The Loving Discipline of the Father

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” | Hebrews 12:5b-6

Christians, we should count it as joy when the LORD disciplines us, because His active discipline in our lives is evidence that He loves us and treats us like sons.

It's not easy. Most of us would probably prefer to receive a dose of easy grace, without the side of loving discipline...but the author of Hebrews tells us that the absence of discipline can actually be considered an absence of love. Therefore, when we read the beautiful words of scripture, "For the LORD disciplines the one(s) he loves..." we find comfort, because God's discipline is always loving and is always used to heal, help, and sharpen. Always for his glory and always for our blessing.

God's Word promises Christians that they will continue to grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ. One of the primary ways this growth comes about is through the loving discipline of the Father. 

And how much do we need it? We are sinners, engulfed in self-centered and destructive behavior. As God's adopted sons and daughters, He cannot allow us to continue to live such reckless and destructive lives. God's aim is, and always has been, to be glorified in and through His image bearers. This can only happen through His correcting work; as he reshapes mankind into the image of His Son. #GrowOn

Life By the Spirit (Adam Dolney - May, 2014)

You may have missed it the first time, but please don't miss it again. Below is the video presentation of our latest men's breakfast, where Adam Dolney shared the passage of scripture that he's been chewing on for quite some time. Listen and be blessed! #GrowOn


PILLARS Men's Breakfast - May 2014 with Adam Dolney from Alex Marquez on Vimeo.

Some Thoughts on Holiness & Integrity

Question: "O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?" (Psalm 15:1)

Answer: "He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart..." (Psalm 15:2)

To many people, even some inside the church, talk like David's from Psalm 15 sounds legalistic and oppressive. However, for those who love God and therefore hate sin, it shouldn't. Christians are called, throughout scripture, to be holy as He is holy. Holiness is our pursuit. Holiness is our aim. It's what we're being saved for. God is setting us apart, for his glory, to be used for his holy purposes.

Pastor and author Sam Storms makes the following statement, 

"Obedience to the righteous commands of God is easy for those whose hearts have been gripped by grace and whose lives are empowered by grace (Dt. 30:11; Mt. 11:29-30; 1 Jn. 5:3)...David [in Psalm 15] is not talking about how to get saved. Rather, he is describing what it is to be saved. These moral declarations are not conditions for acceptance with God. They are the consequence of it. Thus, David is not talking about requirements for entrance into the kingdom on the part of those outside, but about enjoyment of the King on the part of those on the inside.

In His article, The Essence of Integrity, Storm continues:

Of what, then, does integrity consist? I've listed below what I regard as the ten foundational characteristics of a person with integrity. There may well be more than ten, but I cannot conceive of any less than ten.

1. A person of integrity fulfills his/her promises. Being true to one's word, especially when doing so is costly (in terms of money, convenience, physical welfare, etc.) is a core characteristic of integrity.

2. A person of integrity speaks the truth, is honest, and does not lie.

3. A person of integrity is a person of sincerity. That is to say, a person of integrity hates hypocrisy.

4. A person of integrity manifests a wholeness of character, including kindness, compassion, mercy, and gentleness.

5. A person of integrity is committed to the pursuit and maintenance of justice and fairness.

6. A person of integrity loves as, when, and what God loves.

7. A person of integrity is humble. He/she shuns pride and haughtiness.

8. A person of integrity is law-abiding. He/she plays by the rules, both in the Bible and the law of the land.

9. A person of integrity is fundamentally altruistic. That is to say, they are committed not simply to laws and rules but to people.

10. A person of integrity manifests a high degree of consistency. That is to say, he/she is not always changing the principles on the basis of which they live, unless compelled to do so by the Bible or rational persuasion.

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

It is Christ Who Gives Us Strength.

In his book, True Community, Jerry Bridges points out that: 

"The difference between “Lord help me” and “Lord enable me” is a matter of partial trust in our self-efforts versus total reliance on Christ.” 

Paul tells the Church in Philippians 4:13 (ESV), “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” He doesn’t say I can do some things in my own strength and others in the strength the Lord provides me. He doesn't say with my own abilities and Christ's help I can do all things. Instead, he gives credit for his ability to do all things to the one who strengthens him.

For His Glory,

Jason

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.)

What God Requires

The demand in Romans 8:13 is not sinlessness but mortal combat with sin. This is utterly essential in the Christian life. Otherwise we give no evidence that the flesh has been crucified. And if the flesh has not been crucified we do not belong to Christ (Galatians 5:24). The stakes in this battle are very high. We are not playing war games. The outcome is heaven or hell.

How then do dead people "put to death the (sinful) deeds of the body"? We have answered, "By faith!" But just what does this mean? How do you fight sin with faith?

Suppose I am tempted to lust. Some sexual image pops into my brain and beckons me to pursue it. The way this temptation gets its power is by persuading me to believe that I will be happier if I follow it. The power of all temptation is the prospect that it will make me happier. No one sins out of a sense of duty, when what they really want is to do right.

So what should I do? Some people would say, "Remember God's command to be holy (1 Peter 1:16) and exercise your will to obey because he is God!" But something crucial is missing from this advice, namely, FAITH. A lot of people strive for moral improvement who cannot say, "The life I live I live BY FAITH" (Galatians 2:20). A lot of people try to love who don't realize that, "What counts is FAITH working through love" (Galatians 5:6).

The fight against lust (or greed or fear or any other temptation) is a fight of faith. Otherwise the result is legalism.

John Piper - How Dead People Do Battle with Sin

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

Do Our Choices Really Matter?

Do You Love [Your Sin Here] Enough to Go to Hell For It?

Pornography is ubiquitous today; addiction to pornography, especially among men, is equally widespread. Young men are often introduced to pornography long before they are able to understand what it is and what it means. Many a young man's first awakening to sex and sexuality is by exposure to pornographic sex and nudity. This is sadly, increasingly, the case with women as well. 

Some Christians can take a kind of refuge in the fact that so many others share in the struggle. "We are all in this together" can minimize the weight of it. Yet the ubiquity of porn and porn addiction does nothing to lessen the horror of it. I want to ask you a question. But not quite yet. Read on…

Original Post (Desecration and Titillation) by: Tim Challies

The Pursuit of Holiness

As The Journey class I'm involved in quickly comes to an end, we are each being challenged to find our personal mission statement moving forward. Looking back over the past (7) months since this class started, there is very little doubt what God has been up to in my life. I'm thankful for the ability to clearly see his work in me and the direction he is challenging me to go, in faith, moving forward.

The topic that God has laid on my heart this week is the concept of personal holiness. Now to many, if not most, the idea of holiness comes with a somewhat of a sour taste. Many of us have run into people who strive for holiness via human mechanisms which reek of pride, legalism, self-righteousness and personal morality. However, pushing all those sinful concepts aside...it is still clear in scripture that as Christians each of us have been called to be holy. Look at these verses:

For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. | Leviticus 11:44 (ESV)

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, | 1 Peter 1:15 (ESV)

These verses show us that God commands and expects us to be holy as he is holy. So, knowing what we know about our own sinfulness...how are we to live into this command? Jerry Bridges has a wonderful book called "The Pursuit of Holiness" which I think is a recommended read for every Christian. In this book he spends a great deal of time helping readers to understand that the Christians ability to be holy comes only through God's provision. However, he also goes on to show that while God does provide the way (through faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit) for our holiness, each Christian still bears the responsibility of living out the holiness that God calls us to.

[God] makes provision for our holiness, but He gives us the responsibility of using those provisions. | Jerry Bridges

Far too often, Christians take the easy way out. Yes, we are all sinners...that's a rudimentary understanding to our faith...and our need for Christ...but as Christians we are sinners who have been saved by grace, transformed by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit and are liberated from the bondages of sin in order that we may live our lives in such a way as to rightly reflect the image and the glory of God. The sad reality for man of us is that we are far too easy on ourselves when we sin. Sin is not something we should simply shrug off in our lives and it is certainly not something that we should ever make friends with as if it was nothing more than a mark or blemish on our otherwise decent-looking physique. We make war against our sin in order that we may be holy as God is holy.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” | (Romans 8:12-15 ESV)

As Christians, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit and therefore we have the ability to pursue holiness and to "put to death the deeds of the flesh". Through Christ, we are no longer debtors to sin, but are now debtors to God. Is it not time that we start living fully into this freedom and stop using grace as the perpetual excuse for why we continue to fail? Is it not time that we equip and encourage the body of believers at Harbor to surrender their excuses and live unto Christ? Can we not live out, in all areas of our lives, 1 Cor. 10:31? Yes, we will still continue to need God's grace for the rest of our lives...but grace is no excuse for laziness, apathy, indifference and lack of zeal. God has rescued us from self-loathing and sloth he has rescued us from the bondage of sin and he has called us to make war with sin in every capacity (i.e. pride, worldliness, laziness etc). We have been set free that we may show our community and the world, through our personal witness, that Christ has restored for us the ability to bear God's image and reflect God's glory as we were originally created for. (Gen. 1:27)

Holiness, for the Christian, is a choice. We can either choose to live into the freedom which Christ has provided us...or we can choose to allow sin to win the battles in our lives. God calls us to holiness, but this holiness will not come without a fight...and we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling and we must "do our best to present ourselves to God as one who is approved" (2 Tim. 2:15). Either way, we must acknowledge that personal holiness is not something that will fall into our laps or come easily. We must pursue it...and in our pursuit, God will bless our faithfulness and obedience.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. | D.A. Carson

This is something that Jonathan Edwards understood very well. He wrote a list of "resolutions" to which he made a covenant with God to live by. If you have time, I'd encourage you to check out the following link to see the things which he resolved to do, as a Christian. They are amazing examples of what we can choose to be, if we are willing to stop selling ourselves short and instead hold ourselves and each other accountable to the holiness which God demands from each of us.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards



For His Glory,

Jason

Sanctification

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. 

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (ESV)

Sanctification, literally means "to set apart" for special use or purpose, that is, to make it holy or sacred. Therefore, sanctification refers to the state or process of being set apart, i.e. made holy. This is a work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. Paul, in the passage above, is reminding the church of Thessalonica that God is purifying for himself a people. That Jesus is making for himself a holy and purified bride.

Renewing Our Repentance

"God has already forgiven all our sins once-and-for-all through the death of Jesus Christ. Why then do we need to keep on asking for His forgiveness? The answer, of course, is that we are not perfect, and never will be in this life. We keep on sinning. We break God’s commandments every day, in thought, word, and deed. And although all our sins have been forgiven – past, present, and future – sin still has a way of disturbing our fellowship with God. It interferes with our intimacy with Him, estranging us from His holiness. When we sin, therefore, our personal relationship with God needs to be restored. The Puritans called this “renewing our repentance.” It means asking God to take the forgiveness He has already granted through Christ’s death on the cross and to apply it freshly and directly to our sins."

Philip Graham Ryken