A Moral Vision for Your Family.

Men, do you have a moral vision for your families , a zeal for the house of the Lord, a magnificent commitment to the advancement of the kingdom, an articulate dream for the mission of the church and a tenderhearted tenacity to make it real? You can't lead a godly woman without this. She is a grand being! 

There are hundreds of such men in the church today. And more are needed. When the Lord visits his church and creates a mighty army of deeply spiritual, humble, strong, Christlike men committed to the word of God and the mission of the church, the vast army of women will rejoice over the leadership of these men and enter into a joyful partnership. And that will be a grand thing. 

John Piper | Doctrine Matters

The Authority of Scripture Over Our Lives

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work." | 2 Timothy 3:16-17

With those verses in mind, listen as Matt Chandler shares an always relevant truth from Acts 20:26-31:

A Walk Through Holy Week - Post #1

Reflecting on Palm Sunday and today (Holy Monday) I can't help but think about how quickly shouts of praise turned to shouts of "crucify him!". But why the change of heart? How can a people rejoice at the coming of their King on Sunday, and within days turn on him to the point of calling for his execution? I think scripture makes it fairly clear. The people didn't understand who Jesus was or what he truly came to do for them. The Jews looked at their oppression as one mainly of physical bondage. However, Jesus knew the real issue was mainly one of spiritual oppression. The crowds welcomed Jesus on Sunday, because in their minds he was going to liberate them from the oppression of the Romans (much like Moses did from the Egyptians) but Christ didn't come to save them from men, but instead from the wrath of God because of their sin.

On Monday, the day after the streets were filled with people shouting, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"...Christ entered the temple and made efforts to cleanse it by turning over tables of the money changers and running the wicked people out the doors. This was the first step Jesus took towards his own crucifixion. He knew full well that his efforts to "purify worship" would not be received well by the Pharisees or those who were simply seeking God's favor because they had earned it by their efforts and self-righteousness. While just the day before these people were rejoicing in the "coming of the LORD," the reality is that their hearts were not open enough to see that God cares far more about the inward (condition of the heart) than he does the outward appearance of obedience. Jesus took intentional steps towards cleaning his Father's house, which had been turned into a den of robbers who were filled with greed and vein worship. Christ warned people to "wake up" and see that they were nowhere near where God desired them to be. He didn't want their sacrifices...he wanted them! He wanted their unadulterated affection not ritualistic practices of purification.

While more often than not, today's church celebrates Palm Sunday as a joyful event...today my heart is filled with sadness, because I see the truth. In many ways, the Church today still struggles with the same sin as the people so long ago. The reality for many of us is that if we would have been there, back on March 29th 33AD, we would have welcomed Christ to the city with shouts of praise...because of our selfish hopes and desires...and without the Holy Spirit, our passion for Christ's triumphant entry would have just as quickly turned to shouts for his crucifixion, because his efforts to purify for himself a people began by telling us that we are sinners who need to turn away from our evil and towards repentance.

Jesus knew the hearts of the people. He knew that they weren't truly seeking to honor God, but were instead looking to honor themselves. They didn't want Jesus...they wanted his blessings. But Jesus knew that the true blessing is and always has been God, not the gifts that he gives. The people weren't satisfied with God, they wanted the gifts and not the giver. How quickly did they turn on the one they so eagerly praised on Palm Sunday? How quickly do people still turn from Jesus today, when they realize that he requires repentance and a contrite heart...when we figure out that Jesus didn't come to give us what we want, but instead what we need? And sadly, for far too many people, this gift simply doesn't meet their expectations.

Jesus Knows What Is in Man (John 2:23-25)

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Our Unlimited Capacity for Self-Deception

"No one enjoys being cross-examined, or accused of having something wrong in their lives. But as we grow as Christians we come to the painful recognition that we have an almost unlimited capacity for self-deception. We slowly learn that we need to be stopped in our tracks by God. He uses Scripture to do this…We cannot reach our destination if we are travelling in the wrong direction." | Sinclair B. Ferguson

The Heart of Biblical Training

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. | 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

"By being trained in righteousness, the man of God is made competent or proficient by the Scriptures, which equip him for every good work. It's the training in righteousness that leads to the proficiency, but the proficiency here is not a particular skill—such as being able to teach clearly, or lead a small group, or whatever—but a quality of character and behavior based on the sound doctrine of the Scriptures."

"The heart of training is not to impart a skill, but to impart sound doctrine. Paul uses the language of training to refer to a lifelong process whereby Timothy and his congregation are taught by Scripture to reject false religion, and to conform their hearts and their lives to sound doctrine. Good biblical training results in a godly life based on sound, health-giving teaching."

Source: The Trellis and the Vine - Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

The Word of God

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

The Word of God is our only hope. The good news of God’s promises and the warnings of his judgment are sharp enough and living enough and active enough to penetrate to the bottom of my heart and show me that the lies of sin are indeed lies.

Abortion will not create a wonderful future for me. Neither will cheating, or dressing provocatively, or throwing away my sexual purity, or keeping quiet about dishonesty at work, or divorce, or vengeance. And what rescues me from this deception is the Word of God.

The Word of God’s promise is like throwing open a great window of bright morning sun on the roaches of sin masquerading as satisfying pleasures in our hearts. God has given you his good news, his promises, his Word to protect you from the deep deceptions of sin that try to harden the heart and lure it away from God and lead it to destruction.

Be of good cheer in your battle to believe. Because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and it will penetrate deeper than any deception of sin has ever gone and reveal what is truly valuable and what is truly worth trusting.

Original Link: HERE

Sanctification Comes Through Submission to God's Word

17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. | John 17:17-19 (ESV)

Sanctification is the great quest in the Christian Journey. It's the purification process God uses to "make us holy as he is holy." The process is intentional in it's efforts to make us more and more like Christ, in order that we might rightly image God to the unbelieving world through the way we live our transformed & transforming lives. Another important thing for us to remember is that sanctification is a lifelong process. However, this can't be used as an excuse to continue living in sin. While we should always be growing, the tangible evidences of the Holy Spirit working in our lives is a total dying to self and a desire to annihilate the sin in our lives. As we are growing in holiness, we should be equally growing in our hatred for the things that God hates (sin) and love for the things that God loves. A natural warning sign for anyone is if they have become indifferent to any sin that remains in their life. As we grow in holiness, we should also be growing in our hatred for the sin that remains in our life and a passion to make war against it...to kill it before it kills us.

"The process of sanctification involves both a horizontal-relational component (separation from participating in and being influenced by worldliness and sin) and a moral component (growth in holiness or moral purity in attitudes, thoughts, and actions)" (ESV Study Bible). 

This occurs in the truth, that is, as Christians believe, think, and live according to God's word (the truth). The Bible is comprised of the "truth" that Jesus was referring to when he said, your word is truth.

"The interesting thing about the Greek word used here is that it's not an adjective (meaning “your word is true”) but a noun (alētheia, “truth”). The implication here is that God’s Word does not simply conform to some other external standard of “truth,” but that it is truth itself; that is, it embodies truth and it therefore is the standard of truth against which everything else must be tested and compared. (ESV Study Bible)

So what do we gain from this? For me the answer is simple. God's word is truth and our sanctification is dependant on our submission to this truth. Sanctification is a lifelong process, but our growth will be directly tied to the way in which we submit our lives to God's word (i.e. the Bible). If we submit only portions of our lives to God's truth, then only portions of our lives will be sanctified. If we submit ourselves, fully, to God's word, then we give the Holy Spirit complete access to make us holy as God is holy. This should be the aim of every believer and God will bless us exponentially as we lay down our lives, completely, as living sacrifices for his glory. Why is it important to read the word? Because as Jesus said, God's word is the truth and the primary method he uses to sanctify us.

Finally, if Jesus' words are true, that God's word is the primary method he uses for our sanctification, then how would we respond to the following questions:

1. Do I truly believe that God's word is the truth? (Do I submit to God's word or to some other external standard of truth?)
2. Have I truly surrendered my life, fully, to God's word? If so, what is the tangible evidence that this is true?
3. If God's word is the primary means of my sanctification, am I investing the time that I should be into the spiritual disciple of reading, memorizing and meditating on God's word? (How much time do I spend each day/week doing this, compared to how much time I spend fulfilling the desires of the world and/or my flesh?)
4. If I truly desire to grow in holiness, then what areas of my life do I need to surrender to God in order that God might sanctify them? (examples: control, pride, anger, lust, insecurity, self-righteousness, sloth etc.)

God Grant Me a Sensitive Conscience

Here's a newsflash for you: The Christian Life is Hard.

Now while you try to come to grips with this crazy thought, I want to share with you a few resources from John MacArthur on one of the greatest tools God has given us to help us battle sin.

"The conscience is generally seen by the modern world as a defect that robs people of their self-esteem. Far from being a defect or a disorder, however, your ability to sense your own guilt is a tremendous gift from God. He designed the conscience into the very framework of the human soul. It is the automatic warning system that cries, "Pull up! Pull up!" before you crash and burn." | John MacArthur - The Conscience, Revisited

That's right. A "guilty" conscience should not be ignored. Sensitivity to guilt is not primarily about making a person feel bad, but is instead about helping them stay sensitive to their sin. In Jeremiah, we see a passage of scripture that shows how Israel's sin no longer had any effect on them at all. A land where people had ignored their consciences and guilt for so long that their hearts were no longer sensitive to their sin. Their hearts were hard towards their iniquities and they actually forgot how to blush.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. | Jeremiah 6:15

The conscience is a tool which can be used to help us in our Christian walk, but we must work to keep our conscience sensitive. If we are not investing significant time into God's word and working to apply it to our lives, then our conscience will not be trained towards righteousness, but will instead be trained in worldliness. The old cliché, you are what you eat rings true here. What we invest our time into will be what we become. If we desire to be holy, then we must cling to what is holy. We must study God's holy word that our hearts may remain soft and aware of what is good, acceptable and perfect. Paul tells us in Romans 12:2:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We can't discern what the will of God is if we are not investing significant time into studying, meditating on and memorizing his word. God has given us his bible and our consciences as tools for our pursuit of holiness, but these two things must work together. We must fill our hearts (and conscience) with God's truth if we truly desire to have a heart that is passionate for God and his glory.

I'll leave you with this short audio clip from John MacArthur which gives a wonderful analogy of how this all applies to our lives.

For His Glory,

Jason

How Do We Feel About God's Word?

"Remember that it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian." | Thomas Brooks

Psalm 119:97-104 (ESV)

97 Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.

A mark of a true Christian will be their love for God's law (his word) and their desire to meditate on it all day. It becomes for them the springboard for discovering who God is, who they are called and created to be and do. Sola scriptura (by scripture alone) asserts that the Bible is the only inspired and authoritative word of God, is the only source for Christian doctrine, and is accessible to all.

98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

100 I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.

Why was this writer wiser than the others? Because the psalmist's enemies, teachers and the "aged" people he spoke of did not attend carefully to God’s word.

101 I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.

The psalmist makes a conscience choice to avoid evil in order to keep God's word. Faithfulness over selfish, fleshly and sinful desires.

102 I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.

Because the psalmist had a humble and "teachable" spirit, he is able to keep from sinning. God blessed his humility and replaced his sin with holiness.

103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

One mark of a true Christian is that God's word will become for them a sweet taste in their mouth. It will be a joyous experience for the Christian to read God's word, not out of obligation but instead because they delight in it.

104 Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Understanding sound doctrine will produce a hatred of false doctrine and practices.

God's Word is Our Natural Habitat

"As water is to a fish, God's words are our natural habitat. Remaining in them, we thrive. Departing from them, we strive, suffer, and wilt." | Scott Sauls

How Will We Know When the Bible Starts to Transform Our Lives?

How will we know when the bible starts to transform our lives? "Not when we enjoy lovely teaching, but when the teaching becomes so [convicting] that [we] walk away and do something about it.” | Bishop Festo Kivengere