Reformed Baptist Congregation Exaltation | Edification | Evangelism
Calvin points out in his Institutes and commentaries this remarkable truth about praying for others.
“Therefore our prayers are bound always to seek to express themselves in intercession for all mankind, but especially for the whole Church, not only in this generation, but in generations to come. To make intercession of men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.”
This is one of the most important truths for a believer to grasp. Thomas Boston puts it like this: “The great stay of the believer is not the grace of God within him; that is a well whose streams sometimes run dry; but it is the grace of God without him, the grace that is in Jesus Christ, which is an ever-flowing fountain, to which the believer can never come amiss.”
(Thomas Boston, Human nature in its Four-Fold State, p. 312)
Calvin says in his Institutes that “whatever we need and whatever we lack is in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Inst. III. xx. 1, p. 850)
The sin of letting your ambition, your appetites and behavior conform you to earthly values. It is the lust of the eyes, the flesh and the pride of life (1 John 2:16). It is not a quaint way of describing our understanding or appreciation of the world.
What a great word from John Owen on temptation near the end of his little work on the same. I love this part:
“Let a soul exercise itself to a communion with Christ in the good things of the Gospel. Pardon of sin, fruits of holiness, hope of glory, peace with God, joy in the Holy Spirit, dominion over sin, and he shall have a mighty preservative against all temptations.”
(John Owen , Works Vol. 6, p. 144.)
So, let us exercise our souls in this way.