I know that I am a child of God because...

We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone. He has ceased to say, “Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but I have done this and that.” He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, “Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Our decision for God vs His decision for us

This past Sunday at church, during the sermon, I listened to the following words:

"The writing is on the wall dear unbeliever. You've been weighed. You've been measured. And you've been found wanting. And judgement is coming, and it is certain if you continue to stand outside of Christ.

I plead with you...

to let go of your idols,
to let go of your pride,
to let go of your self consumption,
to let go of your obsession with material things. (with money, clothes and stuff).

(Is your stuff worthy of eternity in hell? Does it mean that much to you?)

Let go of your reputation.
Lose your life for Christ's sake.

...Some of you have been in this church for ten years or more. And you still haven't bent the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. What are you waiting for? It's January 1st. Are you going to go another whole year standing outside, looking in through the windows? Why would you do that? Why would you be so cruel to your soul?"

After you read these words, I invite you to ask, for yourself and yourself alone, two questions:

1. To what extent do these words plead with those who are dead in their trespasses and sins to summon their resources and make a decision for God?

2. To what extent does the Gospel plead with those who are dead in their trespasses and sins to abandon all of their resources and receive the decision that God made for them?

Lastly, snippets from John Piper talking about the nature of faith (< 3 min.):

If we seek, there's but one place to look

If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him”.
If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing.
If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion;
....if purity, in his conception;
....if gentleness, it appears in his birth.
(For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain.)

If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion;
....if acquittal, in his condemnation;
....if remission of the curse, in his cross;
....if satisfaction, in his sacrifice;
....if purification, in his blood,
....if reconciliation, in his descent into hell;
....if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb;
....if newness of life, in his resurrection;
....if immortality, in the same;
....if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven;
....if protection,
....if security,
....if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom;
....if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given him to judge.

In short, since rich store of every kind of goods abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.

--John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.16.19

The Direction of Mankind's fall is UPWARD

Adam and Eve fell into sin. [But] the "fall" is really not what the word implies at all. It is not a downward plunge to some lower rung on the ladder of morality and freedom. Rather it is an upward rebellion, an invasion of the realm of things “above,” the usurping of divine prerogative. To retain traditional language, one would have to resort to an oxymoron and speak of an “upward fall.”

This, after all, is precisely what the temptation by the serpent in the garden implies: “You will not die… you will be like God, knowing good and evil”

A line had been drawn over which Adam and Eve were not to step. They were not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There was a realm “above” which they were to leave to God; if they did not, their death would result.

--Gerhard Forde, "Theology is for Proclamation"

The first Adam ventured up into the “realm of things above” and brought death. The second Adam ventured down into the “realm of things below” and brought life.

--Tullian Tchividjian

The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be.

--John Stott

Dependence is our blind spot

God's work begins when ours comes to its end.

Sometimes His presence is not felt with power through our methods however useful they may be, especially when we are confident we have the right approach and insights. God has a way of wanting to be God and refusing to get too involved where we have our own wisdom and strength. Then when we run out of wisdom and strength, He is suddenly present, a lesson I find myself relearning practically every day that I am in my right mind. (On my crazy days I am not ready to learn much!)

I think He wants our confidence to be exclusively in Him, and when we lose our self-confidence then He moves in to show what He can do. Perhaps self-dependence--and forgetting the strength to be found in Christ-dependence--is always our biggest blind spot. There is also presumption and pride that go with self-reliance.

So let's not lose our trust in God and the power of His gospel and the spirit of praise which goes with its proclamation (Rom 15:13; 1 Cor 1:18, 22-25; Gal 6:14).

--Jack Miller
(The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 200-201)

God-centered

Jesus is quite aware of the Father’s personal presence and direction in his own life (John 5:19). From Jesus’s life we see a model of what it looks like to be God-centered. Jesus doesn’t pull out his platinum God card, borrowing power or strength to cope his way through temptations sinlessly; he lives within the limited equity of a human life bound by dependence upon God as his loving Father.

— Bill Clem
Disciple: Getting Your Identity from Jesus, p 43

An un-fragmented soul

This is the key to finding rest in your suffering. There is only one way in which rest is to be found: to let God rule in every­thing. Whatever else you might come to learn only pertains to how God has willed to rule. But as soon as unrest begins, the cause for it is due to your unwillingness to obey, your unwill­ingness to surrender yourself to God.

When there is suffering, but also obedience in suffering, then you are being educated for eternity. Then there will be no impa­tient hankering in your soul, no restlessness, neither of sin nor of sorrow. If you will but let it, suffering is the guardian angel who keeps you from slipping out into the fragmentariness of the world; the fragmentariness that seeks to rip apart the soul.

-Søren Kierkegaard

Not according to our nature at all

If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer (Nashville, 2010), page 137.

The gospel in four words

‘Come unto me,’ he says, ‘and I will give you.’ You say, ‘Lord, I cannot give you anything.’ He does not want anything. Come to Jesus, and he says, ‘I will give you.’ Not what you give to God, but what he gives to you, will be your salvation. ‘I will give you‘ — that is the gospel in four words.

Will you come and have it? It lies open before you.

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), I:175.

The gospel teaches us how to spell

I have known some that, at first conversion, have not been very clear in the gospel... They could not spell the word 'grace.' They began with a G, but they very soon went on with an F, till it spelt very like 'freewill' before they had done with it.

But after they have learned their weakness, after they have fallen into serious fault, and God has restored them, or after they have passed through deep depression of mind, they have sung a new song. In the school of repentance they have learned to spell. They began to write the word 'free,' but they went on from free, not to 'will' but to 'grace.' And there it stood in capitals, 'FREE GRACE'. . . . They became clearer in their divinity, and truer in their faith than ever they were before.

-- Charles Spurgeon,
quoted in Iaian Murray, The Forgotten Spurgeon (Banner of Truth 1966), 69-70