When Grace is Given Selectively

To paraphrase a popular saying, “All people in the church are given grace equally, but some grace is more equal than others.” Do you ever feel that way? That certain issues are elevated while discussion of others is suppressed? Mark at the blog Attempts at Honesty deals with this in a blog post titled Selective grace in the church

Grace is a word that Christians frequently use, too often glibly and without proper thought. For example, I have been in several churches with Grace in their titles who offered very little of it to the people who attend.

We all want grace, but sometimes struggle to give it when it is most needed. Perhaps this is why Jesus placed such an emphasis upon forgiveness, going so far as to say that He will not forgive those who refuse to forgive others (Matthew 6:15). Offering grace must be intentional and is sometimes difficult because it goes against our natural inclination.

What is even more bothersome to me is that in some churches, selective grace is offered. Selective grace is in operation when some people receive grace and others do not. Often this is due to the background of the person who needs grace.

In a denomination that I formerly attended many of the pastors would often refer to their drug abuse in their “B.C.” days. They would use their former behavior as an illustration of God’s grace, and rightly so. They did indeed receive grace and despite their past failures God uses them in ministry.

The problem comes in when some other sins are less likely to receive grace. In some churches, those who have experienced divorce, those who struggle with same sex attraction, those with mental illness and those who might disagree on minor points of doctrine receive anything but grace. Even in that denomination with the formerly drug addled pastors, selective grace was a struggle and some people were treated in a manner inconsistent with grace.

Let’s be honest and admit that sometimes we encounter Christians who make us uncomfortable. If we do not make a conscious effort to build bridges with those who make us feel uncomfortable, then we are likely to withhold grace from them.

Some make us uncomfortable because of their background or lifestyle. It is as if we want everyone cleaned up completely after becoming a believer. The problem is that we are all in the process of being cleaned up, yet sometimes we hold others to a standard we can not meet.

I have been in churches where those who came out of a “sinful” lifestyle continued to be suspect, no matter how they progressed in their relationship with Jesus or their understanding of Scripture. Sexual sins in particular seem to put people on the suspect list. I have also known of churches where divorce was treated as if it was the unpardonable sin.

Perhaps even worse than this is to withhold grace over a difference in belief or practice. Examples of some issues over which we might withhold grace are these:

• How the gifts of the spirit are manifested
• How prophetic portions of Scripture are to be interpreted
• Whether a person is liberal or conservative in their politics
• The preference or abhorrence of liturgy in the worship service

This is not an exhaustive list, we could find many more issues over which Christians have divided.

We cannot be selective in how we demonstrate the grace of God in our lives. We need to follow the example of Jesus in the way he was gracious to everyone, including the Pharisees. Ephesians 2:8-9 is often quoted as indicating that we are saved by grace, yet the verses preceding verse 8 set the correct context.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:1–9, ESV)

Apart from Christ, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. In other words, we crossed boundaries that should not be crossed and we fell short of the standard we know was in place. Yet, God gave us grace, the very grace that saves us.

How can we do anything less than offer that same grace to others? We must put an end to selective grace.

Read more at Attempts at Honesty: What Nehemiah Can Teach Us About Apologetics.

We’re Not Saved by Works, But Works Happen

The biggest myth that Christ followers need to combat is the idea that by doing things for God, we merit or earn eternal life. Even among people who have spent a lifetime immersed in churches where the message of grace is preached, there are people who, if you ask them, will tell you that they will spend eternity with God because of what they did.

Ephesians 2 contains two verses familiar to many of us:

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. (NIV)

But someone will say, “But what about James 2:24?” That’s the verse many of us memorized as “Faith without works is dead.” The variety of translations we usually utilize here doesn’t clear this verse up because a good translation won’t interfere with what the original text actually says. Clarification of difficult passages is for footnotes, commentaries and Bible handbooks. But the CEV tries to provide us with the verse in a way that doesn’t trip us up vis-a-vis the Ephesians passage.

²⁴ You can now see that we please God by what we do and not only by what we believe.

Or moving from the CEV to the CEB:

²⁴ So you see that a person is shown to be righteous through faithful actions and not through faith alone.

which is almost word-for-word the same as the NLT.

But the other translations use words like “justified,” or “made right,” which implies a works based salvation.

It must be difficult to be a Bible translator — trying to stay loyal to the reading of a particular Greek section — but knowing the whole compendium of scripture and, in this case, knowing that salvation is a work of grace.  Here’s how the NCV approaches an earlier verse (italics added):

²² So you see that Abraham’s faith and the things he did worked together. His faith was made perfect by what he did.

The Reformation Study Bible notes:

None of our deeds are worthy of ultimate justification in the sight of God. Only the merit of Christ avails for that kind of justification. Only by trusting in Christ alone can we be made righteous in the sight of God. Here James attacks all forms of antinomianism that seek to have Jesus as Savior without embracing Him as Lord.

…I think a good passage to bring into this discussion is one that isn’t usually considered in this context, the story of the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet and washes his feet with her hair in Luke 7: 36-50.  I’m going to assume that most people reading this know that story, but if not, click the link.

A parable about a debtor is taught within the narration of this story, the point of which is to show to Simon, the host of the party, as to how grace plays out in the real world. The conclusion is:

⁴⁷ “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” (NLT)

⁴⁷ This woman has been forgiven much, and she is showing much love. But the person who has shown little love shows how little forgiveness he has received. (The Voice)

Impressive, isn’t it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.” (The Message)

Works flow naturally, organically out of the overflow of the heart. Works are response to what we already received by grace, by faith. If a person isn’t finding some area of response to God, I think we’re safe in questioning the authenticity of their faith experience. 

Is your Christian service a laborious exercise done out of obligation, or is it a joy-filled response of a recipient of a level of grace that you know you could never deserve?

We Do Not Lose Heart

Heartlight is a website offering both daily devotionals and longer articles. This one  from the articles page by Tom Norvell appeared in February. You’re encouraged to read this at source, and then visit the rest of the site.

I suspect there are some reading these words might take exception to the title: “We Do Not Lose Heart”! You do not mean to lose heart. You do not want to lose heart. You know that you should not lose heart. But, that’s where you find yourself: losing heart… or at least you feel like you may be losing heart.

You have dreams that seem to be fading. You think about opportunities that have passed by or never ever came to fruition. You see obstacles that are too big and too powerful to overcome. You are faced with problems that seem to have no solution. You feel the pressure, you are perplexed, you feel you are being attacked on every side and from the most surprising people, and are afraid that if you are knocked down one more time you may not be able to get back up. You feel weak, tired, and defeated.

What are you going to do?

What can you do?

Start here. Read what Paul wrote:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you (2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NIV).

Does that sound like you? At least does this part sound like you?

• hard pressed
• perplexed
• in despair
• persecuted
• abandoned
• struck down

Do those parts of Paul’s words sound familiar? And the other things — the positive things, the things of faith — not so much right now.

Read what he wrote at the end of the chapter:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Feel any better?

Does it help to know you are not alone in your struggles?

Do you find any comfort in hearing that others have experienced the same difficulties?

Maybe? Maybe not? I know. I have been there.

Before you quit, take a deep breath. Before you slump off into depression and hopelessness because you still cannot figure out how to fix all the stuff that is wrong in your world, read this third paragraph that fits between the other two. This is where Paul reveals the reason he does not lose heart:

It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God (2 Corinthians 4:13-15).

Did you see it?

It is right there in the middle of the paragraph. One sentence:

…because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.

That is the secret. That is the key. That is what can keep us from losing heart. Look up. Look at Jesus. Rely on the fact that He will raise us up. Our struggles show that the Gospel is at work in us. Our difficulties will be turned into His glory. There is a lot we cannot see if we stay focused only on what we can see. This is temporary stuff. We are about the eternal.

I pray that through our faith in Jesus Christ who will raise us up we will not lose heart.

Romans 5 in The Voice

BibleGateway.com has added The Voice to its list of available translations. This is a truly different approach to Bible translation. Some of you will immediately resonate with what the translators had in mind and will gravitate toward this fresh approach. For others who prefer the traditional approach to scripture, this is not the version for you.  At the Bible Gateway blog, they highlight the unique aspects of the translation:

• The Voice uses a screenplay format for dialogue and conversations. One advantage to this style is that it removes the need for lots of repetitive conjunctions and verbs (“he said,” “she replied,” etc.) that slow down reading. It also lets the translators use some clever and useful ways to convey key details: for example, in Matthew 8, note the use of stage directions to add detail and clearly identify the audience.
• Words and phrases in italics represent words that aren’t found in the original text, but which are important for bringing out the original intended meaning of the passage. In the words of The Voice translators, this brings out “the nuance of the original, assist[s] in completing ideas, and often provide[s] readers with information that would have been obvious to the original audience. These additions are meant to help the modern reader better understand the text without having to stop and read footnotes or a study guide.” Here’s an example from Romans 6.
• Another feature you’ll quickly encounter upon reading The Voice is its collection of explanatory material embedded in with the Bible text. These short paragraphs contain devotional material, study notes, background information, and other clarifying detail of the sort that you might typically find in a study Bible or commentary. These notes are placed near the passages they’re expounding on, and are clearly delineated from the text of Scripture as seen … in Romans 7.

Learn much more about the translation here. Also, I recently reviewed a book which tells the story of this version.

Our reading for today is from The Voice; I had chosen ahead of time to also use a chapter of Romans, but I selected Romans 5.

Note: While The Voice uses boxed and indented sections, that was not possible here. Scripture text in green is a convention we use here at C201, but the green and blue is not part of the original formatting of this Bible edition.

Romans 5

The Voice (VOICE)

In God’s plan to restore a fallen and disfigured world, Abraham became the father of all of us, the agent of blessing to everyone. Jesus completes what God started centuries before when He established Abraham’s covenant family. Those who put faith in Jesus and call Him “Lord” become part of Abraham’s faith family. Because God is gracious, loving, and merciful, men and women from every corner of the earth are not only declared right, but ultimately are made right as well. It happens through God’s actions—not our efforts—in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus who was crucified for our misdeeds and raised to repair what has been wrong all along. So the promises of God made long years ago are being realized in men and women who hear the call of faith and answer “yes” to it.

  Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. ² Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. ³ And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, ⁴ which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. ⁵ And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love.

⁶ When the time was right, the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak. ⁷ Now it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. ⁸ But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display—the Anointed One died for us. ⁹ As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. ¹⁰ If we were in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? ¹¹ In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed.

¹² Consider this: sin entered our world through one man, Adam; and through sin, death followed in hot pursuit. Death spread rapidly to infect all people on the earth as they engaged in sin.

God’s gift of grace and salvation is amazing. Paul struggles to find the words to describe it. He looks everywhere around him to find a metaphor, an image, a word to put into language one aspect of this awesome gift. One of those is “reconciliation.” There is hardly anything more beautiful than to see two people who have been enemies or estranged or separated coming back together. When Paul reflects on what God has done through Jesus, he thinks about reconciliation. Before we receive God’s blessing through His Son, we are enemies of God, sinners of the worst sort. But God makes the first move to restore us to a right relationship with Him.

¹³ Before God gave the law, sin existed, but there was no way to account for it. Outside the law, how could anyone be charged and found guilty of sin? ¹⁴ Still, death plagued all humanity from Adam to Moses, even those whose sin was of a different sort than Adam’s. You see, in God’s plan, Adam was a prototype of the One who comes to usher in a new day. ¹⁵ But the free gift of grace bears no resemblance to Adam’s crime that brings a death sentence to all of humanity; in fact, it is quite the opposite. For if the one man’s sin brings death to so many, how much more does the gift of God’s radical grace extend to humanity since Jesus the Anointed offered His generous gift. ¹⁶ His free gift is nothing like the scourge of the first man’s sin. The judgment that fell because of one false step brought condemnation, but the free gift following countless offenses results in a favorable verdict—not guilty. ¹⁷ If one man’s sin brought a reign of death—that’s Adam’s legacy—how much more will those who receive grace in abundance and the free gift of redeeming justice reign in life by means of one other man—Jesus the Anointed.

¹⁸ So here is the result: as one man’s sin brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life. ¹⁹ Just as through one man’s defiant disobedience every one of us were made sinners, so through the willing obedience of the one man many of us will be made right.

²⁰ When the law came into the picture, sin grew and grew; but wherever sin grew and spread, God’s grace was there in fuller, greater measure. No matter how much sin crept in, there was always more grace. ²¹ In the same way that sin reigned in the sphere of death, now grace reigns through God’s restorative justice, eclipsing death and leading to eternal life through the Anointed One, Jesus our Lord, the Liberating King.

Spurgeon: Parallels Between Grace and Rain

This was posted in September at the blog Grace Guy, and turned up on my screen just yesterday.  In many denominational circles, C. H. Spurgeon is a most-quoted classic author; you can read more about him here.

Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? Job 38:25-27

God challenges man to compare with his Maker even in the one matter of the rain. Can he create it? Can he send a shower upon the desert, to water the lone herbs which else would perish in the burning heat? No, he would not even think of doing such a thing. That generous act comes of the Lord alone.

We shall work out a parallel between grace and rain.

I. GOD ALONE GIVES RAIN, AND THE SAME IS TRUE OF GRACE.

• We say of rain and of grace, God is the sole Author of it.
• He devised and prepared the channel by which it comes to earth. He hath “divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters.” The Lord makes a way for grace to reach his people.
• He directs each drop, and gives each blade of grass its own drop of dew, to every believer his portion of grace.
• He moderates the force, so that it does not beat down or drown the tender herb. Grace comes in its own gentle way. Conviction, enlightenment, etc., are sent in due measure.
• He holds it in his power. Absolutely at his own will does God bestow either rain for the earth, or grace for the soul.

II. RAIN FALLS IRRESPECTIVE OF MEN, AND SO DOES GRACE.

• Grace waits not man’s observation. As the rain falls where no man is, so grace courts not publicity.
• Nor his cooperation. It ”tarries not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men” (Mic. 5:7).
• Nor his prayers. Grass calls not for rain, yet it comes. ”I am found of them that sought me not” (Isa. 65:1).
• Nor his merits. Rain falls on the waste ground.
• “Ah, grace, into unlikeliest hearts, It is thy wont to come; The glory of thy light to find; In darkest spots a home.”

III. RAIN FALLS WHERE WE MIGHT LEAST HAVE EXPECTED IT.

• It falls where there is no trace of former showers, even upon the desolate wilderness: so does grace enter hearts which had hitherto been unblessed, where great need was the only plea which rose to heaven (Isa. 35:7).
• It falls where there seems nothing to repay the boon. Many hearts are naturally as barren as the desert (Isa. 35:6).
• It falls where the need seems insatiable, “to satisfy the desolate.” Some cases seem to demand an ocean of grace, but the Lord meets the need; and his grace falls where the joy and glory are all directed to God by grateful hearts. Twice we are told that the rain falls “where no man is.” When conversion is wrought of the Lord, no man is seen. The Lord alone is exalted.

IV. THIS RAIN IS MOST VALUED BY LIFE.

• The rain gives joy to seeds and plants in which there is life. Budding life knows of it; the tenderest herb rejoices in it. So is it with those who begin to repent, who feebly believe, and thus are just alive.
• The rain causes development. Grace also perfects grace. Buds of hope grow into strong faith. Buds of feeling expand into love. Buds of desire rise to resolve. Buds of confession come to open avowal. Buds of usefulness swell into fruit.
• The rain causes health and vigour of life. Is it not so with grace?
• The rain creates the flower with its colour and perfume, and God is pleased. The full outgrowth of renewed nature comes of grace, and the Lord is well pleased therewith.
• Let us acknowledge the sovereignty of God as to grace.
• Let us cry to him for grace.
• Let us expect him to send it, though we may feel sadly barren, and quite out of the way of the usual means of grace.

~ Charles Spurgeon

Unworthy, But Chosen

Today’s item here at C201 is part testimony, part inspiration and part Bible study. I hope you’ll enjoy this piece from the blog Saint in Training. Click through to read at source and discover more from this blog’s two authors.

I am a living witness that God can and will save the worst of sinners.

I once saw myself as being beyond redemption, having no understanding that our Heavenly Father sees us all the same and that through His son Jesus Christ, he made a way of escape for us. Although our sins may differ we stand in danger of facing the same penalty for unrepentant sin: eternal damnation. Thank God for Jesus! It’s because of Him that every sinner is promised a future and thus once we become Christians it behooves us to remember that every saint has a past.

Dear hearts let us not forget that it was the mercies of God that brought us out of sin. We should be careful not to become self-righteous, thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to in Christ. Our awesome God, blessed be His name, is the only one worthy of praise.

The saying, “I don’t look like what I’ve been through,” is true. If I were to write a book, it couldn’t express the immensity of the love, grace and mercy God has showered upon me! Growing up in the streets of New York City shaped my thoughts and molded my life into a vehicle for sin. Loneliness was my best friend, distrust taught me to fear the night while hunger gave me the strength to beg and the will to live. I learned how to survive that kind of life. God wasn’t in my thoughts; he wasn’t a part of my life at all – or so I thought. I didn’t realize that it was he who was keeping me alive! His ever watchful eyes saw every step I took and protected my every move. He didn’t allow the devil to fulfill his desire to have my soul, nor did he let the demons of hell drive me to a point of no return. God kept my mind!

Oh! The unexplainable love of God. His love can’t be measured. It is deeper than the sea and as solid as a rock! We are so unworthy of his love, of his grace and of his mercy – yet, God still chose us to be his sons and daughters in Christ! He chose us to spend eternity with him in his heavenly kingdom. So those of you who have a feeling of unworthiness that overshadows you, I encourage you today to lift up your hands unto the Lord and bless his holy name – you are blessed. Yes, you are blessed! Why? Because he chose you to love and favored you by calling you to be his son, his daughter!

I’ll never find myself worthy of God’s love but I am grateful. I praise him for seeing me as being worth loving – that’s more than enough for me.

I am like that publican who prayed the prayer that touched God’s heart:

Luke 18:13-14 KJV

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Dear hearts, it was for the unworthy that Jesus died!

Mark 2:17 KJV

When Jesus heard it, he said to them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

It’s the unworthy that Jesus loves! It is the unworthy he embraces! Why? Because it is they who love him the most. They know that they are just that, unworthy. They are grateful and humble before him. God can use them to give hope to the hopeless. He shows his love toward them who desperately need the one and only true living God in their lives!

What does God see in us?

You know yourself as a drug dealer – God sees you as a preacher.
You know yourself as a prostitute – God sees you as a missionary.
You know yourself as an alcoholic – God sees you as an evangelist.
You know yourself as a liar and a thief – God sees you as a prayer warrior.
You see yourself as a nobody – God sees you as the apple of his eye.
You know yourself as a sinner – God sees you as a saint!

Where man has counted you out, God has already counted you as a winner! Where some may see us as being worthless, God sees us as being worth it! Man and Satan took us to the courtroom at Calvary dear hearts; they charged us and found us to be guilty. Oh! But God dropped the charges and He found us guiltless through the death of his son Jesus Christ!

He did this for me! He did this for you!

Forget what Satan says about you precious one, he’s a liar. Forget what you say about you, you’re only flesh. Look to God and receive what he said:

Isaiah 55:7-8 NIV

Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

Isaiah 1:18-20 NIV

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

God has called you by name, he has chosen you for his own – receive his word, believe and watch your life change!

Grace Quotations

“…Jesus’ approach toward a decadent Roman empire, as well as toward individual sinners who must have offended him deeply, seemed almost the opposite of the self-righteous attitude of many evangelicals.  As I studied Jesus’ life, the notion of grace kept hitting me in the face.  All his stories made the wrong person the hero: the prodigal son not the responsible older brother, Lazarus not the rich man, the good Samaritan not the Jewish rabbi.  And I began to see grace as one of the great, often untapped, powers of the universe that God has asked us to set loose.  Human society runs by Ungrace, ranking people, holding them accountable, insisting on reciprocity and fairness.  Grace is, by definition, unfair.  That intrigued me.”

~Philip Yancey

---

“Most every cult you could name is a cult of salvation by works. It appeals to the flesh. It tells you, if you will stand so long on a street corner, if you will distribute so much literature, if you will sacrifice so much of life, if you will be baptized, if you will contribute your money, if you will pray or attend numerous meetings, then your good works and hard effort will cause God to smile on you. Ultimately when the good is weighed against the bad on the Day of Judgement, you will finally earn His favor. The result in that, I say again, is man’s glory, because you added to your salvation.

“Grace says you have nothing to give, nothing to earn, nothing to pay. You couldn’t if you tried! Salvation is a free gift. You simply lay hold of what Christ has provided. Period. And yet the heretical doctrine of works goes on all around the world and always will. It is effective because the pride of men and women is so strong. We simply have to do something in order to feel right about it. It just doesn’t make good humanistic sense to get something valuable for nothing.

“Please allow me to be absolutely straight with you: Stop tolerating the heretical gospel of works! It is legalism. Wake up to the fact that it will put you into a bondage syndrome that won’t end. The true gospel of grace, however, will set you free. Free forever.”

~Charles (Chuck) Swindoll

---

“You are loved by your Maker not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more. All your efforts to win his affection are unnecessary. All your fears of losing his affection are needless. You can no more make him want you than you can convince him to abandon you. The adoption is irreversible. You have a place at his table.”

~Max Lucado

---

“Romans 8 is all about living in a suffering world marked by brokenness… Verse 28 says: For those loving him, God works together all things for good. …Earlier in Romans 8, Paul discusses how things fall apart because the world is burdened with evil and sin. Things are subject to decay. Everyone will eventually experience the decay of their bodies; that’s the nature of things. The little grains of sand on the beach used to be a mountain. Everything falls apart; things do not come together. This verse tells Christians to get rid of the saccharine, sentimental idea that things ought to go right, that things do go right, and that it’s normal for things to go right. Modern, Western people believe that if things go wrong, we should sue, because things ought to go right. But Christians have to discard that idea completely. Christians have to recognize that if our health remains intact, it is simply because God is holding it up. If people love us, if someone is there to hug us or squeeze our hand, if someone loves us in spite of all our flaws—if someone loves us at all—it’s because God is bringing all things together. God is holding it up. Everything that goes well is a miracle of grace.”

~Timothy Keller

---

“I don’t think we should avoid reading the Noah narrative to our children. They need to hear of God’s global judgment, of his grace not only to Noah but to the animals and the creation itself, and of his covenant promise never to flood the earth with water again. But we should never sentimentalize this terrifying moment in our history. Instead we must point our little ones to the fulfillment of the rainbow: Jesus of Nazareth.

“The apostle Peter makes much of the Flood, pointing to it as a type of the last days cosmic judgment of the universe (2 Pet 3). He also speaks of baptism as corresponding to the deliverance of Noah (1 Pet 3:18-22), representing God’s faithfulness to bring a righteous Man through the flood of his wrath and into a new creation. One cannot emphasize this without emphasizing both God’s amazing grace and his terrible justice. Maybe that’s why we trivialize baptism too.”

~Russell D. Moore

---

“Martyn Lloyd-Jones states that preaching grace is not only risky, but the fact that some take it to an unwise extreme is proof that a minister is indeed preaching the true grace of God. Some people will take advantage of it. They will misrepresent it. They will go to such an extreme that they will promote the erroneous idea that you can go on sinning as much as you like. If you claim to be a messenger of grace, if you think you are really preaching grace, yet no one is taking advantage of it, maybe you haven’t preached it hard enough or strong enough. I can assure you of this: Grace killing ministers will never have that charge brought against them. They make sure of that! This issue of grace is indeed controversial. It brings grace abusers as well as grace killers out from under the rocks!”

~Charles (Chuck) Swindoll

---

“The notion of God’s love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, the Jewish covenant, and Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God’s love unconditional.”

~Philip Yancey

---

‘He’s prone to stoop. He stooped to wash feet, to embrace children. Stooped to pull Peter out of the sea, to pray in the Garden. He stooped before the Roman whipping post. Stooped to carry the cross. Grace is a God who stoops. Here he stooped to write in the dust.’

~Max Lucado

---

More grace quotations

We’re Outsiders on the Inside

This weekend we were reading Romans 11, especially the passage that talks about being “grafted in.”

Ingrafted Branches
¹¹ Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. ¹² But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!

¹³ I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry ¹⁴ in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

¹⁷ If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, ¹⁸ do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹ You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” ²⁰ Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

²² Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. ²³ And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴ After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

We’re not going to delve into that today, that’s just a bonus reading for what I discovered about 30 minutes later in John Fischer’s blog, The Catch in a post titled Outsiders.

“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God”(John 1:11-13).

We owe so much to the Jewish forefathers of the faith, and in a strange way, even to their rejection of Christ, because that has made it possible for us Gentiles to be included. And I believe we need to be on guard against thinking now we have an inside track on God, lest the same thing happen to us.

It’s a theme repeated throughout the Old and New Testament: those on the inside rebel, get hard hearts and reject the truth; those on the outside receive it gladly. Jesus told parable after parable about the invited guests and those at the front of the line being usurped by “outsiders” – latecomers if you will. Of course this is all a part of God’s long-range plan for both Jews and Gentiles to be saved, but I do believed there is something to becoming stodgy, smug and self-important in our faith.

It might be good for us to think of ourselves as outsiders – as uninvited guests who got in on the party only because the invited guests had other things to do. It might be good for us to identify more with prostitutes and sinners (“ragamuffins” according to Brennan Manning) than with the religious, lest we too become like the Scribes and Pharisees (“beware the leaven of the Pharisees” Matthew 16:6).

It might be good for us to be eternally grateful for the grace of God that has somehow found us when we are so undeserving. No background. No pedigree. We’re like a bunch of mutts who got picked up at the pound one day short of our doom by a generous master who bought up the whole place – adopted us all.

Why do I suggest we think like this? Because it is necessary to the Gospel of Welcome for us to offer the good news to other undeserving folks like us. If we ever think of ourselves as above anyone, then we are closing someone off to the gospel.

Stay an outsider. Stay a sinner (don’t sin, but see yourself as one). Stay grateful. Stay amazed that you got “in.” And stay close to the door, so you can welcome in other vagabonds and ruffians like yourself.

Like that grand lady still shining her light over those coming to America: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (Emma Lazarus, from her sonnet, “The New Colossus” now bronzed inside the Statue of Liberty.)

Lest we forget who we are.

~John Fischer

Assured of Eternal Life

Today we look at what may at first seem rather elementary material about the basics of salvation, until we move on to testing ourselves on how this evidences itself in our lives. This from Pastor B. J. Rutledge at Grace Fellowship Church and appears on his blog as You Can Know You Have Eternal Life.

---

[Recently] at Grace we talked about an UNUSUAL PROMISE from God.  At the request of one of our web/tech guys, I’m putting some of the scripture, some added notes and the check list from 1st John in this blog.  Let me start with a couple of added notes…

1.  No one can earn their way into heaven.  We are saved by faith through grace which is the gift of God and is clearly taught throughout the NT.  Ephesians 2:8-9 is clear on this and Eph. 2:10 states that we do good works as a result of this.  Titus 3:5 is clear that none of us can be saved by any works we do; our salvation is based on His mercy as we trust Christ and are born again by the renewing and regenerating that only the Holy Spirit can do in us.

2.  James 2:14-26 says that if my faith is real then “works of that faith” or “good works” will follow.  They don’t save me, but they are evidence of the fact that I am saved.

3.  None of us will live up to the things that John wrote in 1st John as “tests” of salavation 100% of the time; that’s why we need God’s grace.  As I stated Sunday, and have stated many times, the issue of testing your faith is one of direction not perfection.  We all sin.  I still sin.  However, the bent of my heart is now in the direction of the things that John revealed in the book of 1st John.

4.  In 2 Cor. 13:5, Paul was writing to the people who gathered as a part of the church in Corinth and challenged them to TEST themselves and make sure there was actual evidence that their lives had been changed by Jesus Christ.

5.  Paul was clear when sharing his testimony with King Agrippa that people must repent of their sins and turn to God to be saved, and then they should show / prove / give evidence of this change by their lifestyle or the things they do.

6.  John was clear that there are some very clear evidences that will be seen in a person who has “moved from death to life” or who is ”a child of God”.  He lists these things that help people test themselves as to their faith in 1st John.

Here’s some of the information from the message this past Sunday with a few added notes.

THE UNUSUAL PROMISE: You can KNOW you have eternal life.

My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion.  1 John 5:13 Msg

Paul – who wrote much of the New Testament says – if you’re not sure – you should do something about it.   Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.      2 Cor. 13:5 (Msg)

TEST YOURSELF – IS THIS EVIDENCE  IN YOUR LIFE?

1^st   OBEY THE WORD OF GOD   

We can be sure that we know God if we obey his commands. Anyone who says, “I know God,” but does not obey God’s commands is a liar…”1 John 2:3-4a NCV

You may not & probably won’t understand everything in the Bible, but do you have a desire to do what God says and are you striving to obey what you already know from God’s Word?  None of us will be perfect, but if you have no desire for the Word of God or have no desire to obey the Word of God then you need to evaluate your life and see if your faith is real.

2^nd   LIVE A CHRIST-LIKE LIFE  

Here is how we know we belong to him.  Those who claim to belong to him must live just as Jesus did.      1 John 2:5b-6  (NIrV)

Jesus lived a perfect life & none of us can live up to that because we’ve all sinned & messed up.     The issue isn’t perfection – the issue is direction.   Is the direction you choose – one that’s moving you closer to becoming like Jesus?  All of us mess up.  In fact, a verse from the book of wisdom that has really helped me and I’ve shared with others for years is Prov. 24:16 which states:  “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again…”   I’m so grateful for the truth of 1 John 1:9 which reminds me when I sin and blow it, I can confess it and God forgives me.

So – Do your attitudes & actions give evidence of someone who is pursuing a Christ-like lifestyle?

3^rd  STAY TRUE TO THE FAITH 

They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.  1 John 2:19 (NIV)

Believers will look for ways to experience community & do life with other believers.

4^th  CHANGED NATURE 

“Those who are born again because of what God has done will not keep on sinning. God’s very nature remains in them…”     1 John 3:9a (NIrV)

Pigs like to wallow in filth because that’s their nature.  If you’re a believer, you’ve been given a new nature and while you’ll still sin – it’s not the habit of your life.  You don’t want to live in willful habitual sin.

5^th  LOVE OTHER CHRISTIANS   

¹⁰ So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the Devil. Anyone who does not obey God’s commands and does not love other Christians does not belong to God.  ¹⁴ If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to eternal life…” 1 John 3:10, 14a (NLT)

Love…doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do.  1 Cor. 13:4 CEV

6^th  EVIDENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT  

When a person puts their faith & trust in Christ – the Holy Spirit comes to live in them.

How do we know that God lives in us?  We know it because of the Holy Spirit he gave us.  1 John 3:24b (NIrV)

We know an apple tree is an apple tree because of the fruit it produces.  If you’re really a Christian, there will be external evidence: fruit the Holy Spirit produces in you.  I’m not talking about Spirit Gifts here, but fruit.  Someone wrote me a note from Sunday and said “even an apple tree does not bare fruit at all times”.  They were absolutely correct, so let me try to expand the analogy.   Spiritual growth is a journey and we will have growth spurts and times when it seems like not much is happening; but it’s the Holy Spirit that produces fruit in us as we submit to Him.   As Jesus said when He was speaking about a person’s character: “the tree is known by its fruit” (Mt. 12:33).  The bottom line is that a person who has a genuine faith will at some point produce fruit; “the fruit of the Spirit” will be produced in their life at different times as they submit to God.

Gal 5:22-23a NASB  says:  ^“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”

7^th  HAVE THE SON OF GOD  

This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life, but whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.   1 John 5:11-12 (NCV) 

Eternal life is found in Jesus Christ alone.  NOTE:  The thief on the cross never had a chance to do any of the things that John said were tests of salvation other than “have the Son of God.”  That thief put his faith & trust in Christ just prior to his death, and Jesus told him that he would be with Christ in paradise.  A simple accrostic I’ve used for years related to FAITH is:  Forsaking All I Trust Him.  That means I must put my faith in Christ and Him alone for salvation.

Here are a couple of other passages used in the message:

 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.  James 2:19 NLT

Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God.  John 1:12 CEV

People have to die once. After that, God will judge them.  Heb 9:27 (NIrV) 

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.     Heb. 4:13  (NIV)

---

For a previous article by B. J. Rutledge at C201, click here.

Grace is Getting More Than We Deserve

^{John 8 : 2 (NLT)} …but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. ³ As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

⁴ “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

Today’s reading is from the new book by Max Lucado, Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine (Thomas Nelson). I love the way he is able to paint a descriptive picture of this familiar text, and offer a fresh take on Jesus writing in the dirt.

Stunned students stood on one side of her.  Pious plaintiffs on the other.  They had their questions and convictions; she had her dangling negligee and smeared lipstick.  “This woman was caught in the very act of adultery,” her accusers crowed.  Caught in the very act.  In the moment.  In the arms.  In the passion.  Caught in the very act by the Jerusalem Council on Decency and Conduct.  “The law of Moses says to stone her.  What do you say?”

The woman had no exit.  Deny the accusation?  She had been caught. Plead for mercy?  From whom?  From God?  His spokesmen were squeezing stones and snarling their lips.  No one would speak for her.

But someone would stoop for her.

Jesus “stooped down and wrote in the dust” (v.6 NLT).  We would expect him to stand up, step forward, or even ascend a stair and speak.  But instead he leaned over.  He descended lower than anyone else – beneath the priests, the people, even beneath the woman.  The accusers looked down on her.  To see Jesus, they had to look down even farther.

He’s prone to stoop.  He stooped to wash feet, to embrace children. Stooped to pull Peter out of the sea, to pray in the Garden.  He stooped before the Roman whipping post.  Stooped to carry the cross.  Grace is a God who stoops.  Here he stooped to write in the dust.

Remember the first occasion his fingers touched dirt?  He scooped soil and formed Adam.  As he touched the sun-baked soil beside the woman, Jesus may have been reliving the creation moment, reminding himself from whence we came.  Earthly humans are prone to do earthly things.  Maybe Jesus wrote in the soil for his own benefit.

Or for hers?  To divert gaping eyes from the scantily clad, just caught woman who stood in the center of the circle?

The posse grew impatient with the silent, stooping Jesus.  “They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up” (v. 7 NLT).

He lifted himself erect until his shoulders were straight and his head was high.  He stood, not to preach, for his words would be few.  Not for long, for he would soon stoop again.  Not to instruct his followers; he didn’t address them.  He stood on behalf of the woman.  He placed himself between her and the lynch mob and said, “‘All right, stone her.  But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!’  Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust”  (vv.7-8 NLT).

Jesus wasn’t finished.  He stood one final time and asked the woman, “Where are your accusers?” (v. 10 NLT).

My, my, my.  What a question – not just for her but for us.

~Max Lucado

After reading this again, I thought to add this scripture, suggested in Lucado’s text above:

^{(NLT)Psalm 103 : 13} The Lord is like a father to his children,
    tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows how weak we are;
    he remembers we are only dust.

Seven Penitential Psalms

Most of us are familiar with Psalm 51, David’s prayer of repentance following his affair with Bathsheba. But we’re less familiar with the idea that there are actually seven ‘penitential’ psalms: 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143; although Psalm 102 does not contain a specific confession of sin.  Here are the seven, each from a different translation, with key verses underlined:

Psalm 6

New International Version (NIV)

¹ Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
    or discipline me in your wrath.
² Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
³ My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?

⁴ Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
⁵ Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?

⁶ I am worn out from my groaning.

All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
⁷ My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.

⁸ Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
⁹ The Lord has heard my cry for mercy;
    the Lord accepts my prayer.
¹⁰ All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.

Psalm 32

Contemporary English Version (CEV)

Our God, you bless everyone
whose sins you forgive
and wipe away.
² You bless them by saying,
“You told me your sins,
without trying to hide them,
and now I forgive you.”

³ Before I confessed my sins,
my bones felt limp,
and I groaned all day long.
⁴ Night and day your hand
weighed heavily on me,
and my strength was gone
as in the summer heat.

⁵ So I confessed my sins
and told them all to you.
I said, “I’ll tell the Lord
each one of my sins.”
Then you forgave me
and took away my guilt.

⁶ We worship you, Lord,
and we should always pray
whenever we find out
that we have sinned.
Then we won’t be swept away
by a raging flood.
⁷ You are my hiding place!
You protect me from trouble,
and you put songs in my heart
because you have saved me.

⁸ You said to me,
“I will point out the road
that you should follow.
I will be your teacher
and watch over you.
⁹ Don’t be stupid
like horses and mules
that must be led with ropes
to make them obey.”

¹⁰ All kinds of troubles
will strike the wicked,
but your kindness shields those
who trust you, Lord.
¹¹ And so your good people
should celebrate and shout.

Psalm 38

GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

A psalm by David; to be kept in mind.

  O Lord, do not angrily punish me
or discipline me in your wrath.
²         Your arrows have struck me.
Your hand has struck me hard.
³ No healthy spot is left on my body
because of your rage.
There is no peace in my bones
because of my sin.

⁴ My guilt has overwhelmed me.
    Like a heavy load, it is more than I can bear.
⁵ My wounds smell rotten.
They fester because of my stupidity.
⁶ I am bent over and bowed down very low.
All day I walk around in mourning.
⁷ My insides are filled with burning pain,
and no healthy spot is left on my body.
⁸ I am numb and completely devastated.
I roar because my heart’s in turmoil.
⁹ You know all my desires, O Lord,
    and my groaning has not been hidden from you.
¹⁰ My heart is pounding.
I have lost my strength.
Even the light of my eyes has left me.

¹¹ My loved ones and my friends keep their distance
and my relatives stand far away because of my sickness.
¹² Those who seek my life lay traps for me.
Those who are out to harm me talk about ruining me.
All day long they think of ways to deceive me.
¹³ But I am like a person who cannot hear
and like a person who cannot speak.
¹⁴ I am like one who cannot hear
and who can offer no arguments.

¹⁵ But I wait with hope for you, O Lord.
You will answer, O Lord, my God.
¹⁶ I said, “Do not let them gloat over me.
When my foot slips,
do not let them promote themselves at my expense.”
¹⁷ I am ready to fall.
I am continually aware of my pain.
¹⁸ I confess my guilt.
My sin troubles me.

¹⁹ My mortal enemies are growing stronger.
Many hate me for no reason.
²⁰ They pay me back with evil instead of good,
and they accuse me because I try to do what is good.

²¹ Do not abandon me, O Lord.
O my God, do not be so distant from me.
²² Come quickly to help me, O Lord, my savior.

Psalm 51

The Message (MSG)

Psalm 51

^1-3Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I’ve been;
my sins are staring me down.

^4-6 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
      it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

^7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don’t look too close for blemishes,
      give me a clean bill of health.
   God, make a fresh start in me,
      shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.

^16-17 Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

^18-19 Make Zion the place you delight in,
repair Jerusalem’s broken-down walls.
Then you’ll get real worship from us,
acts of worship small and large,
Including all the bulls
they can heave onto your altar!

Psalm 102

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹ Lord, hear my prayer!
    Listen to my plea!
² Don’t turn away from me
    in my time of distress.
Bend down to listen,
and answer me quickly when I call to you.
³ For my days disappear like smoke,
and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
⁴ My heart is sick, withered like grass,
and I have lost my appetite.
⁵ Because of my groaning,
I am reduced to skin and bones.
⁶ I am like an owl in the desert,
like a little owl in a far-off wilderness.
⁷ I lie awake,
lonely as a solitary bird on the roof.
⁸ My enemies taunt me day after day.
They mock and curse me.
⁹ I eat ashes for food.
My tears run down into my drink
¹⁰ because of your anger and wrath.
For you have picked me up and thrown me out.
¹¹ My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows.
I am withering away like grass.

¹² But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever.
Your fame will endure to every generation.
¹³ You will arise and have mercy on Jerusalem—
and now is the time to pity her,
now is the time you promised to help.
¹⁴ For your people love every stone in her walls
and cherish even the dust in her streets.
¹⁵ Then the nations will tremble before the Lord.
The kings of the earth will tremble before his glory.
¹⁶ For the Lord will rebuild Jerusalem.
He will appear in his glory.
¹⁷ He will listen to the prayers of the destitute.
He will not reject their pleas.

¹⁸ Let this be recorded for future generations,
so that a people not yet born will praise the Lord.
¹⁹ Tell them the Lord looked down
from his heavenly sanctuary.
He looked down to earth from heaven
²⁰     to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to release those condemned to die.
²¹ And so the Lord’s fame will be celebrated in Zion,
his praises in Jerusalem,
²² when multitudes gather together
and kingdoms come to worship the Lord.

²³ He broke my strength in midlife,
cutting short my days.
²⁴ But I cried to him, “O my God, who lives forever,
don’t take my life while I am so young!
²⁵ Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth
and made the heavens with your hands.
²⁶ They will perish, but you remain forever;
they will wear out like old clothing.
You will change them like a garment
and discard them.
²⁷ But you are always the same;
you will live forever.
²⁸ The children of your people
will live in security.
Their children’s children
will thrive in your presence.”

Psalm 130

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

  Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.

² Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
³ If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.

⁵ I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait,
And in His word do I hope.
⁶ My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord;
For with the Lord there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
⁸ And He will redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

Psalm 143

New Century Version (NCV)

 ¹ Lord, hear my prayer;
       listen to my cry for mercy.
    Answer me
       because you are loyal and good.
 ² Don’t judge me, your servant,
       because no one alive is right before you.
 ³ My enemies are chasing me;
       they crushed me to the ground.
    They made me live in darkness
       like those long dead.
 ⁴ I am afraid;
       my courage is gone.

 ⁵ I remember what happened long ago;
       I consider everything you have done.
       I think about all you have made.
 ⁶ I lift my hands to you in prayer.
       As a dry land needs rain, I thirst for you.
                         Selah

  ⁷ Lord, answer me quickly,
       because I am getting weak.
    Don’t turn away from me,
       or I will be like those who are dead.
 ⁸ Tell me in the morning about your love,
       because I trust you.
    Show me what I should do,
       because my prayers go up to you.
 ⁹ Lord, save me from my enemies;
       I hide in you.
 ¹⁰ Teach me to do what you want,
       because you are my God.
    Let your good Spirit
       lead me on level ground.

 ¹¹ Lord, let me live
       so people will praise you.
    In your goodness
       save me from my troubles.
 ¹² In your love defeat my enemies.
       Destroy all those who trouble me,
       because I am your servant.

 

A Dose of Spurgeon

Each week Phil Johnson at the blog Pyromaniacs (aka Team Pyro) posts a “weekly dose” of writing from Charles Spurgeon. (This is not the first time we’ve “borrowed” one from Team Pyro.) Here are a couple of recent ones: The first is a response to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the second one deals with people who still feel the stains of sin and feel they haven’t repented enough or are not penitent enough.  Some of you may want to bookmark Team Pyro and make it part of your regular reading.

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from “The Real Presence, the Great Want of the Church,” a sermon preached Sunday morning, 11 February 1872 at the Met Tab in London.

IS IT NECESSARY to say that the Lord Jesus Christ is no longer corporeally present in his church? It ought not to be needful to assert so evident a truth; and yet it is important to do so, since there are some who teach that in what they are pleased to call “the Holy Sacrament,” Christ is actually present in his flesh and blood.

Such persons unwittingly deny the real humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, for if he has indeed assumed our humanity, and is in all points made like unto his brethren, his flesh and blood cannot be in two places at one time. Our bodily humanity could not be present in more places than one at one time, and if Christ’s humanity be like ours it cannot be in an unlimited number of places at once; in fact, it can only be in one place. Where that place is we know from Scripture, for he sitteth at the right hand of God, expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

Unless you are to suppose that the humanity of Christ is something altogether different from ours, it cannot be here and there and everywhere; but to suppose that it is a different humanity from ours is to deny that he is Incarnate in our nature. Our Lord Jesus told his disciples that he would go away, and he has gone away. He ascended into heaven, bearing humanity up to the throne of God.

“He is not here, for he is risen.”

~Charles Haddon Spurgeon

---

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from “Repentance unto Life,” one of Spurgeon’s earliest sermons, preached on Sunday morning, 23 September 1855, at New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

ANOTHER MISTAKE many poor people make when they are thinking about salvation . . . is that they cannot repent enough; they imagine that were they to repent up to a certain degree, they would be saved.

“Oh, sir!” some of you will say, “I have not penitence enough.”

Beloved, let me tell you that there is not any eminent degree of “repentance” which is necessary to salvation. You know there are degrees of faith, and yet the least faith saves; so there are degrees of repentance, and the least repentance will save the soul if it is sincere.

The Bible says, “He that believeth shall be saved,” and when it says that, it includes the very smallest degree of faith. So when it says, “Repent and be saved,” it includes the man who has the lowest degree of real repentance.

Repentance, moreover, is never perfect in any man in this mortal state. We never get perfect faith so as to be entirely free from doubting; and we never get repentance which is free from some hardness of heart. The most sincere penitent that you know will feel himself to be partially impenitent.

Repentance is also a continual life-long act. It will grow continually. I believe a Christian on his death-bed will more bitterly repent than ever he did before. It is a thing to be done all your life long. Sinning and repenting—sinning and repenting, make up a Christian’s life. Repenting and believing in Jesus—repenting and believing in Jesus, make up the consummation of his happiness. You must not expect that you will be perfect in “repentance” before you are saved. No Christian can be perfect.

“Repentance” is a grace. Some people preach it as a condition of salvation. Condition of nonsense! There are no conditions of salvation. God gives the salvation himself; and he only gives it to those to whom he will. He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” If, then, God has given you the least repentance, if it be sincere repentance, praise him for it, and expect that repentance will grow deeper and deeper as you go further on.

Then this remark I think, ought to be applied to all Christians. Christian men and women, you feel that you have not deep enough repentance. You feel that you have not faith large enough. What are you to do? Ask for an increase of faith, and it will grow. So with repentance.

~Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Regrets? I Have a Few

David R. Wells’ blog, Revelation 3:10, is the latest addition to the Alltop Christian blog aggregator, and is apparently one of several blogs David writes; this one being shared with wife Marlo, who wrote what follows.  This post appeared last week under the title A Life of Regret, and personalizes some of the things we discussed here yesterday.

2And saying, Repent (think differently; change your mind, regretting your sins and changing your conduct), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. –Matthew 3:2(AMP)

I wish I hadn’t done that. I can’t believe I said that! If only I could take it back. Or to quote the famous Steve Urkel, “Did I do that”? How many times in any given day do you find yourself uttering these very words? And if you are doing this daily, the task of rising above whatever the situation is that caused it can seem insurmountable. Days carry over to weeks, weeks to months, months to years and years to a lifetime.

Why are so many lives filled with regret, from the smallest slips of the tongue to the major blow outs that separate for a lifetime? It’s very simple. We stop at regret. Regret is only a part of repentance. Look at today’s Scripture. “Regretting your sins and changing your conduct”.

Repentance, followed through to completeness, is what in fact liberates you from a life of regret. Repentance will bring you face to face with reality and send you in the opposite direction. Regret keeps you in bondage.

I believe that people who continue to do the same things over again, don’t necessarily regret what they are doing. In my opinion, they regret getting caught and regret how they are viewed after getting caught. Sometimes that is enough for them to view their behavior with a clearer perspective. However, a lot of times it is not. The more realistic approach would be to ask yourself, “What is it that I regret”?

Looking back on my life, there have been so many things that I have regretted. From my childhood to my life today, there are many things that I wish I would have done differently. The problem is that the very moment that has just passed can never be regained. All the money in the world, all the begging and crying, all the regret can never retrieve that single moment in time.

How then is there any hope for us? Grace.

Try as we may, imaginations, movies and wonder creams, there is yet to date no such thing as a time machine. In order to grow, we have to accept responsibility for that which we regret and change our ways and move forward.

The only guarantee that you have with repentance is God’s grace and freedom. Your regret and repentance does not assure you a place in the person’s life that you have hurt. It does not even guarantee you their forgiveness. But it does guarantee you God’s forgiveness and that it the most important thing.

I cannot tell you the times I have had to apologize to a telemarketer or help desk phone support. First of all, I don’t have to answer the phone if I don’t know who it is. Second of all, if I call in for help, I have to remember; they are doing their job and have probably been talked down to all day. All these things aside, I am Christ’s representative, ouch!

That is a seemingly minuscule thing in the greater scheme of our regrets. I have sat down with my children and asked for their forgiveness where I have failed them. I point out that they should learn from our mistakes and go on to have better marriages and be better parents. Don’t repeat our struggles. Don’t live with our regrets.

I have had to seek the forgiveness of my husband for the things I have said and done that have wounded him along the years. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing; it is a gift, a treasure. It should never be taken for granted. If someone bestows such a gift on you, should you not guard it? That is changing your conduct. Feeling the pain that you have caused another and never wanting to wound them again.

There are things I have said and done in my walk with Christ. There are people I have wounded along the way in the Body. I have cried out to God for His grace and mercy, His forgiveness for myself. But I have also cried out for those that I have hurt. I ask God to guard and keep them, that they will not be led astray because of my actions.

Looking at our lives and how we live can be very disheartening. It can leave you unable to move forward, weighed down in the muck of despair. You can easily find yourself defeated before you can even get started. What’s the key?

10For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death]. – 1 Corinthians 7:10

Godly repentance, that leads you to regret your sin and change your conduct, will never lead you back to regret. If you don’t regret your sin to begin with, there will be no repentance. But upon attaining true repentance, you will have no regret.

Paul is our shining example. If anyone had cause to be weighed down with a life of regret it would be him. But he lived a life of repentance and made it his life’s “one aspiration”:

13I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead –Philippians 3:13

Let us join with Paul. Let our lives be one of true repentance. Pursue God whole-heartedly, making this your one aspiration. There will we find freedom from a “Life of Regret”.

~Marlo T. Wells

Brennan Manning Quotations

Brennan Manning (christened Richard Francis Xavier Manning) is an author, monk, priest, contemplative and speaker. Born and raised in Depression-era Brooklyn, New York, Manning finished high school and enlisted in the US Marine Corps, where he fought in the Korean War. When Manning returned to the states, he enrolled at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Upon his graduation from the seminary in 1963, Manning was ordained to the Franciscan priesthood.In the late 1960s, Manning joined the Little Brothers of Jesus of Charles de Foucauld, a religious order committed to an uncloistered, contemplative life among the poor. Manning then spent time diversely, transporting water via donkey, as a mason’s assistant, a dishwasher in France, a prisoner in a Swiss jail (by choice), and spending six months in a remote cave somewhere in the Zaragoza desert.In the 1970s, Manning returned the US and began writing after falling into, and climbing out of, alcoholism. 

---

The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited. ~Ragamuffin Gospel

---

“The deepest desire of our heart is for union with God.  God created us for union with himself.  This is the original purpose of our lives.”

---

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” ~ Ragamuffin Gospel

---

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

---

“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.” ~Abba’s Child

---

“I am deeply distressed by what I only can call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself… God cannot be confined within the covers of a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.” ~ Signature of Jesus

---

“The defining moments of my life have not been my sins or successes.  They’ve been a depressingly small number of decisions that involved real risk.”

---

“There is the “you” that people see and then there is the “rest of you”. Take some time and craft a picture of the “rest of you.” This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions. ” ~Furious Longing of God

---

“Everybody has a vocation to some form of life-work. However, behind that call (and deeper than any call), everybody has a vocation to be a person to be fully and deeply human in Christ Jesus.” ~The Wisdom of Tenderness

---

“Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguish gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no record of wrong. This is the criterion, sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God.” ~Furious Longing of God

---

“The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist.” ~Above All

---

But the answer seems too easy, too glib. yes, God saved us because he loved us. But he is God. He has infinite imagination. Couldn’t he have dreamed up a different redemption? Couldn’t he have saved us with a pang of hunger, a word of forgiveness, a single drop of blood? And if he had to die, then for God’s sake — for Christ’s sake — couldn’t he have died in bed, died with dignity? Why was he condemned like a criminal? Why was his back flayed with whips? Why was his head crowned with thorns? Why was he nailed to wood and allowed to die in frightful, lonely agony? Why was the last breath drawn in bloody disgrace, while the world for which he lay dying egged on his executioners with savage fury like some kind of gang rape by uncivilized brutes in Central Park? Why did they have to take the very best? One thing we know — we don’t comprehend the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, we see a movie and resonate to what a young man and woman will endure for romantic love. We know that when the chips are down, if we love wildly enough we’ll fling life and caution to the winds for the one we love. But when it comes to God’s love in the broken, blood-drenched body of Jesus Christ, we get antsy and start to talk about theology, divine justice, God’s wrath, and the heresy of universalism. ~Ragamuffin Gospel

---

Sources: Good Reads; Quoteland; A Daughter of Grace; Apprenticeship to Jesus; Zedekiah List; After All; Quoting Quotes

A Church Where Freedom Reigns, A People Full of Grace

Occasionally there are worship song videos posted here, and I can’t think of a better time to do one than today, in light of all the reading we’ve had here this week.  If the videos aren’t your thing, this is a good day to carry on with parts 2, 3 and 4 of yesterday’s readings. 

Re. Yesterday:  For the record, I believe very definitely that “the buck stops” with the Bible as the final authority for those who follow Christ.  But I’m also understanding where the writer — an Eastern Orthodox person for whom tradition is placed in high regard — is coming from in reference to solo scriptura.  I hope that studying this material provides you with some things to think about.

The music video is from Eddie Kirkland from North Point Community Church.  This may not be your musical style, but listen once anyway and note the marriage of powerful (loud!) music with powerful (dynamic) lyrics.  This is a great opening song for any church that’s doing contemporary worship.

If you see something online that C201 readers should know about, be sure to click the “submissions” tab so that we can consider sharing your ‘find’ with everyone. If you have a blog of your own and have written something of a devotional nature or a Bible study nature that you’d like to see picked up here, click the same “submissions” tab.

Christianity 201 is a melting-pot of devotional and Bible study content from across the widest range of the Christian blogosphere.  An individual article may be posted even if some or all readers might not agree with other things posted at the same blog, and two posts may follow on consecutive days by authors with very different doctrinal perspectives.  The Kingdom of God is so much bigger than the small portion of it we can see from our personal vantage point, and one of the purposes of C201 is to allow readers a ‘macro’ view of the many ministries and individual voices available for reading.