The Cross was Enough
The following excerpt comes from Tim Chester’s You Can Change (p. 25, 27):
What’s wrong with wanting to change so we can prove ourselves to God or people or ourselves? It doesn’t work. We might fool other people for a while. We might even fool ourselves. But we can never change enough to impress God. And here’s the reason: trying to impress God, others, or ourselves puts us at the center of our change project. It makes change all about my looking good. It is done for my glory. And that’s pretty much the definition of sin. Sin is living for my glory instead of God’s. Sin is living life my way, for me, instead of living life God’s way, for God. Often that means rejecting God as Lord and wanting to be our own lord, but it can also involve rejecting God as Savior and wanting to be our own savior. Pharisees do good works and repent of bad works. But gospel repentance includes repenting of good works done for wrong reasons. We need to repent of trying to be our own savior. Theologian John Gerstner says, “The thing that really separates us from God is not so much our sin, but our damnable good works.”
Deep down in all of us there is a tendency to want to prove ourselves, to base our worth on what we do.
Here’s the real problem with changing to impress: God has given his Son for us so that we can be justified. Jesus died on the cross, separated from his Father, bearing the full weight of God’s wrath so that we can be accepted by God. When we try to prove ourselves by our good works, we’re saying, in effect, that the cross wasn’t enough.
To Make Our Hearts Sing
The following comes from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones (p. 12, 17). If you are not currently reading this to your children, please begin immediately. It is the best children’s Bible out there. It’s a bonus that every-time I read it to Isaac and Lily, I’m just as encouraged as they are.
…..
God wrote, “I love you” – he wrote it in the sky, and on the earth, and under the sea. He wrote his message everywhere! Because God created everything in his world to reflect him like a mirror – to show us what he is like, to help us know him, to make our hearts sing.
The way a kitten chases her tail. The way red poppies grow wild. The way a dolphin swims.
And God put it into words, too, and wrote it in a book called “the Bible.” ….. The Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!
You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true.
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.
It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle – the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.
And this is no ordinary baby. This is the Child upon whom everything would depend.
Loving Your Kids
The following comes from Tullian Tchividjian’s book, Surprised by Grace (p. 161). I resonated with this quote because I find myself frequently enslaved by the idea that love is to be given based on how much love is received. Seeing that true love is not a transaction has been very liberating for me, and I need this reminder all the time. God’s infinite love for us in Christ is enough, and we therefore don’t need the love of others and are freed up to give love without payment in return.
A friend once told me, “My home is an unloving place.” When he returned there every day from work, he said he wasn’t loved the way he longed to be loved by his wife and kids….
Unfortunately, the fear that our love toward others will not be reciprocated is something that paralyzes many of us. It prevents parents from properly loving their kids, and husbands and wives from properly loving each other. We come to this conclusion: I will love you only to the degree that you love me. It’s an attitude that enslaves us. But the gospel frees us from that.
I too enjoy receiving love from my family. I’m ecstatic when my kids love me and express affection toward me. Something in me comes alive when they do that. But I’ve learned this freeing truth: I don’t need that love, because in Jesus, I receive all the love I need. This in turn enables me to love my kids without fear or reservation. I get to revel in their enjoyment of my love without needing anything from them in return. I get love from Jesus so that I can give love to them.
We Already Have Everything We Need
The following comes from Tullian Tchividjian’s book, Surprised by Grace (p. 104):
When we understand that our significance and identity are in Christ, we don’t have to win-we’re free to lose. The gospel frees us from the pressure to generate our own significance and meaning. In Christ, our identity and significance are secure, which frees us up to give everything we have, because in Christ we have everything we need.
I Can Only Be Healed From Above
The following comes from Dane Ortlund’s blog, Strawberry-Rhubarb Theology. Unbelievable blog. Go there. Go there often.
…..
The more I reflect on the elder son in me, the more I realize how deeply rooted this form of lostness really is and how hard it is to return home from there. Returning home from a lustful escapade seems so much easier than returning home from a cold anger that has rooted itself in the deepest corners of my being. My resentment is not something that can be easily distinguished and dealt with rationally.
It is far more pernicious: something that has attached itself to the underside of my virtue. Isn’t it good to be obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, hardworking, and self-sacrificing? And still it seems that my resentments and complaints are mysteriously tied to such praiseworthy attitudes. . . . Just when I do my utmost to accomplish a task well, I find myself questioning why others do not give themselves as I do. Just when I think I am capable of overcoming my temptations, I feel envy toward those who gave in to theirs. It seems that wherever my virtuous self is, there is the resentful complainer.
Here, I am faced with my own true poverty. I am totally unable to root out my resentments. They are so deeply anchored in the soil of my inner self that pulling them out seems like self-destruction. How to weed out these resentments without uprooting the virtues as well?
. . . I can only be healed from above.
–Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming(Doubleday 1994), 75-76
Helping Someone Come Home
The following comes from John Ortberg’s book, Love Beyond Reason:
How do you live in grace without abusing it? There is an ancient tendency to make grace a license for sin.
Grace always and only consists of that which will help someone come home to and be immersed in the love of the Father.
The Sweet Constraints of Infinite Love
The following comes from Grace, God’s Unmerited Favor by Spurgeon:
…..
When God deals with a man through His grace, He not only calls him to holiness, but He gives him holiness; He not only bids him walk in His way, but He makes him walk in His way. He does so, not by compulsion, not by any kind of physical force, but by the sweet constraints of infinite love.
The Nearer Men Come to Heaven…
The following quote comes from Grace, God’s Unmerited Favor by Spurgeon:
The nearer men come to heaven, and the more prepared they are for it, the simpler their trust is in the merit of the Lord Jesus, and the more intensely they abhor all trust in themselves.
God Will Sanctify You
The following comes from Grace, God’s Unmerited Favor by Spurgeon:
…..
God will conquer your sin; God will sanctify you; God will save you; God will keep you; God will bring you to Himself. Rest in the covenant. Then, moved by intense gratitude, go forward to serve your Lord with all your heart and soul and strength. Being saved, live to praise Him. Do not work so that you may be saved, but serve him because you are saved, for the covenant has secured your safety. Delivered from the servile fear that an Ishmael might have known, live the joyous life of an Isaac. Moved by the love of the Father, spend and be spent for His sake. If the selfish hope of winning heaven by works has moved some men to great sacrifice, so much more should the godly motive of gratitude to Him, who has done all this for us, move us to the noblest service and make us feel that it is not a sacrifice at all.
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; [15] and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
(2 Corinthians 5:14-15 ESV)
Christ is Our Holiness
The following quote comes from Tony Reinke’s blog, Miscellanies:
…..
From Herman Bavinck‘s Reformed Dogmatics (4:248),
To understand the benefit of sanctification correctly, we must proceed from the idea that Christ is our holiness in the same sense in which he is our righteousness. He is a complete and all-sufficient Savior. He does not accomplish his work halfway but saves us really and completely. He does not rest until, after pronouncing his acquittal in our conscience, he has also imparted full holiness and glory to us. By his righteousness, accordingly, he does not just restore us to the state of the just who will go scot-free in the judgment of God, in order then to leave us to ourselves to reform ourselves after God’s image and to merit eternal life. But Christ has accomplished everything. He bore for us the guilt and punishment of sin, placed himself under the law to secure eternal life for us, and then arose from the grave to communicate himself to us in all his fullness for both our righteousness and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). The holiness that must completely become ours therefore fully awaits us in Christ.
