Ferguson On Prodigals

I love this paragraph from Sinclair Ferguson's larger discussion of the Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15:

"Although this story is probably the best known and loved of all Christ's parables, the lesson it teaches us as Christians is often overlooked. Jesus was underling the fact that - despite assumptions to the contrary - the reality of the love of God for us is often the last thing in the world to dawn upon us. As we fix our eyes upon ourselves, our past failures, our present guilt, it seems impossible to us that the Father could love us." ~ excerpted from Children of the Living God

As for me, I spend too much time introspecting, and not nearly enough time dwelling on the affection of my heavenly Father.

Moment of Salvation

John Piper, on the mysterious co-working of God's sovereignty and human will that brings about our regeneration:

"Our first experience of this is the faith in Jesus that this life brings. There is no separation of time here. When we are born again, we believe. And when we believe, we know we have been born again. When there is fire, there is heat. When there is new birth, there is faith."

"Your act of believing and God's act of begetting are simultaneous. he does the begetting and you do the believing at the same instant. And - this is very important - His doing is the decisive cause of your doing. His begetting is the decisive cause of your believing."

"The instant there is fire, there is heat. The instant there is fire, there is light. But we would not say that the heat caused the fire, or the light caused the fire. We say that the fire caused the heat and the light." ~ John Piper, Finally Alive

Those Pesky, Repetitive Songs

Don't you hate those worship songs that repeat the same lines over and over and over again?

Oh wait. Psalm 136.

Legally Adopted

"We are born into God's family through the work of the Spirit. But we are also brought into that family by a decisive, legal act on God's part. The apostle Paul thought this latter dimension illuminated Christian experience, and he used the concept of adoption to describe it."

~ Sinclair Ferguson, Children Of The Living God

Nothingness In God's Name

From The World Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips:

"Some professing Christians are naturally indolent, lazy, retiring, introspective, self-involved, perhaps even selfish - and the rotten teaching they get magnifies and calcifies those tendencies. They refuse to trust and obey; they feel no need to try and to dare and to engage. Worse, they do all this nothingness in the name of the Lord."

Emphasis on "rotten teaching". . . let's hear it for solid, Biblical preaching.

Suffer Greater

"Be so brave, and so longsuffering in hope, that when inward comfort is withdrawn, you may prepare your heart to suffer even greater things." ~ Thomas a Kempis.

When All Is Overboard

"Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” After [Paul] said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. Altogether there were 276 of us on board. When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea. ~ from Acts 27

You have to demonstrate hope. In the face of a fearful storm, in the face of death, in the face of loss, when the last of the food is thrown overboard, will you be the one standing with hope when EVERYTHING else that EVERYONE else trusts in is gone? You can, because your life isn’t based on those other things and your hope isn’t grounded on such transitory cargo. The person of the world has no hope apart from the things of this world. You however, are of a different sort. "A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions," Jesus said. We have a hope that is otherworldly.