Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Make The Most of Every Opportunity
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Being Occupied With God
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Predestined To Be Conformed
Scripture, God's Word, is to be at home in our lives in a very copious, magnanimous way. It is the Spirit's work to conform believers to the likeness of Jesus Christ. However, the Holy Spirit does not work in a vacuum. The Spirit always uses the Word of God in our day-to-day transformation.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus told his disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes He would bring back to their memories all that Christ had taught them. The Word that we hide in our hearts, is the same Word that the Holy Spirit uses to conform us to the image of the Son that He loves. Just as a potter keeps his hands wet as he molds the clay, the Holy Spirit wets His hands with the "water" of God's Word as He molds and makes us into the image of the Beloved Son.
Let us renew our efforts of hiding God's Word in our hearts so that God's Spirit may continue His work in our lives
Monday, August 31, 2009
God Is Still On His Throne
Take heart timid souls, at the top of every organizational chart is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Rejoice, everything is under His control!!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Luther reflects on his conversion
"Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ ” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.
And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise."[1]
[1]Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 34 : Career of the Reformer IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1960). 34:III.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
And Can it be That I should Gain (Charles Wesley)
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.
He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
Friday, April 10, 2009
Nuggets from Owen
“That the beholding of the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges and advancements that believers are capable of in this world, or that which is to come. It is that whereby they are first gradually conformed unto it, and then fixed in the eternal enjoyment of it. For here in this life, beholding his glory, they are changed or transformed into the likeness of it, 2 Cor. 3:18; and hereafter they shall be “for ever like unto him,” because they “shall see him as he is,” 1 John 3:1, 2.Hereon do our present comforts and future blessedness depend. This is the life and reward of our souls. “He that hath seen him hath seen the Father also,” John 14:9. For we discern the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God only in the face of Jesus Christ,” 2 Cor. 4:6 (John Owen, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark). 287.)
“No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight.” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark). 288.)