The Gospel is Distinct from Our Response to It
The following comes from Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan (p. 81-83). I found these quotes to be particularly helpful as it reminds us that the gospel is not our response to the gospel. I think that we often confuse the gospel (what Christ did for us and who he is for us) with a proper response to the gospel (belief, faith, confession, etc.). May we lift up Christ repeatedly, showing to one another and the world his beauty. As we increasingly see him, we will fall more and more in love with him and act accordingly.
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The main message of the Bible about Jesus Christ can easily become mixed with all sorts of things that are related to it. We see this in the way people define the gospel or preach it. But it is important to keep the gospel itself clearly distinct from our response to it or from the results of it in our lives and in the world. If our proper response to the gospel message is faith, then we should not make faith part of the gospel itself. It would be absurd to call people to have faith in faith! While the new birth bears a close relationship to faith in Christ, it is a mistake to speak of the new birth as if it were itself the gospel. Faith in the new birth as such will not save us…
Related to the gospel event are other important aspects of God’s work which are not themselves the gospel. If we believe the gospel we will probably also believe these, but they are not the focus of our trust the way that the saving work of Jesus is. We do not preach them as the heart of our message to unbelievers….
We note that what you or I do in response to the gospel is not itself the gospel. You cannot say that repentance and faith are the gospel. They are what the Holy Spirit enables us to do about the gospel. If you tell unbelievers that they should trust Christ, believe the good news, or confess their sin, these things are undoubtedly true, but they are not the gospel. We must tell them what it is about Christ that they should trust, what the good news is so that they can believe it and why sins should be confessed.
Stay on the Anvil
The following post by Ray Ortlund was very encouraging to me. If you are experiencing suffering or are trying to make sense of past suffering, I hope that you will find this encouraging as well.
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When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him
Into shapes and forms of clay
Which only God can understand.
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes
How He uses whom He chooses
And with mighty power infuses him
With every act induces him
To try His splendor out –
God knows what He’s about.
Author unknown.
Like this:
As High As The Heavens Are Above The Earth…
Psalm 103:10-14
(10) He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
(11) For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
(12) as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
(13) As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
(14) For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.
Who Is Saving You?
The following comes from By Grace Alone by Sinclair Ferguson (p.75-76):
Your salvation rests not on what you have done but on what Christ has done. You, therefore, can be sure of it, no matter how weak the faith by which you hold on to Christ, no matter how strong the attacks and accusations of Satan may be.
Remember that you are not saved by increased levels of holiness, however desirable it is that you should reach them. Indeed, while we often say that we are “saved by faith” or by “faith in Christ,” as Benjamin B. Warfield shrewdly comments, it is not been faith in Christ that saves us. It is Christ who saves us – through faith. Your faith is a poor and crumbling thing, as is your spiritual service. Jesus Christ alone is qualified and able to save you because of what He has done. Cling to anything else and you are relying on flotsam and jetsam floating on a perilous sea. It will bring you down under the waves. If you should ever experience anything like the satanic attack Bunyan’s Christian endured, you will be lost. But cling to Christ Jesus and His righteousness, and nothing can sink you.
When you grasp that, you begin to realize why and how it is that you can live in the face of such demonic attacks as these. You are not pushed back on your own resources or spiritual qualities. You are able to rest exclusively on what Jesus Christ has done for you. For what He has done for you is absolutely perfect.
What Christ is doing in you is still incomplete. But in what Jesus Christ has done for you there is not a single tiny crack that the satanic arrows can penetrate. Jesus Christ is your shield.
My Soul Rejoiced With Joy Unspeakable
The following comes from The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by Jonathan Edwards (p. 69-70):
I had been thus endeavoring to pray, though as I thought, very stupid and senseless, for near half an hour; then, as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing. Nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light somewhere in the third heavens, or anything of that nature; but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before nor anything which had the least resemblance of it.
I stood still, wondered, and admired! I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency and beauty; it was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had of God, or things divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one Person in the Trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost; but it appeared to be divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him. At least to that degree that I had no thought (as I remember) at first, about my own salvation, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as I. Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt Him and set Him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at His honor and glory, as King of the universe. I continued in this state of inward joy, peace, and astonishment, till near dark, without any sensible abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen; and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do.
At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused it. I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ.
Husbands and Wives
EPHESIANS 5:21-33
Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.
No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
The Message, Eugene Peterson
Like this:
In His Hands
‘Twixt gleams of joy and clouds of doubt
Our feelings come and go; our best estate is tossed about in ceaseless ebb and flow. No mood of feeling, form of thought is constant for a day; but thou, 0 Lord, thou changest not: the same thou art alway.
I grasp thy strength, make it mine own, my heart with peace is blest; I lose my hold, and then comes down darkness, and cold unrest. Let me no more my comfort draw from my frail hold of thee, in this alone rejoice with awe—- thy mighty grasp of me.
Out of that weak, unquiet drift that comes but to depart, to that pure heaven my spirit lift where thou unchanging art. Lay hold of me with thy strong grasp, let thy almighty arm in its embrace my weakness clasp, and I shall fear no harm.
Thy purpose of eternal good let me but surely know; on this I’ll lean—let changing mood and feeling come or go— glad when thy sunshine fills my soul, not lorn when clouds o’ercast, since thou within thy sure control of love dost hold me fast .
John Campbell Shairp
There Is Only One Good Guy
My little guy Isaac loves playing good guys vs. bad guys. The game usually ends up with him tackling Lily, his little sister. For whatever reason, he talks about good guys and bad guys all the time. Here’s a gospel truth that I share with him that you’ll hopefully be encouraged by:
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- We’re all bad guys.
- There was only one truly good guy that has ever lived.
- That one good guy has declared that his bad guys are now good, and he’s now on a mission to make them good like himself.
The Garden of Gethsemane
(This picture and many more can be found here)
Matthew 26:36-46
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
In this garden, Jesus prayed. In this garden, Jesus was suffered alone. In this garden, Jesus saw the infinite suffering that was in front of him, and he said, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”
He said yes to the suffering so that the Father could say yes to you.
Christ Is The Most Beautiful!
HT: Joseph Randall
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Charles Spurgeon commented on this verse:
Whatever there may be of beauty in the material world, Jesus Christ possesses all that in the spiritual world, in a tenfold degree. Among flowers, the rose is deemed the sweetest—but Jesus is infinitely more beautiful in the garden of the soul—than the rose can in the gardens of earth. He takes the first place as the fairest among ten thousand. He is the sun—and all others are the stars; the heavens and the day are dark—in comparison with Him, for the King in His beauty transcends all.
“I am the Rose of Sharon.” This was the best and rarest of roses. Jesus is not “the rose” alone, He is “the Rose of Sharon.” Just as He calls His righteousness “gold,” and then adds, “the gold of Ophir” that is—the best of the best. He is positively lovely, and superlatively the loveliest.
There is variety in His charms. The rose is delightful to the eye, and its scent is pleasant and refreshing; so each of the senses of the soul, whether it be the taste or feeling, the hearing, the sight, or the spiritual smell—finds appropriate gratification in Jesus. Even the recollection of His love is sweet. Take the rose of Sharon, and pull it leaf from leaf, and lay the leaves in the jar of memory, and you shall find each leaf fragrant long afterwards, filling the house with perfume.
Christ satisfies the highest taste of the most educated spirit to the very full. The greatest amateur in perfumes is quite satisfied with the rose—and when the soul has arrived at her highest pitch of true taste, she shall still be content with Christ; nay, she shall be the better able to appreciate Him. Heaven itself possesses nothing which excels the Rose of Sharon. What emblem can fully set forth His beauty? Human speech and earth-born things, fail to describe Him. Earth’s choicest charms added together, feebly picture His abounding preciousness. Blessed Rose, bloom in my heart forever! (Morning and Evening, May 1)
