The gospel that saves

“Some think of the gospel as so slender it does nothing more than get us into the kingdom. After that the real work of transformation begins. But a biblically-faithful understanding of the gospel shows that gospel to be rich, powerful, the wisdom of God and the power of God, all we need in Christ. It is the gospel that saves us, transforms us, conforms us to Christ, prepares us for the new heaven and the new earth, establishes our relations with fellow-believers, teaches us how to work and serve so as to bring glory to God, calls forth and edifies the church, and so forth. This gospel saves — and ’salvation’ means more than just ‘getting in,’ but transformed wholeness.”

- D. A. Carson, “Four Questions with D. A. Carson“

HT: Of First Importance

Love lifted me

"I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more,
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.

Love lifted me,
When nothing else could help:
Love lifted me..."

(James Rowe)

Pain is good

I thank God that I can see, hear, taste, feel and touch. These God-given senses are useful, because they inform an objective sense [taken from my subjective sense] of reality. If I don't heed to my senses, I run the risk of having my imagination run wild and may end up believing all sorts of fallacies.

At work, I have the privilege of giving people some useful advice, which usually comes by way of psycho-education. Most of this advice is just good-old common sense, like the necessity of good sleep, the benefits of rigorous daily exercise and the advantages of a balanced and healthy diet. In this winter season, I have also found myself talking to people a lot about when and when not-to take analgesic medication, like paracetamol. Whilst it is more beneficial for people to take paracetamol at night - before sleep, I also advice them not to take it during the day, especially if they decide to go to work. Analgesics do not cure common ailments; they merely obstruct the pain receptors making it seem as if one was fit and healthy. Pain, in this case, is good. It tells the person to slow down and even stop whatever it is they are doing.

The Law works in much the same way. As previously explored, the Law has two main uses: it presents to us God's perfection, and in doing so, it shows our stark imperfection. The Law is best thought of as a mirror; it merely reflects reality. Before we face the public, we almost always look in our hall-mirror (or whichever) just to make sure we look presentable. If we didn't look in a mirror, we run the risk of deluding ourselves into thinking we look alright, when we most probably don't.

Called to be free

An interesting video, showing the mind-blowing transformation, not just of individuals, but of a church-group, formerly known as The Worldwide Church of God; a movement away from a works-based gospel (and other cRaZy doctrines), to grace.

Todd Friel on how not to get saved...

An odd, but effective way of showing ways in which we miss the mark...

There is a fountain filled with blood...

...drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

Instead of wrath, I am given mercy. Thank you Jesus.

Don't work: simply believe and receive...

Core Beliefs and CBT

I sat amongst a group of teachers today, trying, as best as I could, to explain what his default mode of behaviour is, thereby give meaning as to why he acts the way that he does. It isn't surprising that a child, who in his formative years experienced vast amounts of neglect and physical abuse by parents who themselves were drug-addicts, would today turn to truancy, defiance and lead a generally chaotic lifestyle.

John Bowlby, a noted psychologist who later formulated what is now known as 'attachment theory' argued that our overall sense of the world around us and the relationships we form, are influenced by our early-life experiences. The ages between birth and three years-of-age, is when we learn whether the world is a safe place and whether people are trust-worthy. The primary object-attachments are our parents; more specifically: mother. And if children feel an overall sense of well-being at this stage of their life, and have secured a good attachment, they will, more than likely, feel at ease about themselves and have a good sense of purpose.

In CBT terms, these early-life experiences form our 'core beliefs'. This is what we hold as the central tenets of what we see within our own selves. Core beliefs inevitably inform personal decision-making. It informs the way we handle bad and good news, it informs the way we think about the way other people think of us, amongst many other things. These beliefs are seldom swayed; they are etched in stone.

Although such occasions are rare, a sure way of unhitching one's core beliefs is when he or she comes to experience a situation in life that causes severe emotional trauma. Their once-held perspective of their world around them suddenly changes. The person who was once the life and soul of the party, now prefers solitude. The one who held no second-thought of speaking in public, now dreads a chance-hap meeting of a close friend.

For fear of removing the divine and spiritual aspects in salvation, from a purely anthropological perspective, I [tentatively] propose that the process of becoming a Christian (that is, the human-experience of regeneration), is a similar process to the one who has had their core-beliefs rocked. To choose Jesus is not a mere intellectual exercise, like one might do were they to choose lemonade over coffee. It's a choice born out of desperation.

Thank you!

I am now the proud owner of an ESV Study Bible! Thank you Mr. Register...

Full atonement

"The sacrificial system addressed the negative aspect of the problem, the penalty of sin; the prophetic system speaks of the positive, atoning element. Let us look at how these two work together. Suppose a painting is stolen from a private collection. The police track down the thief who is sent for trial, found guilty, and put in prison. The penalty is exacted for his crime. But this does not put matters right. The art collector says, ‘I want my picture back’. And only when it is returned can the matter rest. For full atonement two things are involved: the punishment of the crime and the repair of the injury.

Christ paid the penalty for our sin, but God, as it were, wants his picture back - the image of himself in human beings, before that image became marred by sin. In Christ’s life of grace and beauty, God had the picture returned. Full atonement."

(James Philip)

HT: étrangère

The Gospel

"The gospel is not moral conformity, which is religion, nor is it self-discovery, which is secularism. The gospel is something else altogether — a grid through which we see the world. There are three results of the gospel: the restructuring of our hearts, the removal of our sin, and the reversal of our values."

(Redeemer Presbyterian Church)

Blasphemy and treason

"But why a trial at all? Was it only a pretext to get rid of Jesus? Why not hire a hit man, or arrange a secret poisoning? Surely this would have achieved the same result? But God decreed otherwise. As Christ stood on trial in our place, these particular charges had to be brought.

In Revelation 20:11-15 we see the great white throne at the final judgment; here the books are opened. This is the trial which awaits all who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ, as their substitute and sin-bearer, all whose names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

The two charges against Christ, blasphemy and treason, are the very charges against the whole human race. In every sense, he stood in for us, and bore what was ours, and gave us what was his." (James Philips)

HT: ÉTRANGÈRE

Romans 9 with James White

"Have I done enough?"

"She was eighty-six and her body was failing but her mind was clear. The doctor had said she would not last the month. I was on my way out of town for two days and stopped by her home. After I read some verses from the Scriptures she asked a question that still rings in my ears after thirty-seven years: “John, do you think I have done enough to be saved?” I spoke to her of God’s grace to sinners and quoted passages about Christ dying for the ungodly. Then I prayed with her and left. She died the next day. She had heard the gospel preached every Sunday for over a half century. Yet, hours away from her death she was still striving to do enough to earn her salvation."

More from here...

From religion to relationship

God's Sovereignty in Job's suffering

"God does not enlighten Job on the cosmic struggle he has unwittingly been involved in, because letting Job see behind the curtain would change the rules of the contest still being determined. Nor does God show the slightest bit of sympathy for Job's physical or emotional condition. To the contrary, God turns the tables on Job, rushing in fiercely,

Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me

(Job 38:2-3)

and proceeding from there to sweep Job off his feet. In other words, God abruptly puts Job back in the dock.

God's message, expressed in gorgeous poetry, boils down to something like this: until you know a little more about running the physical universe, Job, don't tell me how to run the moral universe. By describing the wonders of nature, relishing especially its wildness, God hints at some of the inherent limitations of natural law and of his preference not to intervene. God criticizes Job for only one thing, his limited point of view. Job has based his judgements on incomplete evidence - an insight that those of us in the 'audience' have seen all along. To correct that misconception, God expands Job's range of vision from his own miserable circumstances to the entire universe.

(Philip Yancey - 'The Bible Jesus Read')

The Gospel - made simple II

Kirk Cameron explains the gospel to willing listeners...

The gospel - made simple.

A youtube video showing Mr. Skelly challenging two teenagers.

What strikes me most about this is that Mr. Skelly's audience are Christians - who should know the gospel - at least on a cognitive level. This video serves as a reminder [and warning] to me as a father to four children about what is communicated to them as they grow up in my care.

Reality

God's God-centeredness in forgiveness

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake” (Isaiah 43:25)

The Torah, Works, Faith, Justification and Mental Health

I love [and hate] Mr. Piper's ability to express in a single sermon what I try to explore in two years' worth of blogging. A lot of my personal frustrations as a mental-health practitioner working within the therapeutic circle is its stark opposition to Biblical principles.

As ever, I point to Mr. Piper [who quotes Kilpatrick]:

...One difference between these worldviews is that one assumes that our problems should be framed mainly in terms of mental health and therapeutic treatment, while the other assumes that our problems should be framed mainly in terms of sin and righteousness and redemption through faith in Christ and his Word. The name of the article is "Faith and Therapy" and it is by William Kilpatrick, a professor in the Education Department at Boston College.

He wrote:

"One of the most destructive consequences of carelessly mixing therapy with faith is a diminished sense of sin. The best evidence that this has already happened in the Catholic Church is the tremendous drop-off in the practice of confession of the last thirty years. When we couple this with the nearly 100 percent communion turnout in most parishes, we have to conclude that most parishioners don't have a strong consciousness of sin. They seem to have been so schooled in the gospel of self-acceptance that they can't think of any sins they need to confess.

A colleague at Boston College told me a story that reinforces the point. He once asked members of his philosophy class to write an anonymous essay about a personal struggle over right and wrong, good and evil. Most of the students, however, were unable to complete the assignment. "Why?" he asked. "Well," they said - and apparently this was said without irony - "We haven't done anything wrong." We can see a lot of self-esteem here, but little self-awareness - the absence of a sense of sin seems strange when one considers that most of these students have had years of Catholic schooling." (First Things, Feb. 1999, no. 90, p. 23)...

...My point is simply this: one of the reasons Paul dwells on the demonstration of sinfulness in Romans 1-3 is that we are so resistant to seeing it and feeling it. We find ways of avoiding the issue and softening the indictments and escaping the evidences of our sinfulness. And there are endless ways, it seems, to admit to a little bit of it, while not being broken and humbled by it. But brokenness and humility are the gateway to paradise, and indeed they are the road to paradise. In this life, we never outgrow our need for ever-new experiences of brokenness and humility because of our sinfulness.

(Link to full sermon)

It's all about Jesus...

More here.

OCD

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the most common mental-health conditions. It is estimated that about 1-3% of adults and 2% of children and teenagers have OCD. The condition is described as recurring obsessions or compulsions severe enough to be time-consuming or cause marked distress or significant impairment. People with the disorder recognise that their reactions are irrational or disproportionate.

Obsessions are generally recurrent intrusive thoughts, feelings, ideas or sensations. A compulsion is a conscious, standardised, recurring pattern of behaviour, such as counting, checking, or avoiding. Obsessions increase anxiety, whereas carrying out compulsions reduces it; but when a person resists carrying out a compulsion: anxiety is increased. A person with obsessive-compulsive disorder generally experiences both the obsession and the compulsion as ego-dystonic.

If left untreated, the symptoms of OCD may not improve and in some cases, will become worse. The preferred psychological treatment for OCD is cognitive behavioural therapy - and with this, the prognosis for OCD is good and some achieve a complete cure.

As with most common mental-health problems, the underlying theme that resonates in all of us who experience mental-ill-health is the issue of control. General anxiety disorder (GAD), which sometimes serves as a forerunner to OCD, is about how to regain control and depressive illness is simply the loss of it.

The doctrine of the sovereignty of God comes in useful during these distressing times. When we are haunted by intrusive thoughts that compel us to clean our hands more times than we ought (because if we do not: something awful will occur in the night), this declares that God works all things together for good, to those that love him and are called according to his purpose. He is in control: so that we don’t have to.

A waiting game

It feels like a while since I last wrote on here. And to be honest, I’ve been reflecting on the amount of time I spend writing and sign-posting. On one hand, I have experienced many benefits of having a blog. Blurting some of my personal frustrations and epiphanies onto this space has been a useful tool toward further reflection. A large part of this journey (which I started on my now redundant LJ account), has been to voice my struggles with Christianity , my moving away from existential, stoic and solipsistic philosophies - that I had so easily absorbed, toward a real understanding of who-Jesus-is and the impact that his death and resurrection has had in my life.

The chance to learn from others and write so openly about the glory of His grace and mercy has been nothing short of amazing. But there’s only so much one can write about, without feeling irked by not being able to apply the effects of the gospel into day-to-day life. There’s a dissonance between how much the mind is consumed by the gospel-message and the lack of physical activity of sharing this news to others. Of course, these frustrations are directly related to where I work. While I consider it a generally good thing to work in situations where people are ready to receive help, I feel constrained by professional regulatory bodies, which deem sharing direct Biblical-help, as an abuse of power against vulnerable people.

Maybe it's a waiting game, for something else?

Piper on wartime lifestyle

HT: Ant Adams

Does Reformed Theology Matter?

Pelagius/Semi-Pelagius

I wish I had known about this earlier in my life. Then again, had I heard this at an earlier point, I wouldn't have paid attention to it.

Ravi Zacharias addresses the LDS chuch

More here

God's God-centeredness is salvation

"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:44)

How to defeat Calvinism

"Are you sick of Calvinism creeping into our orthodox 21st century, contemporary, modern Christian church? Here are some various tips and propaganda useful to destroy the satanic lie of sovereign grace.