R.C. Sproul: The Active Obedience of Jesus

This is important:



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Tim Keller: Our Greatest Hope

"God’s reckless grace is our greatest hope."     [via]

Spurgeon: Grace for the Spiritually Sick

"I have no gospel to preach to the self-righteous, no, not a word, Jesus Christ Himself came not to call the righteous, and i am not going to do what he did not do, No, I ask you rather to look at that righteousness of yours till you see what a delusion it is. It is not half so substantial as a cobweb. Be finished with it! Flee it! 

"They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick" (Mark 2:17). Is it not equally clear that the great remedies of grace and redemption are for the sick in soul? They cannot be for the whole, for they cannot be of use to such. If you feel that you are spiritually sick, the Physician has come into the world for you. If you are altogether undone by reason of your sin, you are the very person aimed at in the plan of salvation. I say that the Lord of love had precisely such as you in his eye when he arranged the system of grace. 

He that is a dirty sinner is the kind of man that Jesus Christ came to make clean, Come in your disorder. Come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. come to Jesus just as you are: leprous, filthy, naked. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your chest like a horrible nightmare."[via]

Mumford and Sons, Emptiness & Grace

"Roll away your stone, I'll roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don't leave me alone at this time
For I am afraid of what I will discover inside

Cause you told me that I would find a hole
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see

It seems that all my bridges have been burnt
But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with the restart" 

Matthew from T & C writes,  "I believe this song illustrates what a lot of us see when we truly evaluate our immaterial being. We end up being overwhelmed by the the darkness that we see in ourselves. Our minds are dominated with selfish and evil desires. However God does offer us grace and gives us the chance to change our hearts and start a new life."

Covenant Theology 101

For those who are interested; here is a helpful primer on Covenant Theology.

The money quote from the article: "Covenant Theology is... a very Christocentric way of looking at Scripture because it sees the OT as the promise of Christ and the NT as the fulfillment in Christ."

That is what I love about it! Christ is the centerpiece. 

Leon Morris: More Than We Deserve

“[In Christ] the love of God in all of its fullness is poured out on sinners, and they receive infinitely more than they deserve.” [via]

Steve DeWitt: Eternal Beauty

"We were made for a better place and for a better person, and all the beauties of this world whisper that to our soul. We crave Christ. He has made this restoration possible and offers Himself to mankind as Savior, Redeemer, and Restorer. 

The end of the Big Story is beauty, because the end of the story is God. This world and its history are prelude and foretaste; all the sunrises and sunsets, symphonies and rock concerts, feasts and friendships are but whispers. They are prologue to the grander story and an even better place. Only there, it will never end. J. I. Packer said it so well: “Hearts on earth say in the course of a joyful experience, ‘I don’t want this ever to end.’ But it invariably does. The hearts in heaven say, ‘I want this to go on forever.’ And it will. There can be no better news than this.” [via]

Free Music Recommendation: Excellent by Propoganda

Download Propaganda's new mixtape "Excellent" here.

Tullian Tchividjian: Growing = Becoming Dependent on Christ

Every time I hear Tullian preach, my Pharisaical mind bristles at what he is saying.

I find myself asking questions like: "Can Christianity truly be this great?" "Is Christ really enough?" "Is grace that amazing and all-encompassing?"

After a few minutes, however, I am mentally immersed once again in the scandalous grace of God in Christ. At the end of his message (whichever one... they are all good) I am realigned with the gospel, and the struggles of the day seem to be put back into perspective. 

Nothing comforts me like grace that is given to unworthy sinners. Thank God for the gospel, it never gets old. 

John Piper: The Supremacy of Christ

Wow. This is fantastic! Take twenty minutes today and listen to this. It is crucial that, in the midst of all of the craziness, we be reminded of the magnificence and supremacy of Christ in all things.



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Phil Ryken: The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament

 And the Scripture... preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. (Galatians 3:8)

"God's plan of salvation, the covenant of grace, runs from Abraham right through to Jesus Christ.

What God said to Abraham [see Gen. 12:1-3] was nothing less than a proclamation of the gospel.

Christians sometimes sing about "the old old story of Jesus and his love." The story is older than some people realize. It goes back at least to the days of Abraham. Indeed, it goes all the way back to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15), who were the first to hear it.

Ultimately, the good news of the Old Testament is the good news about Jesus Christ."

From Ryken's Reformed Expository Commentary: Galatians page 101.

We Have a Father in Heaven... Through Union With Jesus Christ

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven... (Matthew 6:9)

“Our Father”

This description of God as “Father,” given by Jesus, must have scandalized the first century Jews. It is well established that these Jews greatly feared God, so much so that they would not even speak his name, and they certainly would not personally address Him as “Father.” Yet with two simple words Christ was challenging their belief that God is hidden, frightening, and unapproachable. Jesus was revealing the revolutionary notion that God is personal - that he is “our Father.”

This understanding is distinctly Christian. J.I. Packer writes, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father… “Father” is the Christian name of God.”

Jesus was teaching that God relates to his people as a father relates to his child. We don’t have to tremble before him as a commoner would tremble in the presence of a king. Rather, we can speak to him as a little boy or girl would speak to his or her daddy. We can know that He has our best interests in mind and that we belong to Him forever.

“In Heaven”

That He is “our Father in heaven” establishes God as a Father who is transcendent and sovereign over all things. He reigns from above our circumstances and struggles.

The little girl who runs to her father after a bad dream and finds safety in his strong arms has a good understanding of what it means for Christians to have a “Father in heaven.” We can rest in the fact that He is strong, He is in control, He holds all things in His hands, and all things will work out together for His good.

Sadly, so many of us have a debased understanding of fatherhood. We have seen earthly fathers hurt, abuse, and forsake their children. Perhaps the wounds still linger from our own childhood experiences with our father. Unfortunately it appears that good fathers are the exception instead of the rule.

But notice that Christ clarified how God is not simply our Father; He is our Father in heaven. He is the perfect and sovereign Father. God is the epitome of what a father should be. John Calvin writes, “He is not only a Father, but the best and kindest of all Fathers, provided that we cast ourselves at his mercy.”

Where earthly fathers have fallen short, our heavenly Father has never failed us.

“My God”

The only exception that we find in the Scriptures of Christ not addressing God as “Father” was when He cried from the cross “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The only begotten Son, who was in perfect and eternal relationship with the Father, was now suffering and separated from Him on our behalf. This was the price of our adoption into the family of God. For us to come before our Creator as “Father”, Christ had to come before the Creator as “my God” – bearing his just wrath on our behalf.

The only confidence that we have to call God “Father” is found in Christ. 

Apart from Christ, He is “God”, and we stand before Him guilty and worthy of eternal punishment. Apart from Christ, our Creator truly is frightening and unapproachable. In Christ, however, we can rest in His fatherly love for us. In Christ we can know that we have God’s favor based upon the sinless life, death, burial, and resurrection of His Son. In Christ we can pray, as adopted children, to “our Father in Heaven.”

N. T. Wright: The Symphony of Scripture

“God’s office is at the end of your rope.” - John Zahl

Jerry Bridges: Living by Grace

This is good stuff:

“Living by grace means you are free from having to earn God’s blessings by your obedience or practice of spiritual disciplines.  If you have trusted in Christ as your Savior, you are loved and accepted by God through the merit of Jesus, and you are blessed by God through the merit of Jesus.  Nothing you ever do will cause Him to love you any more or any less.  He loves your strictly by His grace given to you through Jesus.

How does this emphasis on God’s free and sovereign grace make you feel?  Does it make you a little nervous?  Does it seem a bit scary to hear that nothing you do will ever make God love you any more or bless you any more?  Do you think, Well, if you take the pressure off like that and tell me all of my effort will never earn me one blessing, then I’m afraid I’ll slack off and stop doing the things I need to do to live a disciplined Christian life?

This type of response is always a possibility.  In fact, if our concept of grace does not expose us to that possible misunderstanding, then we do not thoroughly understand grace.  I believe it is because we are afraid of this attitude that we often change the doctrine of grace into a doctrine of works…

The solution to the problem of misunderstanding and abusing God’s grace is not to add works to grace.  Rather, the solution is to be so gripped by the magnificence and boundless generosity of God’s grace that we respond out of gratitude rather than out of a sense of duty.  As Stephen Brown said, “The problem [isn't] that we made the gospel too good.  The problem is that we didn’t make it good enough.” [via]

Tim Keller: Gospel Humility

"C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity makes a brilliant observation about gospel-humility at the very end of his chapter on pride. If we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble.They would not be always telling us they were a nobody (because a person who keeps saying they are a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person). The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less. 

Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, ‘I’m in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?’ True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness. The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings. 

True gospel-humility means an ego that is not puffed up but filled up. This is totally unique. are we talking about big self-esteem? No. So is it low self-esteem? Certainly not. It is not about self-esteem. Paul simply refuses to play that game (I Cor. 4). He says ‘I don’t care that much about my opinion’ – and that is the secret. 

A truly gospel-humble person is not a self-hating person or a self-loving person, but a gospel-humble person. The truly gospel-humble person is a self-forgetful person whose ego is just like his or her toes. It just works. It does not draw attention to itself. The toes just work; the ego just works. Neither draws attention to itself." [via]

Matt Chandler: Who Can Separate Us?

Sinclair Ferguson: The Righteousness of Christ

A good reminder:

"In Christ, we are as righteous before God as Jesus Christ is righteous, for the only righteousness we have before God is Jesus Christ's righteousness, to which we contribute nothing."

The Law Cannot Bring Life

God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us... Romans 8:3-4

Martyn Lloyd Jones: Christian Maturity

"The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God." [via]

Thomas Watson: Christian Growth

"The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes."

Michael Horton: The Gospel Offends

“Jesus was not revolutionary because he said we should love God and each other. Moses said that first. So did Buddha, Confucius, and countless other religious leaders we've never heard of. Madonna, Oprah, Dr. Phil, the Dali Lama, and probably a lot of Christian leaders will tell us that the point of religion is to get us to love each other. 

"God loves you" doesn't stir the world's opposition. However, start talking about God's absolute authority, holiness, ... Christ's substitutionary atonement, justification apart from works, the necessity of new birth, repentance, baptism, Communion, and the future judgment, and the mood in the room changes considerably.”

Tchividjian & Zahl: Grace in Practice

This is pure gold from Paul Zahl. [via]