermost
Jared Wilson: (35) Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (36) But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. (37) All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. (39) And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” – John 6:35-39 Salvation by Christ’s work is a gift of grace received through faith. This salvation is total (Romans 8:30) and we see its totality in John 6. In Christ, we are: 1. Satisfied (vv.35-36) No more hunger. No more thirst. When we
That’s how you got saved
John Piper: Christianity is not the conclusion at the end of a syllogism. It is a meeting with God. It is a living supernatural power, called the Holy Spirit, moving into our hearts, shedding abroad the love of God experientially… So Christianity, While not being merely the conclusion at the end of an argument is neither an experience at the end of a needle… Christianity is a supernatural experience of the Holy Spirit mediating the love of God to you through a historical person who did a historical act, namely, dying and rising to bear your sin… To become a Christian is not to draw a conclusion at the end of a syllogism and sign a card that you think it is good logic. That makes nobody a Christian. To be a Christian is as the syllogism unfolds the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the heart so that in the truth of the gospel being presented… as the gospel
Utterly Saved
Jared Wilson: (35) Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. (36) But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. (37) All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. (39) And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” – John 6:35-39 Salvation by Christ’s work is a gift of grace received through faith. This salvation is total (Romans 8:30) and we see its totality in John 6. In Christ, we are: 1. Satisfied (vv.35-36) No more hunger. No more thirst. When we are
The sum of gospel preaching
“All revealed truth ought to be greatly valued, and received by faith; and, if properly used, may be subservient to the main subject and design of the gospel. But the special subject of the gospel is Christ; and preaching Christ, according to the light and direction of the Word of God, is preaching the gospel—to preach Christ the Savior and the Lord, is the sum of gospel preaching. To exhibit Him as a powerful Savior, not merely as to save us from our ignorance or our errors, as a prophet and teacher sent from God, or merely as a powerful Lord to protect us during our course of obedience to Him in our way through this world, and at last to raise us up by His power to eternal bliss; but in the most comprehensive sense to save us from our sins.” — James Fraser A Treatise on Sanctification (Audubon, NJ: Old Paths Publications, 1992), 465 (HT: Of First Importance)
4 Reasons the Cross is Central to Christianity
Kyle McDanell: At the core of Christianity stands the cross. It’s no wonder the cross has become the symbol of our faith. Here are four truths of the cross that show why the atonement is central to our faith: 1. At the cross, we see God’s clearest revelation of Himself. Too often we approach Scripture as a divine encyclopedia. If I want to know what the Bible says about pride, marriage, suffering, or election I simply open my Bible, highlight a number of verses and suddenly I know what the Bible says about a given subject. This can be a dangerous and misguided approach. We rightly believe that the entire Bible is God’s special revelation to man, but the purpose and climax of Scripture is the Creator’s redemption of a cursed humanity and cosmos. Thus the cross stands as the central message of Scripture and is itself a divine act of revelation. We see God most clearly through the lens
Know This Dreadful Deformity of Your Soul — And Your Deliverance
John Piper: This is a lesson in self-knowledge for the sake of worship and righteousness. Something terrible and profound happened to all humans when Adam sinned. All except Jesus, that is, “who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Something came into the world that had not been there before — something very powerful and very deadly in everyone of us. But it was not exactly a “thing.” Yet it was more than the bad things we do. Sin and sinning are not the same. We do sinful things because there is this something in us called “sin.” It is a dreadful and deadly deformity of every one of us. Consider these amazing statements from the Bible about who you are before and after conversion to Christ. The Reign of Sin “All are under sin” (Romans 3:9). “I am sold under sin” (Romans 7:14). “You were once slaves of sin” (Romans 6:17, 20). In other words, before the power of grace through Christ entered our lives, we were not just tempted
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From the Man Who Preached ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’
“They that find Christ [discover that] though he be so glorious and excellent a person, yet they find him ready to receive such poor, worthless, hateful creatures as they are, which was unexpected to ’em. They are surprised with it. They did not imagine that Christ was such a kind of person, a person of such grace. They heard he was an holy Saviour and hated sin, and they did not imagine he would be so ready to receive such vile, wicked creatures as they. They thought he surely would never be willing to accept such provoking sinners, such guilty wretches, those that had such abominable hearts. But behold, he is not a whit the more backward to receive ’em for that. They unexpectedly find him with open arms to embrace them, ready forever to forget all their sins as though they had never been. They find that he as it were runs to meet them, and makes ’em most
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J.I. Packer on three views of salvation
“Long ago, when I was an undergraduate, I had an experience on one of the rivers in Oxford where students love to pole themselves around in flat-bottomed boats called punts. I do not know if undergraduates do it in the universities of this country, but we do it in Oxford. The experience was my falling into the river. I can still remember the surprise I had when I suddenly found myself upside down in the water and that there were strands of green weed around my head and the light was up at my feet. You do not forget that sort of thing quickly, and on the basis of that experience I construct for you the following illustration. Imagine a man who has fallen into a river. He cannot swim. The weeds have caught his feet. He is threshing around, but he cannot get free and will not be above the surface for very long. His state is desperate. Three
The cross saved; the cross saves
“It cannot be over-emphasized that we have not seen the full meaning of the cross till we have seen it as the centre of the gospel, flanked on the one hand by total inability and unconditional surrender and on the other by irresistible grace and final preservation. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set his free saving love. Christ’s death ensured the calling and keeping — the present and final salvation — of all whose sins he bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The cross saved; the cross saves.” — J. I. Packer A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 138 (HT: Of First Importance)
Jesus Came to Reverse the Curse
John Bloom: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26) A few days ago we laid the body of my wife’s grandfather in the ground outside the little brick church in the cornfields where he attended all 97 years of his life. I was given the profound honor of preaching at his funeral. And the words of John 11:25–26 were my text. I chose them because Jesus said them to Martha when Lazarus lay dead in his tomb. And I was to stand behind the old pulpit in front of a full casket. A corpse is a fierce reality. It demands that we explain these claims of Jesus — perhaps the most incredible ever spoken by a credible human being in all of history. What does Jesus mean that he is “the resurrection and the life”?
God Did Not Save Us On A Whim
Kevin DeYoung: Many Christians do not really grasp why God has forgiven us of our sins. It’s not as if God the Father woke up one morning and was having a great day, just feeling terrific about being the Sovereign of the universe, then decided on a whim to have mercy on his elect and look past their iniquities. God did not save us because the loving part of him finally out balanced the justice part of him. We must not picture God up in heaven muttering: “You know your sin? And all your rebellion and failures and disobedience? You remember all that? Well fuhgettaboutit. It don’t bother me. I love youse guys and I ain’t gonna mention your sin no more.” Without giving it much thought, many of us picture the atonement as nothing but undeserved mercy from a loving God. We forget that the mercy we receive is a mercy merited on the cross. God has not saved
Why the Resurrection Changes Everything
By Matthew Barrett: Does the resurrection of Christ matter? Does it truly make a difference? The apostle Paul sure thought so. In writing to the Corinthians, Paul was faced with the startling news that some in Corinth denied the future resurrection of the body. Such a view was adopted by many in the Greco-Roman world. Death was the end. Actually, not much has changed since the first century. Today, the same view is held by skeptics of the faith. What was so shocking, however, is that in Paul’s day, some Christians, who affirmed the bodily resurrection of Jesus, nonetheless denied the future resurrection of the body. Paul responds with boldness, arguing that you cannot have one without the other. If there is no future resurrection for believers, then Christ himself has not been raised! And if Christ has not been raised, then everything changes. Let’s explore the consequences of the resurrection of Christ for the Christian life. 1. The resurrection of
2 Ways to Know You Are Saved
J.D. Greear: I get the question from Christians a lot: “How can I know for sure that I’m saved?” So often, in fact, that I wrote a book addressing it: Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart (which you can pre-order here). I struggled with the question a lot myself until someone pointed me to passage from 1 John that helped open my eyes. In 1 John 5:13–18, John identifies 2 ways that we can be sure of our salvation. 1. We have placed our hopes for heaven entirely on Jesus. (1 John 5:13) “I write these things to you,” John says, “who believe in the name of the Son of God.” It’s so simple that we’re liable to miss it, but assurance comes from believing in Jesus. This is the gospel: when we trust in his name, we cease striving to earn heaven by drawing upon our own moral bank account; instead, we withdraw on his righteous account in our place. The gospel, by its very nature,
Mighty to save
C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, January 14, morning reading: Isaiah 63:1 “Mighty to save” By the words “to save” we understand the whole of the great work of salvation, from the first holy desire onward to complete sanctification. The words are multum in parro: indeed, here is all mercy in one word. Christ is not only “mighty to save” those who repent, but he is able to make men repent. He will carry those to heaven who believe; but he is, moreover, mighty to give men new hearts and to work faith in them. He is mighty to make the man who hates holiness love it, and to constrain the despiser of his name to bend the knee before him. Nay, this is not all the meaning, for the divine power is equally seen in the after-work. The life of a believer is a series of miracles wrought by “the Mighty God.” The bush burns, but is not consumed. He is
Why Did Jesus Take on Human Flesh?
By Chuck Colson: With Advent under way, our schedules rapidly accelerate with parties, school plays, church events, travel, and family outings. Frequently, the pace numbs our heart and mind to the good news we are preparing to celebrate at Christmas. We end up happier when Christmas has passed, because we don’t have to think any more about how the Grinch managed to steal it. Personally, it has been a help to meditate on this question in the middle of a chaotic Advent, “Why did Jesus take on human flesh?” Though the Bible offers many answers to this question, consider this: Jesus took on flesh in order to crucify our flesh. There is a range of meanings for “flesh” in the New Testament. Sometimes it refers to a physical body (ex. 2 Cor. 4:11) while at others it refers to our way of life, under the dominion of sin, prior to conversion (ex. Rom. 8:6-8). My answer plays on this range of meaning
God Desires All to Be Saved, and Grants Repentance to Some
John Piper: Put two texts together, and see what you see. “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth(eis epignōsin alētheias)” (1 Timothy 2:4). “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth (eis epignōsin alētheias)” (2 Timothy 2:25). Here’s what I see: 1. Though God desires all people to be saved, he “may perhaps grant repentance.” Which I think means that God’s desire for all to be saved does not lead him to save all. God has desires that do not reach the level of volition. They are restrained by other considerations — like his wisdom, which guides him to display his glory in the fullest way. He has his reasons for why he “may perhaps grant repentance” to some sinners, and not to others. 2. The “knowledge of the truth” is a gift of God. God “grants [i.e., gives] repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.” Without the gift of repentance, we would not
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Why Everything Sad Will Become Untrue
Sinclair Ferguson: [Jesus] came to undo what Adam so disastrously did, and lead us back through the jungle to the garden. He crossed the ravine, the unbridgeable gulf between sinful man and holy God. And He did this as the Second Man, but now the Man of Faith, trusting in and living by every word that comes from the mouth of God. At the beginning of His public ministry He decisively overcame the powerful opposition of the Enemy who sought to keep Him out of territory He had formerly conquered. Having established His presence in that territory, He pressed on into the deepest and darkest part of the jungle. As He came to the edge of the ravine and looked across, He was heard by His followers to say, “This is the hour of the power of darkness” (see Luke 22:53). Indeed, so dark and thick was the jungle, so utterly lonely the task of crossing the ravine that — now
Already Not Yet 