God humbles us so that we might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deut. 8:3)
Provision
God’s provisions mean God remembers us and cause us to remember him.
Treading The High Places
This phrase is found in the last chapter of the remarkable prophecy made by Habakkuk and in the last verse. It is an appropriate expression of the ultimate triumph that the people of God shall experience since they serve a Sovereign God. There are two key verses (or series of verses) in Habakkuk that explicitly reflect the prophet’s dilemma and thanksgiving. Habakkuk 2:4 raises the question of how a man can be right before God. The answer is found in verse 4 – “the righteous shall live by faith.” This is, of course, simply a pointer to justification by faith as the sole means whereby any person is accepted before a holy and just God. This same verse is mentioned three times in the New Testament (Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). The fact that any person can be said to be righteous is because of an imputed righteousness to him rather than an [Read more…]
Essential Differences
Hyper-Calvinism is all house & no door; Arminianism is all door & no house; Calvinism is both all door & all house.
True Disciples
“Is the price that we are paying today with the collapse of the organized churches anything else but an inevitable consequence of grace acquired too cheaply?
We gave away preaching & sacraments cheaply; we performed baptisms & confirmations; we absolved an entire people unquestioned & unconditionally; out of human love we handed over what was holy to the scornful & unbelievers.
We poured out rivers of grace without end but the call to rigorously follow Christ was seldom heard.”
These are the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – how prescient of him! We have sold ourselves down the river as evangelicals by dispensing a grace that we have cheapened. We are reaping the harvest. Countless souls shall be lost but we persuaded them that we were right. It is time to return to the cost of being a true disciple.