Preaching the Gospel

“…preaching the gospel to ourselves every day reminds us that we are indeed sinners in need of God’s grace….It helps us to consciously renounce any confidence in our own goodness as a means of meriting God’s blessing on our lives. Perhaps more importantly, though, preaching the gospel to ourselves every day gives us hope, joy, and courage. The good news that our sins are forgiven because of Christ’s death fills our hearts with joy, gives us courage to face the day, and offers us hope that God’s favor will rest upon us, not because we are good, but because we are in Christ."

Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace

A Puritan Quote For Your Day!

“It is sad to see a Christian pursuing joy in coarse and earthly pleasures when he has more noble and angelical delights, second only in degree and manner of enjoyment to heaven itself. Our faith takes us to the third heaven. We roll and tumble our souls in beds of roses, that is, our meditations of justification, sanctification, and salvation through Christ. No day should pass without these enjoyments. Should not our soul have her due drinks, breakfasts, meals, snacks, and desserts, as well as our body? Cannot such meditations make pleasant work of our daily tasks? They would make time pass by like a boat with full wind and tide, needing no oars. They would make all of our days like holidays and celebrations.” Thomas Manton (source:Girltalk)

Interruptions

This past week, I've been feeling like I have been in a hamster wheel. Do you know what I mean? Where you feel like you are just rushing around but not really getting anywhere? I have been complaining that I have so much to do (combination of "real life", getting ready for Women's Retreat, MOPS, catching up from being sick, etc.), and I can't get anything accomplished because I keep getting interrupted. I'm ashamed to say that I was mostly complaining about my children interrupting me! How utterly selfish! The Lord has convicted me greatly! My precious daughters are blessings! I was further convicted/encouraged when I read this C.S. Lewis quote on Girl Talk:
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.” The Quotable Lewis, (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1989), 335.
Hopefully that will encourage you as it has me!

Salvation

"The salvation of every person is initiated by God and is His sovereign choice, through grace, based upon no merit whatsoever in the individual sinner. None of us deserves salvation - which means there is nothing we can do to earn, win, achieve, or otherwise attain salvation based upon our own merit, intelligence, good works, rational intellectual argument, religious or denominational affiliation, or family heritage. We can do nothing by any means to save ourselves. Salvation has nothing to do with our initiative or accomplishment. Salvation is all by grace. There is no clearer manifestation of this truth than the gift of eternal life given to a helpless, lost infant. The saving grace given to an infant who has no part whatsoever in his salvation is a perfect example of salvation, which is always wrought sovereignty by God through grace."

John MacArthur, Safe in the Arms of God (pg. 77)

Comfort in God's Sovereignty

This quote from John MacArthur's book, Safe in the Arms of God, has been very comforting to me as I've been working through my miscarriage. I thought I would share it with you in case in can offer you some comfort as well!

"The decision about whether a baby lives or dies is God's decision. He allows conception. He allows birth. He also allows death at birth. He allows what is in keeping with His purposes. No death or life occurs apart from the purposes of God. God is actively involved in every feature of every life, including whether a child is born or dies in the womb, and whether a child lives past birth or dies at birth."

Worldview

There are essentially two ways that humans can understand the world. The first way is the way we all understand the world until the Holy Spirit intervenes in our lives and gives us new eyes to see. This worldview is I-centered. I am the center of my own universe and the arbiter of all truth. I may not vocalize things in just this way and may not even think them quite like this, but it is ultimately what I believe. I believe that I am capable of looking at the world and understanding the way it works--who God is, who I am, the relationship between us, and so on.
The other way of seeing the world is God-centered. Here I acknowledge God as the center of all that exists and the arbiter of all truth. Everything that is true and everything that is knowable has its source in Him. Thus I can only interpret the world properly by rightly acknowledging God. This is, obviously, the biblical worldview. It is God who tells me who He is, God who tells me who I am and God who declares the terms of the relationship between us.
The first worldview allows me to acknowledge as truth only what I want to believe about myself; the second worldview requires me to acknowledge as truth what God says about me. The first worldview has to have as its premise that I am ultimately good while the second has as its premise that God is ultimately good. In the first view I sin against myself while in the second I sin against God. The contrasts could hardly be more pronounced. From Tim Challies

The Main Thing

“In the midst of our various responsibilities and many possible areas of service in the kingdom of God, one overarching truth should motivate all our work and affect every part of who we are: Christ died for our sins. This…is the main thing. Nothing else—not even things that are biblical and honorable—are of equal or greater importance than this: God sent His Son to the cross to bear His wrath for sinners like you and me. If there’s anything in life we should be passionate about, it’s the gospel. And I don’t mean passionate only about sharing it with others; I mean passionate in thinking about the gospel, reflecting upon it, rejoicing in it, allowing it to color the way we look at the world and all of life.” CJ Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life

C.S. Lewis on Heaven

". . .But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life ...had only been the cover and the title page; not at last they were beginning chapter one of the Great Story, which no one on Earth has read! Which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Perspective in Trials

"For the Gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His Gospel purposes in me."

-A Gospel Primer for Christians, Milton Vincent (pg.31)

A well-furnished mind

A well-furnished mind is like a beautifully appointed home; it has room for many things and must be kept with constant vigilance. Moth and rust mar and ruin the house in which no one lives. Simple neglect is more destructive than continual use. We often meet women who have ceased to grow because they have ceased to study, have ceased to be receptive and responsive. By forming the habit of reading and arranging for an hour with a good book in the day’s work, every woman, young or older, will increase her mental wealth and her facility to learn. A girl’s greatest charm is not in her graceful figure nor a beautiful grace; it is in her power to interest those whom she meets. To be an interesting woman one must have a bright and wide-awake mind. She must use her talents that they will increase. It is eternally true that to him that has, and exercises the gifts, more shall be given, while from him that has and does not use the gifts, there shall be a loss.
Margaret Elizabeth Sangster, Winsome Womanhood, Chapter Five: Her Books (from Heartthoughts)

Why God doesn't always explain pain. . .

"God cannot make plain all he is doing, because there are millions and millions and millions and millions of effects of every event in your life, the good and the bad. God guides them all. They all have micro purposes and macro purposes. He cannot tell you all of them because your brain can’t hold all of them.
Trust does not demand more than God has told us. And he has given us immeasurably precious promises that he is in control of all things and only does good to his children. And he has given us a very thick book where we can read story after story after story about how he rules for the good of his people. "
Go here to read the rest of the article by John Piper.

Resting in Christ's Righteousness

Here is a snippet from The Gospel Primer that I read in my devotions this morning. I hope it encourages you and causes thankfulness.
"The gospel encourages me to rest in my righteous standing with God, a standing which Christ Himself has accomplished and always maintains for me. I never have to do a moment's labor to gain or maintain my justified status before God! Freed from the burden of such a task, I now can put my energies into enjoying God, pursuing holiness, and ministering God's amazing grace to others.
The gospel also reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm regardless of my performance, because my standing is based solely on the work of Jesus and not mine. On my worst days of sin and failure, the gospel encourages me with God's unrelenting grace toward me. On my best days of victory and usefulness, the gospel keeps me relating to God solely on the basis of Jesus' righteousness and not mine."

Forgiveness!

Today was a bad day! I have excuses to why it was so, but they all just add up to the fact that I was sinful! I have been sitting here all evening wallowing in my guilt and depression about it, then I read this section of The Gospel Primer in my devotions. It was exactly what I needed to hear today and so I thought I would share it with you as well.
"As long as I am stricken with the guilt of my sins, I will be captive to them, and will often find myself re-committing the very sins about which I feel most guilty. The Devil is well aware of this fact; he know that if he can keep me tormented by sin's guilt, he can dominate me with sin's power.
The gospel, however, slays sin at this root point and thereby nullifies sin's power over me. The forgiveness of God, made known to me through the gospel, liberates me from sin's power because it liberates me first from its guilt; and preaching such forgiveness to myself is a practical way of putting the gospel into operation as a nullifier of sin's power in my life."

I recently read this quote by J.C. Ryle on another blog. I thought it might be an encouraging reminder of God's love for us, even when we are going through trials. Enjoy!

“Reader, if God has given you His only begotten Son, beware of doubting His kindness and love, in any painful providence of your daily life! Never allow yourself to think hard thoughts of God. Never suppose that He can give you anything which is not really for your good. Remember the words of Paul: ‘He who spared not His own Son—but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things’ (Romans 8:32).
See in every sorrow and trouble of your earthly pilgrimage the hand of Him who gave Christ to die for your sins! That hand can never smite you except in love! He who gave His only begotten Son for you, will never withhold anything from you which is really for your good. Lean back on this thought and be content. Say to yourself in the darkest hour of trial, ‘This also is ordered by Him who gave Christ to die for my sins. It cannot be wrong. It is done in love. It must be well.’"

Hints For Parents, Gardiner Spring

"Let children be taught that God sent them into the world to do their duty, to fill up their life with usefulness, and thus to honor his great name. If this generous principle takes its seat in their hearts, they will enjoy greater real happiness than if they sit in the thrones of princes, or become possessors of untold millions. . . Let children be taught that God sent them into the word for the sole purpose of obeying him, and bringing honor to his great name. If this principle rests in their hearts, and becomes a controlling influence on their lives, they will find contentment and satisfaction in the work God has given them (Colossians 3:23)."

Knowing God

Becky and I have been reading, Knowing God, by J. I. Packer. It has been such a good study that has been showing me how I know about God, but am lacking in the knowing God in the relational sense. I read this quote the other day that talked about how God knows me. I thought I would share it with you.
"What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it-the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters."