Done, Done, Done
Check out the following from Dane Ortlund:
The gospel is not advice but news. Not telling us what to do but telling us what’s already been done.
satan’s #1 Lie
I believe that satan’s #1 lie is this: Your significance, identity, salvation, etc. is dependent on you… your work ethic, achievements, approval by friends and family, success.
This lie is sometimes overt and other times subtle. Whether you are a christian or not a christian, he’s going after you with this as it is the official joy-killer for Christians and soul-killer for non-Christians.
The book of Romans sings loudly against this lie and I encourage you to take an hour and read through it, highlighting all the places that speak of Jesus as our savior and our righteousness! The most beautiful and glorious truth to sinners like you and me is that Jesus is our righteousness, He is our Savior and by His grace, we can be found in Him! When you come to the end of yourself and your self-salvation project to be a somebody, to achieve success, to be known… AND you look to Jesus who already did what you can never do, rejoice! It is finished indeed. It’s not about what you need to do, it’s about what is already done! Rest in this, rejoice in this, celebrate in this! Freedom from self. Peace instead of angst and toil. Hope instead of hopelessness. Order instead of chaos. He is God, we are His people. Wow, wow, wow.
Reliance on self leads to death. Reliance on Christ’s finished work leads to life and a new creation!
Check out the following:
Romans 4:5-8
And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Finally, I believe that the key to the above Scripture is found in the first sentence. The work he refers to is man’s self-effort. Belief in Christ’s finished work refers to man coming to the end of himself and resting in Jesus alone.
Lion Out of the Cage
Quote from Doug Wilson, found @ Blog and Mablog
… But grace itself, the real thing, is a lion out of the cage.
There will be wretched people in Heaven who sinned far more grievously than other socially decent people who are in Hell. There will be people who worked for the last hour of the day and are paid the same as those who worked all day. There will be hookers and coke addicts in Heaven, and members of the Evangelical Theological Society who aren’t. There will be people up there like Rahab who was justified by lying, saying that the spies went one direction when she knew damn well they went another. And God said, “Well done, woman. I’ll have the apostle James use you for an example of how faith without works is dead.” So there’s a doctrine for you. Justification by lying. And there will be people in heaven even though they occasionally use words like damn to make a point. As though I was not in enough trouble. In the realm of God’s work, there are kings praised for eating the shewbread that they were not supposed to eat, and kings struck with leprosy for going into the temple where they were not supposed to go. There will be priests praised for profaning the sabbath by offering sacrifices on that day, even though they were guiltless in their sinning. There will be rabbis praised for breaking the sabbath through perfoming circumcisions on that day, and Presbyterian ministers praised for violating the Lord’s Day by administering baptisms then. There will be thousands of “pagans” from the Old Testament saved, people who were under no obligation whatever to become Jews. Who will be saved outside the covenant nation of Israel? Well, Melchizedek, Jethro, Namaan the Syrian, Job the Edomite, the inhabitants of Ninevah who repented at the preaching of Jonah, and however many antediluvians who had a change of heart after the door closed and the rain started. Make no mistake — saving a planet full of sinners like us is a messy task, and not one for the tidy-minded.
But we still get worried with the notion that the Spirit is a mighty, rushing wind who is rampaging all over the place, saving people. We want grace in a can. We want to put grace into little spritzer bottles, and then we can mist each other at approved meetings. But the grace of God is a tornado, not a zephyr.
Tiny Snowflakes
Per Meghan…
This morning was just one of those mornings. I went to bed WAY too late last night (around midnight). I woke up WAY too early, at 5 am to hear Lily (4 month old baby) crying. Proceeded to go downstairs every 15 mintues to try to get her back to sleep. Then, from 5:40 – 6:00, I laid in bed listening to her cry, hoping she would fall back to sleep on her own, feeling really guilty the whole time, but almost too tired to care. At 6:00 I brought her up to our bed and finally she fell back asleep. At 6:25, Dan’s alarm clock goes off and she starts screaming again. I finally get her to sleep again. At 6:45, I hear Isaac (21 month old) screaming and awake. By 6:55 the screaming is totally insane and I decide there is no more sleep to be had by me today. I grumpily walk into Isaac’s room and pull him out of his crib, upon which Lily starts screaming again. (I notice that when I take Isaac out of his crib that he has thrown everything from his crib on the floor but somehow he has on one of his crock’s – a shoe – on the wrong foot.) I grab Lily out of my bed, she is still screaming, and head downstairs telling Isaac to follow. I have a quick decision to make. Either I feed Lily now to get her to stop screaming, or let her scream for the next few minutes while I get a cup of milk and some food for Isaac. I decide that I just can’t take the screaming from Lily, so I sit down to nurse her. Isaac comes down the stairs about one minute later and he is immediately screaming and crying begging for something to eat and drink. I try my best to completely block him out of my mind, my ears, and my sight. Ten minutes or more of this goes on, excruciatingly. Then, I start screaming for Dan (he was taking a shower in the basement). After a couple minutes of my screaming he emerges from the basement calmly and starts to soothe Isaac and get him some food and something to drink. Isaac is still totally freaking out and I start to blame myself, realizing if I would have gotten him out of bed earlier he wouldn’t have started off in such a bad mood. At this point I am almost in tears. I feel like the worst mom, person, wife ever. Because of my own selfish desire for sleep I laid in bed this morning listening to both of my children screaming their lungs out. I am totally depressed and resigned to the idea that this is going to be a horrible day.
I am standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, with tears going down my face. I am standing there hating myself, totally overwhelmed by my complete inability to be what I want to be or think that I should be or what other people need me to be.
And then, as I am looking out the window, I see the most gorgeous tiny little snowflakes falling from the sky. It is strange because the sun is shining and yet millions of little snowflakes are falling. They are all sparkling and shining. It is like the most magical fairy dust is being sprinkled all over my yard just outside the window. And then, I realize, that I am in the presence of the Almighty. He is there, all around me, showing me, at my worst, his beauty and love and grace. Through these tiny snowflakes I hear His whisper. I hear His whisper of love echoing in my soul, reminding me that it isn’t about me or my failures or my selfishness, that it has never really ever been about me, but it is all about Him, his love, his glory, his truth. In this place of his total sufficiency and my total insufficiency; I find peace. I find renewal. I find a place of beauty all around me and in me that exists in spite of me. Thank you God. Thank you. Totally unmerited. Totally undeserved. Thank you.
Psalm 61
Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever
and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
For you have heard my vows, O God;
you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
Increase the days of the king’s life,
his years for many generations.
May he be enthroned in God’s presence forever;
appoint your love and faithfulness to protect him.
Then will I ever sing praise to your name
and fulfill my vows day after day.
Totally For Us
Quote by John Piper, found @ Between Two Worlds
Our only hope for living the radical demands of the Christian life is that God is totally for us now and forever. Therefore, God has not ordained that living the Christian life should be the basis of our hope that God is for us. That basis is the death and righteousness of Christ, counted as ours through faith alone. All the punishment required of us because of our sin, Christ endured for us on the cross. And all the obedience that God required of us, that he, as our Father, might be completely for us and not against us forever, Christ has performed for us in his perfect obedience to God.
Not us, Him
Quote by John Piper, found @ Between Two Worlds
“Do you see why I would spend weeks of my sabbatical laboring to understand why so many teachers in the church today are replacing the righteousness that Christ has in himself with the righteousness that Christ creates in us as the basis for our justification? People who trust in the righteousness that God has worked in them for the basis of their acceptance and acquittal and justification do not go down to their house justified. People who really believe that the righteousness that God helps them do in this life is a sufficient basis for their justification, Jesus says, will not be justified. Bethlehem, this is serious. We are not justified by the righteousness that Christ works in us, but by the righteousness that Christ is for us.”
