The perversion & subversion of our culture & country – American Idol(atry) & every reality show where adults behave and are treated like children & children behave and are treated like adults.
Hell-Delivering Concern
How concerned are we for the lost? Do we agonize painfully in prayer for their salvation. Do we declare the love of Christ for sinners? Doctrinal exactness is no substitute for preaching Jesus & him crucified. Without the love of Christ manifest in our lives & preaching – precision in theology will leave sinners cold & dead. I am all for doctrinal exactness and we should be very concerned for that – but let our hearts be fired with love from our doctrine for the sinner who is perishing. The lost husband or wife or child or friend. Pray about this – seek Christ about it – since he sought you and found you.
On What have You Set your Mind?
The mind set on the flesh - is death
The mind set on the Spirit - is life & peace
The flesh may give pleasure now – but its ways are the ways of death – it brings remorse & pain
The Spirit is life-giving & peace–rewarding
Choose life & peace
Kill Sin
“Mortification is the soul’s vigorous opposition to self” – so says John Owen in his Mortification of Sin. Mortification is our work & the Spirit’s work in killing sin; in fighting sin. Sin will not go away & will not leave us alone. It is like the weeds of the ground; if you do not tend your garden & its flowers, the weeds will come & destroy all that you have worked for.
Thus sin can destroy joy in a moment. It can reduce faith to apprehension in the stroke of a heartbeat. So we must labor hard at weeding out sin & its remaining strength. We are in a spiritual war. This war is in the good providence of God & is designed to wean us from all worldly attachments & allurements. Providence is that means of God by which he reveals to us the hidden power of our corruption, the wickedness of our hearts, so that we might be humbled.
Why does God do this? He does this, so that we might cast ourselves upon him with no strength of ourselves retained. God drives us to seek him by reducing us. All this activity of God is providential & gives God the glory & brings good to us. So we must wage war against sin. it will not lie down & go away – but providence is working.
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…]