Chapter 7 of The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney, reminds us that we need to keep the Gospel as the center of our lives. Everything we do, say or think should be done with the cross of Christ in mind.
First of all, we are Christians because God showed mercy, period. We weren't worthy or special. We didn't earn it. It is all of God. When I think about this, I am filled with awe and thankfulness. Mr. Mahaney says that the message of the cross is the Christian's hope, confidence, and assurance. No matter what life brings us, if we stay focused on the cross, we will be able to persevere and have victory.
Mr. Mahaney also says that we have been saved to grow, to serve in a local church, to do good works, and to glorify God. We need to be about spreading the love of Jesus and the Gospel to our communities. I know that it often takes "guts" to do these things. But, if we are truly thankful for God's mercy in saving us from eternity in Hell, we should have no fear. We should want to tell others about the free gift of salvation by faith in Jesus. Especially to the people we love. Even if someone "doesn't want to hear it", you have still planted a seed and someday they may remember something you said and take it to heart. Remember the old saying, "there are no atheists in a foxhole". Even if they never respond to Christ, by witnessing, we are doing good in God's eyes and if you think about it, His eyes are the only ones that matter when its all said and done.
Mr. Mahaney goes on to say that any and all topics should be studied through the lens of the Gospel. Take the Old Testament for example, many people believe that they are good stories but not really pertinent for our "modern" lives. However, if you think about it, through the symbolism of the sacrificial system, the strictness of the Law, the faithfulness of God and the failures of man all show us how amazing the cross really is. God showed us in the Old Testament that He is Holy and in order to have a relationship with Him, we must be holy too. And that's why Jesus' blood was the only acceptable sacrifice for our sin.
Many people today are very interested in the End Times. I admit that with all that's going on in the world today, it is exciting to watch and see things happening that seem to coincide with the prophecies of the end. But, we still need to keep the cross as our central truth. Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray concerning His return but told them that their main focus should be telling others about the gospel. Because of the cross, the future is already written. God wins!!! Satan loses.
Concerning prayer, without the blood of Jesus, we couldn't even approach God. Jesus died so we could have access to the Father through Him. Remember how the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom when Jesus died. That symbolized that we no longer needed a priest or sacrifices to come to God. The veil, as I understand it, was not just a curtain like we have on our windows today. It was a very thick tapestry that couldn't be torn at all by human hands. That's why it is so significant.
The cross also comes into play in our relationships on earth. Whenever someone makes you mad or hurts you in some way, remember what you have been forgiven of by God. Since God forgave you all of your sins, which are great, how could you not forgive someone of a snide remark or for hurting your feelings? No one can sin against you as much as you have sinned against God.
The last area Mr. Mahaney covered is suffering and trials. None of us are immune to them. But, how we react when times are tough really shows us our hearts. Some people blame God and get mad at Him. But others cling to God and look to the gospel for their hope and comfort. The bible says that God has a purpose for our suffering. If we are believers, God would never send a trial into your life just for His amusement. I admit I used to to think this way sometimes when I was younger. I think God sends trials our way to help us to become more like Jesus. When I think back over my life, my trials and suffering have always taught me something.
I have noticed that when people are in the midst of suffering or a trial, they often wonder "why me"? or "I didn't deserve this". But in actuality, all we deserve is God's wrath. Mr. Mahaney says that when people ask him how he is, his reply is "better than I deserve". I think that is a good way to think about our circumstances. We deserve death but, through the cross, Jesus has paid the penalty for us and now we live because of grace.
I urge you to take some time every day to meditate on the gospel. Think about the cross and remember that Jesus died a horrible death to pay the penalty for our sins. God loves us so much, He willingly sent His Son to die in our place so that we could have a relationship with Him. That is so amazing! Because of the cross, we should never doubt His love for us. For me, if I keep my eyes on the Lord, I know that He is always there with me no matter what and because of His love I can persevere to the end.
Showing posts with label book study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book study. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Cross Centered Life: Chapter 6
In chapter six of The Cross Centered Life, C.J Mahaney gives 5 practical and simple ways to draw us near to the cross each day. Because as he said, "A cross centered life is made up of cross centered days."
1. Memorize the Gospel. We cannot preach the gospel to ourselves everyday if we do not know the gospel well. To do this, we can simply meditate on and memorize passage that speak the gospel plainly, such as: Romans 831-34, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Isaiah 53:3-6, and Romans 8:32-39. Those are just a few that Mahaney lists, and it is a good place to start.
2.Pray the Gospel. We come boldly to the throne room of God because of the cross. The cross is what drives our praise, and our petitions and dependence upon God in prayer.
3. Sing the Gospel. There are so many resources out there for us. Many scripture saturated, God-centered songs. I love singing the old hymns because of the richness of the words. Some of the newer music from the Getty's and from Sovereign Grace are helpful gospel centered songs. This has helped me tremendously in keeping the gospel before as I can sing throughout the day.
4. Review How The Gospel Has Changed You. Take time to remember who you were apart from Christ, and all that He has done on your behalf. I know that my heart soars with thanksgiving and am moved to obedience and worship when I do this. There is no room for pride when I think on how God has changed me.
5. Study The Gospel. We must remember that we cannot be satisfied with our knowledge of the gospel. It is as Mahaney puts it: "a life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth." We should be always grasp the depth of the gospel and grow in our passion about the gospel. Mahaney gave some practical suggestions, including some good books to read:
The Cross of Christ by John Stott
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges
The Power of the Cross of Christ by Charles Spurgeon
The Cross and Christian Ministry by D.A. Carson
I would also add C.J. Mahaney's book, Cross Centered Life (of course)
The Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent
and God is The Gospel by John Piper
There are commentaries by godly men to use as you read through the Bible that will help you better understand the gospel.
He also recommends listening to sermons if commuting that are about the cross of Christ. And of course, he says that as we do our daily reading, to keep your eyes peeled to seeing the gospel.
May we build a cross centered life one day at a time.
1. Memorize the Gospel. We cannot preach the gospel to ourselves everyday if we do not know the gospel well. To do this, we can simply meditate on and memorize passage that speak the gospel plainly, such as: Romans 831-34, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Isaiah 53:3-6, and Romans 8:32-39. Those are just a few that Mahaney lists, and it is a good place to start.
2.Pray the Gospel. We come boldly to the throne room of God because of the cross. The cross is what drives our praise, and our petitions and dependence upon God in prayer.
3. Sing the Gospel. There are so many resources out there for us. Many scripture saturated, God-centered songs. I love singing the old hymns because of the richness of the words. Some of the newer music from the Getty's and from Sovereign Grace are helpful gospel centered songs. This has helped me tremendously in keeping the gospel before as I can sing throughout the day.
4. Review How The Gospel Has Changed You. Take time to remember who you were apart from Christ, and all that He has done on your behalf. I know that my heart soars with thanksgiving and am moved to obedience and worship when I do this. There is no room for pride when I think on how God has changed me.
5. Study The Gospel. We must remember that we cannot be satisfied with our knowledge of the gospel. It is as Mahaney puts it: "a life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth." We should be always grasp the depth of the gospel and grow in our passion about the gospel. Mahaney gave some practical suggestions, including some good books to read:
The Cross of Christ by John Stott
The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges
The Power of the Cross of Christ by Charles Spurgeon
The Cross and Christian Ministry by D.A. Carson
I would also add C.J. Mahaney's book, Cross Centered Life (of course)
The Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent
and God is The Gospel by John Piper
There are commentaries by godly men to use as you read through the Bible that will help you better understand the gospel.
He also recommends listening to sermons if commuting that are about the cross of Christ. And of course, he says that as we do our daily reading, to keep your eyes peeled to seeing the gospel.
May we build a cross centered life one day at a time.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Chapter 5: What You Feel vs. What Is Real
"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?" - David Martyn Lloyd Jones
Chapter 5 of The Cross Centered Life opens with this quote. I can honestly say that it has been one of the most life-changing quotes in my life to this point, as has this chapter.
We tend to be very focused on our feelings nowadays. It goes along nicely with the postmodernism society that we live in - my reality is not necessarily your reality and visa versa. And how do we define our realities? Based on our feelings. The "only" problem with this is that our feelings change. Constantly.
Another huge problem with this is that the reality of the gospel message has nothing to do with our feelings about it at the moment! One of my favorite quotes is on page 51, "...regardless of how we feel because the gospel exists independently of us." There will be times in every believers life when they are down. Perhaps you are going through a time of depression or perhaps you are sad or angry or have had a really bad day. There will always be times when we don't "feel" loved. There will be times when we wonder if obeying God is even worth it. There will be times when we just want to give into the sin that has been tempting us for so long. There will be times when we feel extreme guilt over past, repented sins.
All these feelings! What can we do against them? To be honest, its not unusual for us to experience most (if not all!) of these feelings in one day! We are women after all. So what do we do?
Talk to yourself!!
Very few of us would feel comfortable saying out loud, "I just don't think that obeying God is worth it," or "I'm having a bad day so I'm just going to scream at you now even though I know there is no reason for it!" But these things are easy to think. Rather than listening to yourself, "My life is so boring, he never listens to me, my kids are going to be the death of me, I really hate her...." talk to yourself!
Ladies, we know the truth. We understand the gospel. We have heard it over and over and have told it to others. We know the Lord (although there is always room to know more!) We know His promises and we know our position as his daughters. We know all of these things, but we need to be reminded of them at times!
The next time you are having a bad or emotional day, choose talking to yourself rather than listening to yourself. The next time you are gossiping in your head, preach the gospel to yourself. The next time you are cursing him in your mind, review memory verses. The next time you are dwelling on bitterness, preach to yourself.
You would never remain silent if a women came up to you and immediately began spouting gossip or bitterness. You would react instantly and warn her away from the sin she is in! Do the same for yourself.
Chapter 5 of The Cross Centered Life opens with this quote. I can honestly say that it has been one of the most life-changing quotes in my life to this point, as has this chapter.
We tend to be very focused on our feelings nowadays. It goes along nicely with the postmodernism society that we live in - my reality is not necessarily your reality and visa versa. And how do we define our realities? Based on our feelings. The "only" problem with this is that our feelings change. Constantly.
Another huge problem with this is that the reality of the gospel message has nothing to do with our feelings about it at the moment! One of my favorite quotes is on page 51, "...regardless of how we feel because the gospel exists independently of us." There will be times in every believers life when they are down. Perhaps you are going through a time of depression or perhaps you are sad or angry or have had a really bad day. There will always be times when we don't "feel" loved. There will be times when we wonder if obeying God is even worth it. There will be times when we just want to give into the sin that has been tempting us for so long. There will be times when we feel extreme guilt over past, repented sins.
All these feelings! What can we do against them? To be honest, its not unusual for us to experience most (if not all!) of these feelings in one day! We are women after all. So what do we do?
Talk to yourself!!
Very few of us would feel comfortable saying out loud, "I just don't think that obeying God is worth it," or "I'm having a bad day so I'm just going to scream at you now even though I know there is no reason for it!" But these things are easy to think. Rather than listening to yourself, "My life is so boring, he never listens to me, my kids are going to be the death of me, I really hate her...." talk to yourself!
Ladies, we know the truth. We understand the gospel. We have heard it over and over and have told it to others. We know the Lord (although there is always room to know more!) We know His promises and we know our position as his daughters. We know all of these things, but we need to be reminded of them at times!
The next time you are having a bad or emotional day, choose talking to yourself rather than listening to yourself. The next time you are gossiping in your head, preach the gospel to yourself. The next time you are cursing him in your mind, review memory verses. The next time you are dwelling on bitterness, preach to yourself.
You would never remain silent if a women came up to you and immediately began spouting gossip or bitterness. You would react instantly and warn her away from the sin she is in! Do the same for yourself.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Chapter 3 of the Cross Centered Life is about breaking the rules of legalism. The author, C.J. Mahaney, defines legalism as "seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God." I think it is important to obey the Lord's commands given in the Bible, but our salvation is based on faith alone not our works. We can't earn our way to Heaven.
The chapter goes on to explain that if a person thinks he can earn his way to Heaven then it is equivalent to telling God that Jesus' death on the cross was either unnecessary or insufficient, and that His plan didn't work - that the cross wasn't enough and that he needs to add his own works in order to be saved. This way of thinking must hurt God. He had to give His own Son to die a horrible death so that we could be saved and then we turn around and tell Him it wasn't enough, that I need to help too.
The author gives us the example of a man that he once saw on TV who was spinning plates on top of a flimsy stick. He started out with one plate spinning and then proceeded to increase the number of spinning plates until it seemed that he could not keep up with going back and forth to keep the plates spinning. Have you ever felt like you had so many things going all at once that you didn't know how you were going to accomplish everything without allowing something to crash? That is how many Christians feel. They become so involved in things that it becomes overwhelming.
I know that sometimes I get overwhelmed by trying to do things that I feel God would like me to do. I always end up not being able to handle it all and then I feel like God is disappointed in me. I forget the gospel message and put my trust in my own works.
The moment that a person repents of their sin and trusts in the Lord for his salvation, he is immediately justified in God's eyes. There are no degrees of justification. You are declared just once and for all.
After a person is justified, God works in their lives to make them more like Jesus and that is called sanctification. This is an ongoing process and will continue until the day God brings you home to Heaven. Its not a matter of then earning or maintaining your justification. You are already completely just in God's eyes and that will not change.
I remind myself often that I have been saved by grace. It is all of God and nothing of me. These thoughts cause me to praise and thank God for saving me. The Holy Spirit gives me the desire to study the word, and to tell others about salvation. I do those things because I want to, not because if I don't God will be mad at me.
I urge you to take a look at your life and decide if you are "going through the motions," trying to please God through good works. If you are, please stop and remember that God loves you so much that He gave His Son for you. He made it possible for you to be just in His eyes. Just put your trust in Him and forget about trying to please God with works.
b
The chapter goes on to explain that if a person thinks he can earn his way to Heaven then it is equivalent to telling God that Jesus' death on the cross was either unnecessary or insufficient, and that His plan didn't work - that the cross wasn't enough and that he needs to add his own works in order to be saved. This way of thinking must hurt God. He had to give His own Son to die a horrible death so that we could be saved and then we turn around and tell Him it wasn't enough, that I need to help too.
The author gives us the example of a man that he once saw on TV who was spinning plates on top of a flimsy stick. He started out with one plate spinning and then proceeded to increase the number of spinning plates until it seemed that he could not keep up with going back and forth to keep the plates spinning. Have you ever felt like you had so many things going all at once that you didn't know how you were going to accomplish everything without allowing something to crash? That is how many Christians feel. They become so involved in things that it becomes overwhelming.
I know that sometimes I get overwhelmed by trying to do things that I feel God would like me to do. I always end up not being able to handle it all and then I feel like God is disappointed in me. I forget the gospel message and put my trust in my own works.
The moment that a person repents of their sin and trusts in the Lord for his salvation, he is immediately justified in God's eyes. There are no degrees of justification. You are declared just once and for all.
After a person is justified, God works in their lives to make them more like Jesus and that is called sanctification. This is an ongoing process and will continue until the day God brings you home to Heaven. Its not a matter of then earning or maintaining your justification. You are already completely just in God's eyes and that will not change.
I remind myself often that I have been saved by grace. It is all of God and nothing of me. These thoughts cause me to praise and thank God for saving me. The Holy Spirit gives me the desire to study the word, and to tell others about salvation. I do those things because I want to, not because if I don't God will be mad at me.
I urge you to take a look at your life and decide if you are "going through the motions," trying to please God through good works. If you are, please stop and remember that God loves you so much that He gave His Son for you. He made it possible for you to be just in His eyes. Just put your trust in Him and forget about trying to please God with works.
b
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Cross Centered Life: Ch.2
What's Your Life Centered On? That is the title of the 2nd chapter of The Cross Centered Life. It is a wonderful, heart-revealing question.C.J. Mahaney tries to show us how important it is to see what we build our lives around, what motivates us and what effects our lives, our decisions, our affections, passions, our characters.
Quite often what we center our lives on is something good, such as our families, ministry, and friends - all good gifts from God, yet so distracting. I know I tend to build my life around God's good gifts to me rather then God himself, as He has revealed Himself through the Gospel. He sent His only Son, Jesus, to bear the wrath that I deserve because of my sin. Jesus suffered, bled and died on a cross, in my place, to take the punishment I deserve, and bring me near to the Creator as a clean, forgiven, and much loved child of the Most High God! This is good news, and should be what my life is built on. The gospel is what my life should be centered on. There is much temptation to move on from the gospel, to what we may believe to be bigger and better things. We want to know the deep things of God. We want to move on to greater truths; and though that growth in the knowledge of the word of God is necessary, it is not bigger and better apart from the gospel. The christian life, beginning, middle, and end, is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ- what was accomplished through Jesus' death on the cross!
D.A. Carson said, " I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights hat take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far moved from idolatry."
This is a scary thought that it is so easy to build my life around my family rather then my family around the cross - the gospel, and that it is having an idol - something that takes my affections that rightly belong to God and sets it on that thing, such as my family. Perhaps for some of you, it is work, or friends, or a ministry , or pursuit of knowledge, that displaces the cross and becomes what you build your life, you actions, character, and affections on.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is of first importance in the life of a follower of Jesus. It is what should permeate all our thinking, family life, work, play, ministry and pursuit of knowledge.
C.J. Mahaney points out 3 ways of thinking that we slip into and draw us away from the gospel.
1. Legalism, which means basing our relationship with God on our own performance.
2. Condemnation, which means being more focused on our own sin than on God's grace.
3. Subjectivism, which means basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions.
I don't know about any of you, but I have all three of these tendencies at various times, and they kill my joy in the Lord.
We must battle, dear sisters, to keep the gospel at the center and not allow anything to distract us and allow us to make the gospel secondary in our lives.
What about you, what is of first importance to you?
What have you built your life on?
What do think about the most?
What do enjoy the most?
What do you your activities center around?
Let us pray together that we would never boast in anything but the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Quite often what we center our lives on is something good, such as our families, ministry, and friends - all good gifts from God, yet so distracting. I know I tend to build my life around God's good gifts to me rather then God himself, as He has revealed Himself through the Gospel. He sent His only Son, Jesus, to bear the wrath that I deserve because of my sin. Jesus suffered, bled and died on a cross, in my place, to take the punishment I deserve, and bring me near to the Creator as a clean, forgiven, and much loved child of the Most High God! This is good news, and should be what my life is built on. The gospel is what my life should be centered on. There is much temptation to move on from the gospel, to what we may believe to be bigger and better things. We want to know the deep things of God. We want to move on to greater truths; and though that growth in the knowledge of the word of God is necessary, it is not bigger and better apart from the gospel. The christian life, beginning, middle, and end, is all about the gospel of Jesus Christ- what was accomplished through Jesus' death on the cross!
D.A. Carson said, " I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights hat take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far moved from idolatry."
This is a scary thought that it is so easy to build my life around my family rather then my family around the cross - the gospel, and that it is having an idol - something that takes my affections that rightly belong to God and sets it on that thing, such as my family. Perhaps for some of you, it is work, or friends, or a ministry , or pursuit of knowledge, that displaces the cross and becomes what you build your life, you actions, character, and affections on.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is of first importance in the life of a follower of Jesus. It is what should permeate all our thinking, family life, work, play, ministry and pursuit of knowledge.
C.J. Mahaney points out 3 ways of thinking that we slip into and draw us away from the gospel.
1. Legalism, which means basing our relationship with God on our own performance.
2. Condemnation, which means being more focused on our own sin than on God's grace.
3. Subjectivism, which means basing our view of God on our changing feelings and emotions.
I don't know about any of you, but I have all three of these tendencies at various times, and they kill my joy in the Lord.
We must battle, dear sisters, to keep the gospel at the center and not allow anything to distract us and allow us to make the gospel secondary in our lives.
What about you, what is of first importance to you?
What have you built your life on?
What do think about the most?
What do enjoy the most?
What do you your activities center around?
Let us pray together that we would never boast in anything but the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Book Discussion: The Cross Centered Life, Chapter 1
In the first chapter of the Cross Centered Life, Mahaney introduces the concept of the importance of living a "cross centered life." On page 16 he writes, "Perhaps the purpose of this book is to restate the obvious, yet oft-neglected, truth of the gospel, to bring it before you one more time."
The gospel is the most important truth in a Christian's life but it is often forgotten in the business of daily life and eagerness to learn something "new." The result of this is always bad. We loose our joy, our focus, and our purpose. Mahaney says that the signs of not living a cross centered life are obvious, and then poses the following qualities of a person in this position to help us determine if this could be us.
The sad reality is that most of us live in the list I quoted from the book rather than the scene I just described. We are far from joyful, spending most of our days caught up in busywork and struggling with depression and anxiety. We don't share the gospel with our friends and neighbors because we are shy or scared or because we simply don't think to. And this is sad, friends. This is wrong.
Join me in rediscovering the great truth of the gospel, of recovering the joy you had when you first were saved. "The key to joy, to growth, to passion isn't hiding from you. It's right before your eyes.
It's the gospel."
The gospel is the most important truth in a Christian's life but it is often forgotten in the business of daily life and eagerness to learn something "new." The result of this is always bad. We loose our joy, our focus, and our purpose. Mahaney says that the signs of not living a cross centered life are obvious, and then poses the following qualities of a person in this position to help us determine if this could be us.
- You often lack joy.
- You're not consistently growing in spiritual maturity.
- Your love for God lacks passion.
- You're always looking for some new technique, some "new truth" or new experience that will pull all the pieces of your faith together.
The sad reality is that most of us live in the list I quoted from the book rather than the scene I just described. We are far from joyful, spending most of our days caught up in busywork and struggling with depression and anxiety. We don't share the gospel with our friends and neighbors because we are shy or scared or because we simply don't think to. And this is sad, friends. This is wrong.
Join me in rediscovering the great truth of the gospel, of recovering the joy you had when you first were saved. "The key to joy, to growth, to passion isn't hiding from you. It's right before your eyes.
It's the gospel."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Cross Centered Life Bookstudy
Good Morning Ladies. I was supposed to start our book study on the Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney today but I have not finished it. For that I apologize. It isn't all bad news, however, as that means that you will all have one more week to track the book down and start reading. And I would highly recommend that you do.The Cross Centered Life deals mainly with the gospel and the place that it should have in our lives. Mahaney speaks to the common thought that the gospel's only purpose is to get us saved...and then after we have been saved, it is our responsibility to grow into bigger and better things. He encourages believers to live their lives in the gospel, in such a way that it permeates every aspect of our life.
This is an excellent book and I hope that you all are planning to read it with us. We will post our discussion of chapter one next Thursday.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Leaning on the second Bookend
In this book the authors give us two things that are essential to the christian life, they call them bookends. The first book end on which we are to lean all that is our life is: The righteousness of Christ. The second is: The power of the Holy Spirit.
This last chapter in the book deals with leaning our "books" on this second bookend, rather then relying on ourselves and our own abilities. We could just read this book, agree that our existence as followers of Jesus is reliant on the righteousness of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, and become relaxed about it so as to fall back into shifting our dependence on ourselves - our own abilities, self-righteousness, intelligence, strengths, and will power, and reading this book will have been a vain exercise.
On page 136 it says: ....... we're to see " the immeasurable greatness of His great might" (Eph.1:18-19). We're to see this with the eyes of our hearts in a way that it touches our emotions, motivations, and decision-making. It's seeing a seeing so deep, it shifts our dependence away from our own strength and onto the strength of the Spirit of God.
This chapter gives three focal points for shifting and keeping our dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Our desperate weakness:
We must see that we are but dust, our frame is weak.
2. The reliable power of the Holy Spirit:
We are kept by the Spirit till the day of Christ.
1 Thess. 5:23- 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.
2Cor. 3:18 - And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image from one degree of glory ro another. For this comes from the Lord who is Spirit.
3. Rejection of self-reliance:
Self-reliance is dangerous. We must reject it!
The gospel is all about what Jesus has done on our behalf and nothing to do with us.
The gospel should humble us. Humility is what will kill self-reliance.
The quote in the book from John Stott really stood out to me as he described the best place to find humility as we battle the great evil of self-reliance:
Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have an inflated view of ourselves... until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size.
We will lean on the Power of the Holy Spirit if we keep the gospel before us.
Words from an old hymn race through my mind as I think through this chapter.
Near the cross! O Lamb of God, bring it's scenes before me; help me walk from day to day with it's shadow o'er me.
In the cross, in the cross be my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.
I have enjoyed reading this book and I am thinking I need to read it again someday soon.
I'd love to hear any thoughts that this book provoked for some of you, and perhaps some things that stood out to you in this final chapter.
Thanks for tuning in! May the Lord cause His grace to shine on you and bring you nearer to Him.
For those just tuning in, if you would like to catch up, you can here.
This last chapter in the book deals with leaning our "books" on this second bookend, rather then relying on ourselves and our own abilities. We could just read this book, agree that our existence as followers of Jesus is reliant on the righteousness of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, and become relaxed about it so as to fall back into shifting our dependence on ourselves - our own abilities, self-righteousness, intelligence, strengths, and will power, and reading this book will have been a vain exercise.
On page 136 it says: ....... we're to see " the immeasurable greatness of His great might" (Eph.1:18-19). We're to see this with the eyes of our hearts in a way that it touches our emotions, motivations, and decision-making. It's seeing a seeing so deep, it shifts our dependence away from our own strength and onto the strength of the Spirit of God.
This chapter gives three focal points for shifting and keeping our dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Our desperate weakness:
We must see that we are but dust, our frame is weak.
2. The reliable power of the Holy Spirit:
We are kept by the Spirit till the day of Christ.
1 Thess. 5:23- 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.
2Cor. 3:18 - And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image from one degree of glory ro another. For this comes from the Lord who is Spirit.
3. Rejection of self-reliance:
Self-reliance is dangerous. We must reject it!
The gospel is all about what Jesus has done on our behalf and nothing to do with us.
The gospel should humble us. Humility is what will kill self-reliance.
The quote in the book from John Stott really stood out to me as he described the best place to find humility as we battle the great evil of self-reliance:
Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have an inflated view of ourselves... until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size.
We will lean on the Power of the Holy Spirit if we keep the gospel before us.
Words from an old hymn race through my mind as I think through this chapter.
Near the cross! O Lamb of God, bring it's scenes before me; help me walk from day to day with it's shadow o'er me.
In the cross, in the cross be my glory ever, till my raptured soul shall find rest beyond the river.
I have enjoyed reading this book and I am thinking I need to read it again someday soon.
I'd love to hear any thoughts that this book provoked for some of you, and perhaps some things that stood out to you in this final chapter.
Thanks for tuning in! May the Lord cause His grace to shine on you and bring you nearer to Him.
For those just tuning in, if you would like to catch up, you can here.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Bookends Chapter 7: Dependent Responsibility
"We're to work diligently at our Christian growth but in the assurance that God is at work in us."
I think this quote from page 97 pretty much sums up chapter 7. The authors are saying, "Don't think you have found the loophole! You are still responsible for your actions!" A friend of mine said it really well, "You will never be judged on your fruitfulness but you will always be judged on your faithfulness." Rephrased this means, God will judge us based on our faithfulness to His commands and how seriously we take our sanctification. But He will never judge us on the outcomes of our faithfulness. You might spend your entire life witnessing to a tribe in Africa and never see a single convert. Fine. You were faithful to preach the Word. You will not be judged because souls were not won. You were faithful. The lesson? Work hard and trust God with the outcome.
This can be a difficult lesson to learn if you are anything like me, but it is a liberating idea. God is in complete control, so I am free to obey Him and know that it will be okay.
What part of the chapter stood out most to you?
Do you agree with the warnings regarding spiritual disciplines that the authors gave on page 99? Why or why not?
Which of the four disciplines they listed do you struggle with the most?
This was a short chapter but an important one. Ladies, do not rely on your own strength to accomplish anything. Put your trust in the Spirit. We truly can do nothing good apart from His power working through us.
I think this quote from page 97 pretty much sums up chapter 7. The authors are saying, "Don't think you have found the loophole! You are still responsible for your actions!" A friend of mine said it really well, "You will never be judged on your fruitfulness but you will always be judged on your faithfulness." Rephrased this means, God will judge us based on our faithfulness to His commands and how seriously we take our sanctification. But He will never judge us on the outcomes of our faithfulness. You might spend your entire life witnessing to a tribe in Africa and never see a single convert. Fine. You were faithful to preach the Word. You will not be judged because souls were not won. You were faithful. The lesson? Work hard and trust God with the outcome.
This can be a difficult lesson to learn if you are anything like me, but it is a liberating idea. God is in complete control, so I am free to obey Him and know that it will be okay.
What part of the chapter stood out most to you?
Do you agree with the warnings regarding spiritual disciplines that the authors gave on page 99? Why or why not?
Which of the four disciplines they listed do you struggle with the most?
This was a short chapter but an important one. Ladies, do not rely on your own strength to accomplish anything. Put your trust in the Spirit. We truly can do nothing good apart from His power working through us.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Bookends Ch. 5
The first bookend we learned about for the Christian life is: The righteousness of Christ. We have a right standing before God based solely on the righteousness that belongs to Jesus, apart from any effort of our own. This is Good News, it is news worth rejoicing over, meditating on, and it is motivating news. Because we are made right before God because of what Jesus has done on our behalf we have been brought near to God. We have the right to be called the children of God and have all the blessing that go with that. The problem is that even as children of God we at times forget or at least live like we have forgotten that our salvation is based on Christ alone and not our actions. Too often we get caught in the trap of trying to earn in some sense God's favor and pride kicks in.
We learned that the number one enemy of the gospel is self-righteousness and the enemy number two is persistent guilt. We can rest assure that if we are self-righteous or embrace persistent guilt we are not remembering that we have nothing apart from the righteousness of Christ and we stand clean and right before God for all eternity. In Chapter five we learn how to fight these enemies by learning to lean on the first bookend. The authors say by leaning they mean depending. This is how they define this type of dependence: Dependence on the first bookend means relying on, trusting in, and placing our confidence, faith, and hope in the righteousness of Christ.
As those who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ we may think, "no duh!' The trick is staying trusting, hoping, relying and being confident in the righteousness of Christ.
We have to start there and stay there! I don't know about you, but my pride is too great to stay there without struggling and slipping into a pattern of either persistent guilt or self-righteousness- I seem to go in and out of one or the other.
I loved the example the authors give when talking about Zaccheus. He responded to Jesus by repenting and following him, but the temptation to become proud comes into play if he at some point sees his acts of repentance such as giving to the poor and paying back quite generously those he defrauded, as things to place confidence in. His confidence in Jesus shifts to confidence in his own right actions. This example opened my eyes to ways self-righteousness can so easily sneak into my life; even though I know I have nothing to offer God but filthy rags and that apart from Him I can do nothing.
In this chapter we are given three focal points to help us fight for dependence on the first bookend.
1) Seeing ourselves as desperately lost sinners.
2) Seeing the righteousness of Christ as all-sufficient for us daily.
3) Seeing and rejecting any functional saviors. Functional saviors could be: career, possessions, sport, having a clean house (for me a finished house), working out, giving, ministry, not partying, or asceticism ( from the ἄσκησις, áskēsis, "exercise" describes a life-style characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures (especially sexual activity and consumption of food and drink) often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals.)
We must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday and in this book we were given some practical ways to do so.
I found using the gospel promises and filling in the blanks like on page 71 very helpful as well as page 73 where we are given a practical way to discover our functional savior.
Has anyone found help in doing any of these recommended exercises?
What do you do to keep dependent of the righteousness of Christ- to remember the gospel as the years pass on?
How do you preach the gospel to yourself?
Has this book been helpful to you? how?
What chapter has stood out for you so far?
Next week we will look more closely at the power of the Holy Spirit in all this.
We learned that the number one enemy of the gospel is self-righteousness and the enemy number two is persistent guilt. We can rest assure that if we are self-righteous or embrace persistent guilt we are not remembering that we have nothing apart from the righteousness of Christ and we stand clean and right before God for all eternity. In Chapter five we learn how to fight these enemies by learning to lean on the first bookend. The authors say by leaning they mean depending. This is how they define this type of dependence: Dependence on the first bookend means relying on, trusting in, and placing our confidence, faith, and hope in the righteousness of Christ.
As those who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ we may think, "no duh!' The trick is staying trusting, hoping, relying and being confident in the righteousness of Christ.
We have to start there and stay there! I don't know about you, but my pride is too great to stay there without struggling and slipping into a pattern of either persistent guilt or self-righteousness- I seem to go in and out of one or the other.
I loved the example the authors give when talking about Zaccheus. He responded to Jesus by repenting and following him, but the temptation to become proud comes into play if he at some point sees his acts of repentance such as giving to the poor and paying back quite generously those he defrauded, as things to place confidence in. His confidence in Jesus shifts to confidence in his own right actions. This example opened my eyes to ways self-righteousness can so easily sneak into my life; even though I know I have nothing to offer God but filthy rags and that apart from Him I can do nothing.
In this chapter we are given three focal points to help us fight for dependence on the first bookend.
1) Seeing ourselves as desperately lost sinners.
2) Seeing the righteousness of Christ as all-sufficient for us daily.
3) Seeing and rejecting any functional saviors. Functional saviors could be: career, possessions, sport, having a clean house (for me a finished house), working out, giving, ministry, not partying, or asceticism ( from the ἄσκησις, áskēsis, "exercise" describes a life-style characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures (especially sexual activity and consumption of food and drink) often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals.)
We must preach the gospel to ourselves everyday and in this book we were given some practical ways to do so.
I found using the gospel promises and filling in the blanks like on page 71 very helpful as well as page 73 where we are given a practical way to discover our functional savior.
Has anyone found help in doing any of these recommended exercises?
What do you do to keep dependent of the righteousness of Christ- to remember the gospel as the years pass on?
How do you preach the gospel to yourself?
Has this book been helpful to you? how?
What chapter has stood out for you so far?
Next week we will look more closely at the power of the Holy Spirit in all this.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Bookends of the Christian Life: Ch 4 Persistent Guilt
Last week, Betsy discussed the Gospel Enemy #1: Self Righteousness. This week we will learn more about the second gospel enemy: persistent guilt. This enemy is also a result of our dependence on ourselves to merit favor with God; however, at the same time we are very much aware of our inadequacy. Our spiritual growth is often halted while we struggle with our guilt.
Where does this guilt come from? Romans 2 tells us that it comes from our conscience. Our consciences serve us two purposes: first, it gives us warnings when we are about to sin, offering us the opportunity to choose a different path, and second, it declares us to be guilty when we do sin. Our conscience is a good thing, a God-given thing. Since all believers regularly commit sin, we all regularly hear our consciences declaring us guilty of our sin. It is massively important to remember, however, that "the message of the cross is absent from the signals sent by our guilty conscience; it only knows the law" and nothing of the cross.
I suffer from this 'enemy' a lot. I actually picked this chapter because of the fact that it was dealing with guilt. On pages 56-57, the authors list several questions we can ask to see if we are under the influence of this gospel enemy. Some of the questions I found most relevant to my own life were:
Are you painfully preoccupied with a particular habitual sin?
Are you discouraged or depressed by your failure to measure up?
Do you frequently experience anxiety that something's about to go wrong?
Is there something in your past that you just can't seem to get over?
Do your difficult circumstances seem like God's judgment for your sin?
Do you steer clear of intimate relationships or small group discussions?
Do you seldom think of the cross?
Its not good enough for us to try to convince ourselves that we are good people, regardless of what our conscience tell us, or to try to 'forgive' ourselves. The truth is, we are sinners - we are guilty of all the things we imagine ourselves to be. And we cannot save ourselves. We cannot fix up our lives no matter how hard we try to. There was an awesome quote on the bottom of page 57, "Only the life and death of Christ offers a legitimate path to freedom from a guilty conscience - legitimate because it was a real, lived-in-the-flesh, finished righteousness, applied to us forever."
Forever...
Sisters, we have been justified. God has declared us 'not guilty.' He has covered us with His Son's righteousness. We did nothing to become justified, we did nothing to deserve justification, and we can do nothing to loose our justification.
Therefore, we need to change our mindset regarding our sin. We should still hate it. We should still fight against it. We should still listen when our conscience tells us that we have sinned - but we should listen for the purpose of recognizing sin as sin, confessing our sin, and battling our sin always keeping in mind that we are able to fight our sin knowing that the battle has already been won for us! This should give us great courage as we fight. But we will only have courage and strength if we are constantly reminding ourselves of the gospel. The minute we loose sight of the gospel we will fall victim to these 'gospel enemies.' The authors provided some ways of shifting our mindset to the gospel:
Shift your focus away from your sin and onto Christ
Shift your focus to Christ, our mediator
Shift your focus to Christ crucified, risen, and ascended
Shift your focus to the glory of Christ
Shift your focus off of self-condemnation
Shift your focus off of self-contempt
We cannot face our guilt alone, for we truly are guilty of more than we can comprehend. However sinful you are aware of at your worst moment does not even come close to how guilty we actually are in reality. This is why it is so important to be continually immersing ourselves in the gospel - because only the gospel is stronger than our sin. Our guilt is immense - but Jesus' sacrifice was greater.
So the next time you are aware of your sin in huge ways, when you feel yourself about to crumble under its weight, when you want to just throw up your hands and give up, remember the gospel!
Where does this guilt come from? Romans 2 tells us that it comes from our conscience. Our consciences serve us two purposes: first, it gives us warnings when we are about to sin, offering us the opportunity to choose a different path, and second, it declares us to be guilty when we do sin. Our conscience is a good thing, a God-given thing. Since all believers regularly commit sin, we all regularly hear our consciences declaring us guilty of our sin. It is massively important to remember, however, that "the message of the cross is absent from the signals sent by our guilty conscience; it only knows the law" and nothing of the cross.
I suffer from this 'enemy' a lot. I actually picked this chapter because of the fact that it was dealing with guilt. On pages 56-57, the authors list several questions we can ask to see if we are under the influence of this gospel enemy. Some of the questions I found most relevant to my own life were:
Are you painfully preoccupied with a particular habitual sin?
Are you discouraged or depressed by your failure to measure up?
Do you frequently experience anxiety that something's about to go wrong?
Is there something in your past that you just can't seem to get over?
Do your difficult circumstances seem like God's judgment for your sin?
Do you steer clear of intimate relationships or small group discussions?
Do you seldom think of the cross?
Its not good enough for us to try to convince ourselves that we are good people, regardless of what our conscience tell us, or to try to 'forgive' ourselves. The truth is, we are sinners - we are guilty of all the things we imagine ourselves to be. And we cannot save ourselves. We cannot fix up our lives no matter how hard we try to. There was an awesome quote on the bottom of page 57, "Only the life and death of Christ offers a legitimate path to freedom from a guilty conscience - legitimate because it was a real, lived-in-the-flesh, finished righteousness, applied to us forever."
Forever...
Sisters, we have been justified. God has declared us 'not guilty.' He has covered us with His Son's righteousness. We did nothing to become justified, we did nothing to deserve justification, and we can do nothing to loose our justification.
Therefore, we need to change our mindset regarding our sin. We should still hate it. We should still fight against it. We should still listen when our conscience tells us that we have sinned - but we should listen for the purpose of recognizing sin as sin, confessing our sin, and battling our sin always keeping in mind that we are able to fight our sin knowing that the battle has already been won for us! This should give us great courage as we fight. But we will only have courage and strength if we are constantly reminding ourselves of the gospel. The minute we loose sight of the gospel we will fall victim to these 'gospel enemies.' The authors provided some ways of shifting our mindset to the gospel:
Shift your focus away from your sin and onto Christ
Shift your focus to Christ, our mediator
Shift your focus to Christ crucified, risen, and ascended
Shift your focus to the glory of Christ
Shift your focus off of self-condemnation
Shift your focus off of self-contempt
We cannot face our guilt alone, for we truly are guilty of more than we can comprehend. However sinful you are aware of at your worst moment does not even come close to how guilty we actually are in reality. This is why it is so important to be continually immersing ourselves in the gospel - because only the gospel is stronger than our sin. Our guilt is immense - but Jesus' sacrifice was greater.
So the next time you are aware of your sin in huge ways, when you feel yourself about to crumble under its weight, when you want to just throw up your hands and give up, remember the gospel!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Bookends Ch 3: Enemies of the Gospel: Self-Righteousness
To review, we learned that (using the analogy of our lives being like a bookshelf with many books on it) our first bookend which holds up all of our "books" must be the righteousness of Christ which is given to us through the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross in which God credits us with Christ's perfect righteousness. We learned that this good news is what motivates us to love Christ and to desire to be like Him; to grow in holiness.
Now this week, in the third chapter we are discussing an enemy of the gospel: self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is when we depend upon our own performance to merit (or earn) God's approval, access to God (or fellowship with Him), acceptance into God's family, admittance into heaven (eternal life), daily provision of our needs or wants, and/or the ability to live the Christian life.
Paul says that self-righteousness nullifies God's grace in Galatians 2:21. "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose". We learned that this doesn't mean that we lose our salvific grace, but rather that we lose the ability to experience God's grace. When we have a self-righteous attitude we do not have the assurance that based soley on the righteousness of Christ, we have all of those blessings that were mentioned earlier. So this nullifies the grace of God because we treat the gospel as unimportant or ineffective, when we act as though God's blessings are dependent upon us.
This is a subtle sin and can disguise itself in many ways in our lives. Certainly, there are those who think that if they are good enough they'll get into heaven; but I think it is more deceptive in the hearts of believers who do ultimately trust in Christ's righteousness for salvation, but who fall into the temptation to live like they must essentially do the rest.. as if our salvation was purchased by Christ but the rest is up to us. One example that they used in the book really hit home with me. They spoke of whether we expect an answer to prayer when we are being obedient more than when we're being less faithful. Do we figure that God owes us blessings based upon our faithfulness? The danger of this type of thinking is that it causes us to stop pointing to the glories of Christ and the cross and instead point at ourselves and our "accomplishments". When we do this in our minds we can start to model this to the world and as such, we change the good news that we are preaching. So we need to be on guard to see whether we are trusting in the glories of Christ as imparted to us on the cross, or whether we are resting on our works of "righteousness".
Here are some questions from the book that can help us to assess ourselves:
Do you think of the cross often? Do you think of it as one rescued or as one judging all those others who "just need Jesus"?
Do you find it difficult to respect those whose standards aren't as high as yours?
Do you feel like God owes you a good life? How about when life is difficult: do you get angry and feel like you deserve better?
Do you recognize your own sins as quickly as you recognize others? Do you resent it when people point out your weaknesses or do you become defensive?
Do you find it difficult to identify specific sins that you commit each day and are you in the habit of repenting of specific sins on a moment by moment basis? Do you rationalize your sin?
Do you assume that practicing spiritual disciplines should result in God's blessing: especially day by day? Do you tend to think that things will work out according to your plans because you read your bible or prayed, etc. on any given day?
I chose this chapter to write about because I know this struggle is a big part of my life and so I hoped this chapter would challenge and stretch me. I was not disappointed. I hope that you all enjoyed the chapter and yet were also wonderously convicted and moved (as I was) to press on toward the goal of resting in Christ's righteousness every second of every day, for His glory!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Bookends Ch. 2: The Motivation of the Gospel
Chapter 1 ended with these questions: If it is true that God's acceptance of me and His blessing on my life is based entirely on the righteousness of Christ, what difference does it make on how I live? Why should I make any effort? Why should I put myself through the pain of dealing with sin and seeking to grow in Christlike character if it doesn't effect my standing with God? This chapter answers these questions.
We are pointed to the miracle, the vastness and the glory of the gospel-forgiveness! The very fact that we are accepted by God as sinful enemies should cause us to worship not only with our words but with our lives. The authors take us on a journey through lives of three different characters in the bible and gives us their reaction to the good news of forgiveness.
They start with a prostitute, then a respected Jew and finally to Paul who, if anyone had a reason to boast, it would be him. From the lowly prostitute to the self-righteous Pharisee of Pharisees, we see an awe and love for the Savior that worked itself out in action. when they were forgiven. Each one realized they were forgiven much at a great cost.
This knowledge led them to radical worship rather then complacency!
We are motivated to act when we are overwhelmed with gratefulness and love for Jesus.
A point that stood out to me was on page 34: Genuine love for Christ comes through (1) an ever-growing consciousness of our own sinfulness and unworthiness, coupled with (2) the assurance that our sins, however great, have been forgiven through His death on the cross. Only love that is founded on both these foundations can be authentic and permanent. If we lack love for the Savior, both of these prerequisites are deficient.
As we realize how much we have been forgiven , our love with grow. Our love is weak when we do not see how great our need was and is.
I pray that the Lord will grow me in genuine affection as I become more and more aware of my own unworthiness and His great forgiveness. This chapter has caused me to think about the way I measure my growth as a disciple. Often it is based on my behavior rather then how grateful I have become and how much my affections for the savior have grown.
YOUR TURN
What stood out to you?
Did you identify with any of the three people described in this chapter? How?
Would you say that you have become more aware of your sin the longer you have been a believer?
How do you generally measure your spiritual growth?
We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Remember that Betsy will be doing chapter 3 next Friday.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Bookends of the Christian Life
The introduction to The Bookends of the Christian Life argues that without properly understanding the reality and the role of 1. The righteousness of Christ and 2. The power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then we will always be in a constant struggle in our pursuit of holiness and the glorification of God. Chapter 1 begins to deal with their arguments involving the righteousness of Christ.
Most of the chapter is spent explaining that we are not righteous, that Jesus Christ was righteous, that God expects perfect righteousness from us and that without perfect righteousness we cannot enter heaven, and that through Jesus' death on the cross, His righteousness was credited to believers.
So what does this mean practically? They begin to address this near the end of the chapter and this is where I would like most of the discussion to take place. This book is meant to be extremely practical in how it works out in our lives. The first point they make that I would like to discuss is found on page 27, "When...we depend on our own performance, whether good or bad in our estimate, as the basis of God's approval, our assurance that we stand before God as justified sinners inevitably fades."
If you are anything like me, you can think of a hundred ways that you act like God's approval of you is based on your actions. Obviously God is pleased and displeased with us based on our actions, but always as a loving Father would be towards his children. Our salvation is never in jeopardy. Now, I realize that this notion can be taken too far. For the sake of profitable and edifying conversation, lets assume that none of us are going to adopt a 'eat, drink, and be merry' lifestyle because of this truth. Lets instead look for the ways that fully coming to grips with its implications frees us from our sin. What are some ways in your own lives that this truth has affected you? Do you see any areas in your life where you are still working to earn God's approval? Have you ever experienced a time when remembering this truth gave you the courage and power to fight a particular sin in your life?
The second point is slightly different and found on page 28, "Second, we must place our reliance entirely on the perfect obedience and sin-bearing death of Christ as the sole basis of our standing before God - on our best days as well as our worst." How does this truth work out on our good days? On the days where obedience is easy, God's blessings our evident, we remembered to read our bible and pray, we didn't yell at our kids once, and we were respectful and submissive to our husbands. How do we remind ourselves of this truth on these days? Do you remind yourself? Just as it is vitally important for us to remember our justification on the bad days, the days where every time you turn around you see more sin in your life, it is just as important for us to remember our justification on our good days. It is so easy to forget the massive price that Jesus paid for us in His death on the cross when we view ourselves as 'having it together.' We must always remind ourselves that we would have nothing without Jesus' blood spilled on our behalf.
Okay then! Lets discuss...what part of the chapter did you find particularly helpful? Did you have any questions? concerns? disagreements? Please don't feel like you have to answer every question I asked here; I know there were a lot. Pick the ones you liked. :) Also, feel free to interact with what others have said. This should really feel more like a discussion rather than a bunch of people listing off their own opinions. I know its going to take some getting used to and be a little bit weird in the beginning but I'm very excited to see how this goes!
Don't forget that Jasmine has chapter 2 next week on Tuesday!
Most of the chapter is spent explaining that we are not righteous, that Jesus Christ was righteous, that God expects perfect righteousness from us and that without perfect righteousness we cannot enter heaven, and that through Jesus' death on the cross, His righteousness was credited to believers.
So what does this mean practically? They begin to address this near the end of the chapter and this is where I would like most of the discussion to take place. This book is meant to be extremely practical in how it works out in our lives. The first point they make that I would like to discuss is found on page 27, "When...we depend on our own performance, whether good or bad in our estimate, as the basis of God's approval, our assurance that we stand before God as justified sinners inevitably fades."
If you are anything like me, you can think of a hundred ways that you act like God's approval of you is based on your actions. Obviously God is pleased and displeased with us based on our actions, but always as a loving Father would be towards his children. Our salvation is never in jeopardy. Now, I realize that this notion can be taken too far. For the sake of profitable and edifying conversation, lets assume that none of us are going to adopt a 'eat, drink, and be merry' lifestyle because of this truth. Lets instead look for the ways that fully coming to grips with its implications frees us from our sin. What are some ways in your own lives that this truth has affected you? Do you see any areas in your life where you are still working to earn God's approval? Have you ever experienced a time when remembering this truth gave you the courage and power to fight a particular sin in your life?
The second point is slightly different and found on page 28, "Second, we must place our reliance entirely on the perfect obedience and sin-bearing death of Christ as the sole basis of our standing before God - on our best days as well as our worst." How does this truth work out on our good days? On the days where obedience is easy, God's blessings our evident, we remembered to read our bible and pray, we didn't yell at our kids once, and we were respectful and submissive to our husbands. How do we remind ourselves of this truth on these days? Do you remind yourself? Just as it is vitally important for us to remember our justification on the bad days, the days where every time you turn around you see more sin in your life, it is just as important for us to remember our justification on our good days. It is so easy to forget the massive price that Jesus paid for us in His death on the cross when we view ourselves as 'having it together.' We must always remind ourselves that we would have nothing without Jesus' blood spilled on our behalf.
Okay then! Lets discuss...what part of the chapter did you find particularly helpful? Did you have any questions? concerns? disagreements? Please don't feel like you have to answer every question I asked here; I know there were a lot. Pick the ones you liked. :) Also, feel free to interact with what others have said. This should really feel more like a discussion rather than a bunch of people listing off their own opinions. I know its going to take some getting used to and be a little bit weird in the beginning but I'm very excited to see how this goes!
Don't forget that Jasmine has chapter 2 next week on Tuesday!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Book Study
Happy Monday!! Wow, I miss saying that! :) I do realize that I am writing this on a Sunday, but this is because I don't want to risk forgetting to do this before work in the morning and not getting the announcement up until Monday evening sometime.
Jasmine, Betsy, Karen, and I are officially inviting you to take part in a book study with us! Here is how it will go:
The Book: The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington
When: Thursday, July 16
If you are anything like us, you enjoy fellowship, talking with friends, growing in your walk with the Lord, and reading...but you are unable to find much time to do this with your friends. Which is why we are proposing something new, namely, an online book study.
So how will this work? Well, in the next couple of weeks (before July 16th!) go out and buy the Bookends of the Christian Life. I think I got mine off Amazon for 9 bucks. Then read the first chapter and on the 16th, get on the True Women blog. I am taking the first chapter, which is why its on a Thursday. I will post some of my own observations and comments about chapter one along with some questions. Then you all, along with Jasmine, Betsy, Karen, and I, will have a discussion in the comments section.
I believe that Jasmine is taking chapter two, so the next week she will do a post on Tuesday. Then whoever has chapter three will do that post the following week on her day. There will be an announcement each week to let you know who has the chapter for next week and what day it will be on.
The conversation in the comments section can go all week long. We will be checking in at least once a day to see anything new that you have to say. So if this idea appeals to you, but you wouldn't be able to read until Monday, don't let that stop you! Come in on Monday, read, and join in the discussion!
Feel free to comment about any observations you have about the chapter or what I have written. Ask any questions you have. Answer any questions others have posted.
I truly believe that if you try this you will like it. It will be a chance for us all to grow together in Christ and have good fellowship...even if it is over the Internet!
We very much desire for all of you to join us in this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of us as you see us, shoot us an email, or call us. My own email is henry.nichole@gmail.com and I check it every day, usually more than once.
Jasmine, Betsy, Karen, and I are officially inviting you to take part in a book study with us! Here is how it will go:
The Book: The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington
When: Thursday, July 16
If you are anything like us, you enjoy fellowship, talking with friends, growing in your walk with the Lord, and reading...but you are unable to find much time to do this with your friends. Which is why we are proposing something new, namely, an online book study.
So how will this work? Well, in the next couple of weeks (before July 16th!) go out and buy the Bookends of the Christian Life. I think I got mine off Amazon for 9 bucks. Then read the first chapter and on the 16th, get on the True Women blog. I am taking the first chapter, which is why its on a Thursday. I will post some of my own observations and comments about chapter one along with some questions. Then you all, along with Jasmine, Betsy, Karen, and I, will have a discussion in the comments section.
I believe that Jasmine is taking chapter two, so the next week she will do a post on Tuesday. Then whoever has chapter three will do that post the following week on her day. There will be an announcement each week to let you know who has the chapter for next week and what day it will be on.
The conversation in the comments section can go all week long. We will be checking in at least once a day to see anything new that you have to say. So if this idea appeals to you, but you wouldn't be able to read until Monday, don't let that stop you! Come in on Monday, read, and join in the discussion!
Feel free to comment about any observations you have about the chapter or what I have written. Ask any questions you have. Answer any questions others have posted.
I truly believe that if you try this you will like it. It will be a chance for us all to grow together in Christ and have good fellowship...even if it is over the Internet!
We very much desire for all of you to join us in this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask any of us as you see us, shoot us an email, or call us. My own email is henry.nichole@gmail.com and I check it every day, usually more than once.
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