Strengthened by grace

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Strengthened by grace

Posted: 27 Dec 2010 09:49 AM PST

by Ray Ortlund Jr.

 

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  2 Timothy 2:1

“First, then, there is a call to be strong.  Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid.  Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected.   It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong.  Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’  That is the first thing.

Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed.  You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave.  But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation.  Timothy was not to be strong in himself.  He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw.  No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”

John Stott, Urbana 1967.  Italics original.

Grace is not an excuse for weakness; it is an endless resource for strength.

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10 Books Every Christian Should Read

 

7. “Extravagant Grace” by Barbara Duguid

“What if growing in grace is more about humility, dependence, and exalting Christ than it is about defeating sin?….This is a truth that has largely been lost to a contemporary church overwhelmed by individual triumphalism and the myth of the victorious Christian life. As a result, many Christians live lives of deep discouragement and anguish, hiding their shameful struggles from one another.”-Barbara Duguid, Extravagant Grace:God’s Glory Displayed In Our Weakness

 

“Weaving together the delightful insights of John Newton with her own experience and that of many people she’s counseled over the years, Barb tells the story of God’s unrelenting compassion toward sinners like us with profound wisdom. How amazing is grace? Like Newton, Barb has learned well the answer to that question from the greatest storyteller of all.”-Michael Horton

Love and Truth

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“I went all the way back”

 from Ray Ortlund Jr

“Later on in my ministry I faced another crisis that equally influenced the writing of my books.  It came after I had already been a pastor for ten years in the U.S. and a missionary to Europe for five years.  Throughout this period one thing was dinned into my thinking: ‘Why,’ I asked, ‘is there so little reality among orthodox evangelical Christians?  Why is there so little beauty in the way Christians deal with one another?’

This led to doubt about the reality of spiritual things in my own life.  I realized that although I had been studying for years and although I had been active in Christian ministry and although I was becoming more and more known in certain Christian circles, the reality of my own spiritual life was diminished.  Somehow I had lost what I had when I first became a Christian.

For about two months I walked out in the Swiss mountains.  When it rained, I walked in the old hayloft above our chalet.  And as I prayed, I went all the way back to my agnosticism.  With as much honesty as I could, I asked myself, ‘Was I right in becoming a Christian as a young man?’  The unreality I had found in the Christian world, the ugliness I saw in Christian relationships, the fact that Christians were not able to talk to twentieth-century people — all these made me ask, ‘Was I right?’”

Francis A. Schaeffer, “Why and how I write my books,” Eternity Magazine, March 1973.

I am grateful for Christian history.  It shows me I am not alone, as I see how God has helped others.  They make my own path a little less dark.

Some years ago I faced a crisis similar to Schaeffer’s.  For the first time in my life I had to wonder, “Maybe I’ve been wrong all along.  I thought God loved me.  But maybe the truth is, God hates my guts.  After all, look at the facts.”  Certain experiences in Christian circles confronted me with realities so opposite to everything I had always believed that I had to rethink at a foundational level.  I had to account, especially, for two things.  One, Why isn’t God more real among us, more satisfying to us?  Two, Why is there so little beauty, so much ugliness, in how we treat one another?

I came to see that these two problems are interrelated.  There is a reason why people who believe God is love (1 John 4:7-8) treat one another with unlove.  The reason is not a lack of biblical orthodoxy about God.  The reason is a lack of personal reality with God.  A theoretical God of love can be defended as a doctrinal concept, even while being denied as a practical reality.  But unreality with God inevitably shows: “And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God” (Isaiah 8:21).

If our hearts are not filled with the love of God, mere orthodoxy about God cannot suffice.  Indeed, our orthodoxy about God only intensifies our frustration and rage, because we are experiencing less than we know is real.  But if our spiritual starvation diet goes undiagnosed and unremedied, we inevitably reveal our soul-deprivation toward God by the horrible ways we mistreat one another.  That is when we orthodox Christians can become as harsh and brutal as a radical leftist.  But our orthodoxy justifies it.

Reality with God and beauty with one another — these two dynamics always go together.  When our churches and ministries lapse into a boring routine, empty deep within, but interrupted by occasional spasms of injury toward one another, we are revealing that our personal communion with God has eroded.  And that isn’t enough to fill our souls.  We will lash out.

The only remedy is to go back.  In humility and honesty, we must retrace our steps and figure out how we departed from the Lord and how we have wronged others.  We cannot hope for blessing in the future until we seek God’s forgiveness for the past, reengaging with him and reconciling with others, setting our feet back on the path of an honest walk with God, according to the gospel, moment-by-moment.  Then we are free to face the future with expectancy.

The vertical and the horizontal are always inseparable.  God himself has made it so

What does it mean to “accept Jesus”?

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What does it mean to “accept Jesus”?

from Ray Ortlund Jr

Posted: 13 May 2015 09:19 AM PDT

 

“You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”  1 Thessalonians 1:9

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons.  Our hearts are multi-divided.  There is something like a board room in every heart.  Big table.  Leather chairs.  Coffee.  Bottled water.  Whiteboard.  A committee sits around the table.  There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, the childhood memories self, and many others.  The committee is arguing and debating and voting.  Constantly agitated and upset.  Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision.

We are like that.  We tell ourselves it’s because we are so busy, with so many responsibilities.  The truth is, we are just indecisive.  We are held back by small thoughts of Jesus.

A person in this condition can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways.  One way is to invite him onto the committee.  Give Jesus a vote too.  But then he is just one influence among many.  This way of inviting Jesus into one’s life is common here in the Bible Belt.  But it isn’t Christianity, as defined by the New Testament.  The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working.  Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them.  I hand myself over to you now.  Please run my whole life for me.  Show me how that works.”  That is not complication; that is salvation.

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus.  It is also subtracting the idols.

If God Is Sovereign, Why Is My Sanctification So Slow?

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If God Is Sovereign, Why Is My Sanctification So Slow?

(from Justin Taylor)

 

Posted: 23 Apr 2015 06:58 AM PDT

If God is sovereign (and he is), and if our sanctification brings him glory (and it does), then why do we continue to struggle so much (which we do)?

For example, Christians know that communion with God in prayer, faith, and the Word will give us substantive joy. But we often cut it short or skip it all together for trifling things.

Writing to a correspondent in 1776, John Newton described it this way:

Though he knows that communion with God is his highest privilege, he too seldom finds it so; on the contrary, if duty, conscience, and necessity did not compel, he would leave the throne of grace unvisited from day to day.

He takes up the Bible, conscious that it is the fountain of life and true comfort; yet perhaps, while he is making the reflection, he feels a secret distaste, which prompts him to lay it down, and give him preference to a newspaper.

Newton then raises the sovereignty problem:

How can these things be, or why are they permitted? Since the Lord hates sin, teaches his people to hate it and cry against it, and has promised to hear their prayers, how is it that they go thus burdened? Surely, if he could not, or would not, over-rule evil for good, he would permit it to continue.

Newton’s answer is not to excuse spiritual dullness or laziness, nor to browbeat us, but to look up and beyond to see what God is doing through our sometimes painfully slow progress in the faith:

By these exercises he teaches us more truly to know and feel the utter depravity and corruption of our whole nature, that we are indeed defiled in every part.

His method of salvation is likewise hereby exceedingly endeared to us: we see that it is and must be of grace, wholly of grace; and that the Lord Jesus Christ, and his perfect righteousness, is and must be our all in all.

His power likewise, in maintaining his own work notwithstanding our infirmities, temptations, and enemies, is hereby displayed in the clearest light; his strength is manifested in our weakness.

Satan likewise is more remarkably disappointed and put to shame, when he finds bounds set to his rage and policy, beyond which he cannot pass; and that those in whom he finds so much to work upon, and over whom he so often prevails for a season, escape at last out of his hands. He casts them down, but they are raised again; he wounds them, but they are healed; he obtains his desire to sift them as wheat, but the prayer of their great Advocate prevails for the maintenance of their faith.

Farther, by what believers feel in themselves they learn by degrees how to warn, pity, and bear with others. A soft, patient, and compassionate spirit, and a readiness and skill in comforting those who are cast down, is not perhaps attainable in any other way.

And, lastly, I believe nothing more habitually reconciles a child of God to the thought of death, than the wearisomeness of this warfare. Death is unwelcome to nature;—but then, and not till then, the conflict will cease. Then we shall sin no more. The flesh, with all its attendant evils, will be laid in the grave. Then the soul, which has been partaker of a new and heavenly birth, shall be freed from every incumbrance, and stand perfect perfect in the Redeemer’s righteousness before God in glory.

Newton goes on to answer the question of how such sin can be mitigated or overcome. Here’s a summary of what he recommends:

Faithfulness to light received, and a sincere endeavor to conform to the means prescribed in the word of God, with an humble application to the Blood of sprinkling and the promised Spirit, will undoubtedly be answered by increasing measures of light, faith, strength, and comfort; and we shall know, if we follow on to know the Lord.

Newton was one of the the most spiritually healthy Christians in church history. You almost certainly will not regret any chance to read his counsel. The best introduction to his vision of the Christian life is now Tony Reinke’s Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ (Crossway, forthcoming in May).

A Biblical Meditation on the ISIS Execution of 21 Christians

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Tom Schreiner: A Biblical Meditation on the ISIS Execution of 21 Christians
Feb 16, 2015 | Justin Taylor

Guest Post by Thomas R. Schreiner

Most of us have read the story of 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya. An ISIS video showed about 12 of them being beheaded, and it is quite certain that all of them were murdered.
We Are Not Surprised
Jesus told us to expect persecution, teaching his disciples that unbelievers would hate us just as they hated him (John 15:18-20).
Jesus predicted that some of those who kill us “will think” they are “offering service to God” (John 16:2).
Even though most of us won’t lose our lives for Christ’s sake, we should not be surprised if we do. All of us need to be ready to surrender our lives for Christ. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
We Are More Than Conquerers
Jesus calls us “to be faithful unto death” to receive “the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).
Jesus also calls us to rejoice when persecuted, for it is a great honor to die for our Lord and Savior, and our reward will far exceed our suffering (Matt. 5:10-12; Acts 5:41). Naturally, we may be frightened and scared at such a prospect, worried that we don’t have the strength to suffer. And we don’t have the strength in ourselves, but God promises to be with us in the fire and the flood (Isa. 43:2), and he promises to give us grace to endure the hardest things. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).
In dying for Christ’s sake, in not loving our “lives even unto death,” we are not losers but winners; we are not overcome by evil. Instead, we are “more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37; Rev. 12:11). Those who are slain for Christ’s sake come to life and reign with Jesus Christ (Rev. 20:4).
We Grieve with Those Who Grieve
Paul says that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Still, the matter is not simplistic, and life is not easy. We “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). Paul said that if Epaphroditus had died he would experience “sorrow upon sorrow” (Phil. 2:27). Grief floods the hearts of those left behind.
We Pray for Both Our Enemies and Our Suffering Brothers and Sisters
We need a special grace to pray for the salvation of those who have done such a great evil.
We also pray for our brothers and sisters suffering around the world; we plead that God would grant them his joy and strength and perseverance to endure until the end.
We pray that God would protect them and sustain his church.
We Plead for God’s Just Judgment
At the same time, like the martyrs under the altar in Rev. 6:9-11, we cry, “O Sovereign Lord . . . how long?” When will you act and bring justice to this world? When will you vindicate your saints and judge the wicked for the sake of your great name?
The day of judgment is coming, the day when everything will be made right. Meanwhile, God is calling out many more to be his children, even among those who persecute us. We praise God both for his saving love and for his just judgment. And we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
________________________________________
Thomas R. Schreiner is the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Professor of Biblical Theology, and associate dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His latest commentary is on the book of Hebrews for the Biblical Theology for Christian Proclamation Commentary (B&H) and he is currently completing a commentary on the book of Revelation for Crossway’s 12-volume ESV Bible Expository Commentary.

Fifty Shades of Shame — The Evolution of Pornography

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Fifty Shades of Shame — The Evolution of Pornography

 

Shame

The release of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie, timed for Valentine’s Day, is a more important and lamentable event than many Christians may realize. What the movie represents is nothing less than the evolution of pornography in an age increasingly distant from a biblical vision of sexuality and human dignity.

One of the hallmarks of the Christian worldview is an affirmation of the unity of the transcendentals — the good, the beautiful, and the true. Christianity affirms — and demands — that the good, the beautiful, and the true are actually one, unified in their source. The source of what is good, beautiful, and true is none other than God himself, who alone is infinitely good, beautiful, and true. Our very knowledge of beauty, goodness, and truth are due to God’s gifts of revelation and creation. He defines the good, the true, and the beautiful by his being, and they are unified in him.

This means that Christians believe the radical truth that nothing good can be ugly, that nothing untrue can be beautiful, and that everything beautiful and true is also good.

To attempt a separation of the good, the true, and the beautiful is, by Christian understanding, both impossible and self-defeating. Furthermore, the attempt to separate them is sinful — an act of defiance.

For this reason the Christian worldview insists that the face of a child with Down syndrome is infinitely more beautiful than an airbrushed model on the cover of a fashion magazine. The model may be pretty, but every human being is beautiful, simply by virtue of being made in the image of God. That grounding of human dignity points to the fact of our creation by a loving and merciful God, who made us in his image, and revealed this truth in our very existence and in our capacity to know him. He revealed this truth explicitly in Holy Scripture, and this means that every single human being, at every stage of development, possesses full human dignity.

The corruption of the gift of sex is, more than often realized, an assault upon that human dignity that is the Creator’s gift. The attempt to declare beauty at the expense of goodness and truth is at the heart of the problem of pornography. Now, we live in a society fast losing even a sense of shame about its pornographic obsessions.

The explosive sales of the Fifty Shades book series alerted many Christians to the fact of female-oriented pornography. While far more attention had been devoted to the visual nature of most male-oriented pornography, the Fifty Shades phenomenon underlined the public mainstreaming of pornography that would find a primary audience among women — narrative pornography in book form.

While many had noted the attraction of so-called “romance novels” to many women, the arrival of the Fifty Shades series announced that the culture at large was ready to shift to what can only be described as explicitly pornographic. Furthermore, the plot line of the series, now quite well known in the larger society, is devoted to forms of sexuality that had historically been defined as perverse and abusive.

The lost sense of shame is not only documented in the unprecedented sales of the series in book form, but also by the mainstream celebration of the movie.

A culture that is determined to reduce all sexual morality to the issue of adult consent is now ready to eat popcorn while watching the corruption of the gift of sex and, in effect, granting approval to the vision of sexuality that is the film’s very essence.

This next stage in the evolution of pornography combines, in an unprecedented way, male-oriented visual pornography with female-oriented narrative pornography. The movie is being marketed on Valentine’s Day as an adventure for couples — something offered to both men and women.

That something is a lie. The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke of our tendency to “define deviancy down.” That is one of the marks of our age. The Fifty Shades movie will not be legally defined as obscenity or pornography. In our age, almost nothing is. But biblically speaking, there can be no question about the fact that the Fifty Shades phenomenon is explicitly pornographic — defined in the New Testament by the Greek word porneia — which refers directly to any illicit sexual impulse or act. Pornography, whatever its form, is intended to produce that wrongful sexual impulse.

Going to see Fifty Shades of Grey, or reading the book series, is an exercise in pornographic intent and effect. It is also an act of defiance against the goodness of the gift of sex as granted to humanity by God. Furthermore, the series is an assault upon the dignity of every human being.

The loss of shame in modern society is championed as a sign of cultural progress in many circles and as a step forward in mental health by many therapists. More than anything else, however, it points to the depth of the confusion that inevitably accompanies the corruption of God’s gifts.

Christianity celebrates the unity of the good, the beautiful, and the true in God himself. In obedience, we must seek to unify the true and the beautiful and the good in our hearts and minds — and in our bodies.

Words from the Book of Common Prayer‘s service of Holy Matrimony will serve us well here. Christians know that the good, the true, and the beautiful are always and evermore united. What God has joined together, let no one tear asunder.