“One Thing Remains”

 

Track #8 From Passion White Flag

Chorus:
Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)
Your love

Verse 1:
Higher than the mountains
That I face
Stronger than the power
Of the grave
Constant in the trial and the change
One thing remains
One thing remains

Chorus

Verse 2:
Because on and on and
On and on it goes
It overwhelms
And satisfies my soul
And I never, ever,
Have to be afraid
One thing remains
One thing remains

Chorus

Bridge:
In death, in life
I’m confident and covered
By the power of Your great love
My debt is paid
There’s nothing that can separate
My heart from Your great love

A terrible sickness

“I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth “home.” Before you know it, I am calling luxuries “needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don’t think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.”

John Piper

(Don’t Waste Your Life)

“What Did Jesus Come to Save Us From?”

from John Piper:

Let’s do this inductively.  I ask.  You answer.

John 3:17, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

• Why did God send his Son? _______________

John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

• Does not obeying the Son (e. g., when he commands us to trust him) bring us under God’s wrath or leave us under his wrath? _______________
• So what did God send his Son to save us from? _______________
• Is this a felt need among the unbelievers you know? _______________
• What are the implications for the content of preaching and evangelism? ___________

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is the Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Minneapolis, MN) and the founder of Desiring God.

Far too easily pleased

 “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mudpies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C. S. Lewis:

(The Weight of Glory, 1-2)

Long for the Lord Jesus Himself

 “We are meant to long supremely for the Lord himself, for the Giver, not his gifts.  The absence of blessings – rejection, vanity, reviling, illness, poverty – often is the crucible in which we learn to love God for who he is.  In our idolatry we make gifts out to be supreme goods, and make the Giver into the errand boy of our desires.”David

Powlison:

(Seeing with New Eyes, 134-135)

God Exalting Worship

Delivered by Rev. Chris Bear

Bring People to Christ

 “We would labor earnestly to raise a believer in salvation by free will into a believer in salvation by grace, for we long to see all religious teaching built upon the solid rock of truth and not upon the sand of imagination. At the same time, our grand object is not the revision of opinions, but the regeneration of natures. We should bring men to Christ, not to our own particular views of Christianity. C.H.

Spurgeon:

(The Soulwinner, 10)

Realize

 “Ultimately it comes down to this, that the real cause of our trouble is failure to realize our union with Christ. Many Seem to think that Christianity means that we are delivered in that sense that our sins are forgiven. But that is only the beginning, but one aspect of it. Essentially salvation means union with Christ, being one with Christ. We have been crucified with Christ – ‘I am crucified with Christ’, says Paul. ‘All that has happened to Him has happened to me. I am one with Him.’ Read the fifth and sixth chapters of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The teaching is that we have died with Christ, have been buried with Christ, have risen with Christ, are seated in the heavenly places in Christ and with Christ. That is the teaching of the Scriptures. ‘Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3. 3). The old man has been crucified and all that belonged to Christ, you are risen with Christ. ‘Reckon ye yourselves then to be dead unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 6. 11).”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

(Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, 74-75)

Understanding the Cross

 “Those who understand the cross increasingly see their sin as God does, and therefore begin to feel about sin as does God.  We begin to mourn for and hate it.  In other words, at the cross God becomes larger and we become smaller.  This separation is at the heart of the fear of God.  This “fear” opens God’s wisdom to us because only in light of God’s immensity can I see the importance of living for the right end, his glory. And only in the light of my smallness can I feel overawed by the means he used to save me, his cross.”

Bill Farley:

(Outrageous Mercy: Rediscovering the Radical Nature of the Cross, 139-140)

 

Re-Blog–Three Essential Things for a “Good Work”

from Justin Taylor’s Blog:

The Westminster Confession of Faith (16.7) is quite helpful in summarizing why works that are externally good are not pleasing in the sight of the Lord:

Works done by unregenerate men,

although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands,

and of good use both to themselves and others;

yet, because

[1] they proceed not from a heart purified by faith;

[2] nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word;

[3] nor to a right end, the glory of God;

they are therefore sinful and can not please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God.

And yet their neglect of them is more sinful, and displeasing unto God.

In other words, having the right motive, the right standard, and the right goal are the three necessary and sufficient conditions for good works according to the Bible.

I appreciate in particular that this summary takes seriously the biblical themes that “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Heb. 11:6) and that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23) and that faith working through love—for God and for our neighbor—is essential (1 Corinthians 13; Luke 10:27; Gal. 5:6, etc.) and that all things are to be done for God’s glory in accordance with his revealed will (1 Cor. 10:31).

This triad is also helpful for thinking about what it means to do everyday activities in a Christian way. For example, John Frame writes:

In everything we do, we seek to obey God’s commands. There are, of course, human activities for which there are no explicit biblical prescriptions. Scripture doesn’t tell us how to change a tire, for instance. But there are biblical commands that are relevant to tire changing, as to everything else.

In all activities, we are to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31).

In everything we are to be motivated by faith (Rom. 14:23) and love (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

In everything, we are to act in the name of the Lord Jesus (Col. 3:17), with all our heart (3:23). When I change a tire, I should do it to the glory of God.

The details I need to work out myself, but always in the framework of God’s broad commands concerning my motives and goals.

Bishop of SC: “I understand the level of anxiety and concern”

Mark Lawrence recently published this statement concerning the promised decision after the clergy day following General Convention this past year. Looks like no news is… no news. However, I’m grateful to Mark for assuring us of his continued care and concern in this matter.
In Him,
Iain

Romans 4

Romans 4:1-12

English Standard Version (ESV)

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

⁷ “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
⁸ blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

What jumped out at me today and caused me to exult in the majesty & love of God in Christ Jesus were 2 verses, 7 & 8.

Jude

Reading through Jude this morning I was once again comforted by the fact  that the attacks on the Gospel of Jesus, the grace of God, & the perseverance of God’s people aren’t something new that believers have to deal with.

As you read think of the different attacks on the church, the Bible, & followers of Jesus today. Hopefully it encourages  and comforts you, the last two paragraphs should lift all of you.

 

Jude 1

English Standard Version (ESV)

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,

To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:

May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about ourcommon salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt,afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just asSodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves;waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people,devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

“O Praise Him”

The Way We Pray

He who comes to God in prayer, comes not in a spirit of self-assertion, but in a spirit of trustful dependence. No one ever addressed God in prayer thus: “O God, thou knowest that I am the architect of my own fortunes and the determiner of my own destiny. Thou mayest indeed do something to help me in the securing of my purposes after I have determined upon them. But my heart is my own, and Thou canst not intrude into it; my will is my own, and Thou canst not bend it. When I wish Thy aid, I will call on Thee for it. Meanwhile, Thou must await my pleasure.” Men may reason somewhat like this; but that is not the way they pray.

B. B. Warfield