"Under no circumstances ought we to be content unless we reflect the grace which was in Him." Spurgeon (2 Peter 3:18)

Hallel - final preps for Seder

Hallel - final preps for Seder

Faith's way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities. CHS

A morning flower from CFA

A morning flower from CFA

Simple Regeneration - by Spurgeon

Regeneration is a subject which lies at the very basis of salvation, and we should be very diligent to take heed that we really are "born again," for there are many who fancy they are, who are not. Be assured that the name of a Christian is not the nature of a Christian; and that being born in a Christian land, and being recognized as professing the Christian religion is of no avail whatever, unless there be something more added to it—the being "born again," is a matter so mysterious, that human words cannot describe it.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

Nevertheless, it is a change which is known and felt: known by works of holiness, and felt by a gracious experience. This great work is supernatural. It is not an operation which a man performs for himself: a new principle is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the entire man. It is not a change of my name, but a renewal of my nature, so that I am not the man I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus.

To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive: man can do the one, God alone can do the other. If you have then, been "born again," your acknowledgment will be, "O Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, Thou art my spiritual Parent; unless Thy Spirit had breathed into me the breath of a new, holy, and spiritual life, I had been to this day 'dead in trespasses and sins.' My heavenly life is wholly derived from Thee, to Thee I ascribe it. 'My life is hid with Christ in God.' It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me." May the Lord enable us to be well assured on this vital point, for to be unregenerate is to be unsaved, unpardoned, without God, and without hope.

John 3:7

We are resolved about it, Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence!

We may be certain that whatever God hs made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives. CHS

We are resolved about it, Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight; we will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in His presence!

O Great God

This is a great "new" hymn that we will be singing in church tomorrow. For those of you who would like to get familar with the words and theme, please read and consider the great truth of Ephesians 2:8-10.  If you would like to hear a sample of this hymn, please click here http://bit.ly/9jbPkH -

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

O Great God
Words and music by Bob Kauflin
As recorded on Valley of Vision

O great God of highest heaven
Occupy my lowly heart
Own it all and reign supreme
Conquer every rebel power
Let no vice or sin remain
That resists Your holy war
You have loved and purchased me
Make me Yours forevermore

I was blinded by my sin
Had no ears to hear Your voice
Did not know Your love within
Had no taste for heaven’s joys

Then Your Spirit gave me life
Opened up Your Word to me
Through the gospel of Your Son
Gave me endless hope and peace

Help me now to live a life
That’s dependent on Your grace
Keep my heart and guard my soul
From the evils that I face
You are worthy to be praised
With my every thought and deed
O great God of highest heaven
Glorify Your Name through me

© 2006 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI).

Understanding Revelation

Without tears the Revelation was not written and without tears can it be understood - J. Elliot.  Reading Revelation 2-3.

The avoidance of sin is not my righteousness!

The avoidance of sin, however increasing, however complete, is NOT my righteousness and therefore does NOT fit me for heaven.  It is the righteousness of Christ alone graciously imputed to me, granted to me by God that fits me for heaven. 

I will not be able to stand be the throne of Heaven and declare, "Because of my avoidance of sin, I may enter into God's heaven."  Rather, my confession will be, "Because of the righteousness of Christ freely bestowed upon me by the grace of God and upon which I alone trust to make this sinner a saint, I enter into God's heaven."

Galatians 6:15

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Philippians 3:8-9

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,

Ephesians 2:8-9

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Titus 3:5-6

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior...

What is your righteousness?

-

What is sin?

The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. 

- John Kennedy, 1873

Be Different!

Be different, stand out, let your light, your Christ-directed, Christ-exalting works, shine before men in such a way that your Father is glorified. 

"The tendency of these days is to break down the holy barrier, and make the distinction between the church and the world very nominal. ..be it your aim in heart in word, in dress, in action to maintain the broad wall, remembering that the friendship of this world is enmity against God." (Spurgeon).

Christian Employees

I was doing some reading online when I came across this very pointed paragraph.  Consider it carefully:

A secular writer recently pointed out that "work has increasingly come to be regarded as a distasteful means to the achievement of leisure, instead of leisure as a recuperative measure to refit us for work." That is a very mild way of saying that the present generation is pleasure mad and hates any kind of real work. Various explanations have been advanced to account for this: such as the ousting of craftsmanship by machinery, the fear of unemployment discouraging zeal, the doles, allowances and reliefs which are available for those who don’t and won’t work. Though each of those has been a contributing factor, yet there is a more fundamental and solemn cause of this social disease, namely, the loss of those moral convictions which formerly marked a large proportion of church-goers, who made conscience of serving the Lord while engaged in secular activities, and who were actuated by the principles of honesty and integrity, fidelity and loyalty.

What is amazing to me is that this all sounds very "present"; very much "now" - does it not?  Yet this was written prior to 1952 by A. W. Pink.  Things have not changed much in the past 60 years. All this reminds me of the "Preacher" who reminds us in Ecclesiastes 1:9:

That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. 

I cannot help but feel that if A.W. Pink were alive today, he would be even more dumbfounded by the reality of his statements.  Perhaps things have changed in the workplace, only not for the better.  I pray that we would not be found slack Christian Employees.  Consider Pink's further comments:

Nowhere has the hollowness of professing Christians been more apparent, during the last two or three generations, than at this point. Nowhere has more reproach been brought upon the cause of Christ than by the majority of those employees who bore His name. Whether it be in the factory, the mine, the office, or in the fields, one who claims to be a follower of the Lord Jesus should stand out unmistakably from his fellow employees who make no profession. His punctuality, his truthfulness, his conscientiousness, the quality of his work, his devotion to his employer’s interests, ought to be so apparent that there is no need for him to let others know by his lips that he is a disciple of Christ. There should be such a marked absence of that slackness, carelessness, selfishness, greed and insolence which mark the majority of the ungodly, that all may see he is motivated and regulated by higher principles than they are. But, if his conduct belies his profession, then his companions are confirmed in their opinion that "there is nothing in religion but talk."

Let us pray about our employment and seek to be bright testimonies of the reality of Jesus at work within us to the glory of God.

Faithful Friday!

May your faith, trust and assurance in the person and promises of God grow; may your love, kindness and mercy be evident to the saints and to all people; and may your hope in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ motivate you toward a life of purity and beauty in the things of the Lord and all toward the end of exalting God, edifying God's people, and evangelizing the lost! 

Make it a "Faithful Friday!"

God First

"Wherever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first" - Oswald Chambers.

Or as Jesus has taught - "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:33).

I can't believe what a propensity I have to think that food, clothing, money, or other concerns should take precedence over my relationship to the Lord.  "Oh Lord, grant me a heart that longs for You first!"

Active Christians

But prove yourselves doers of the word, 
and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
James 1:22

Let us be wary of being merely "intellectual" Christians rather than pursing the course of also being "active" Christians.  The more we come to know about Christ, the more our lives should be lived in Christlikeness.

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, 
but in deed and truth.

1 John 3:18

Full of Christ

Those that are so full of Christ...are ready to think that others should be so too. (Matthew Henry)

Grace at Work

Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

These are familiar verses, sometimes too familiar as we can be prone to neglect their significance for everyday living.  There is no doubt we are taught here that salvation is "by grace"; by God's undeserved, unmerited and most benevolent favor.  But we might forget to see that verse 10, being "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works," is also then by grace.  We need God's enabling grace, His divine power at work in us to change us, to conform us and to cause us to live according to His ways of good and righteousness rather than in our ways of selfishness and pride.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord describes how it is His grace, His doing that we are now enabled to live for Him, to be "His workmanship", that is, His masterpiece saying in Ezekiel 36:26-27;
 

26 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and [I will] cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

[emphasis mine]

Let us never forget that God's grace working in us is a both a delight [for we do not deserve it] but also a duty [as we then become responsible to see this grace at work in us].  As the apostle Paul said in Philippians 2:12-13;

12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. 

This is grace, God's working in us His will and good pleasure and our enabling by God to do those things that reveal His grace at work in us.  Bob Kauflin captures this idea in song;

Grace abounding, strong and true
That makes me long to be like You
That turns me from my selfish pride
To love the cross on which You died

Bob Kauflin / © 2005 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

Grace "makes me long to be like" Jesus.  Grace "turns me form my selfish pride".  And grace causes me "to love the cross on which" Jesus died. 

I asked the youth group last night how they can know if this grace of God is at work in them.  We noted in singing the words above that one means is by noting how we are turned from our own selfish pride, turned from wanting our own ways, from reacting according to our own desires (which often results in anger, frustration, impatience, lust and the like) and by grace carefully considering how Jesus would have us give of ourselves.  I asked them to carefully take pause when they thought about something they wanted, good or bad, and then to prayerfully asked the Lord how they might turn that moment into an opportunity to do something for someone else to the glory of God.

How about you, will you take pause today and in your moment of reacting to something according to your desire, prayerfully ask the Lord to turn you from any selfish pride to respond to the good or benefit of another to the glory of God.? This is grace abounding.  This is grace at work in you and this is working out your salvation with fear and trembling.  I believe it was John MacArthur who wrote, "Grace that does not affect one's behavior is not the grace of God."  

Oh, Lord, may Your grace affect both our affections and our actions to live our lives wholly to You.

SDG,

Ed

Right Measurements!

God's measure of what is right must surely not be brought down to the measure of man: man's measure should rather be brought up to the measure of God. (J.C. Ryle)