Love the Lord Jesus Christ!

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) with sweetness and conviction writes of our love to Christ. Oh, how we need, not only to read, but to embody such a life! Much Christianity (too much!) tends to be plastic and objective, failing to move our heart of hearts. Such is not what true faith was meant to engender. One must wonder what kind of faith most Christians espouse, for it seems to contain far too little passion for Christ himself.

The following is a somewhat abbreviated form of what I handed out to the Wednesday evening Bible Study. Though some of the language is archaic, its meaning comes through powerfully. I found it was especially impacting when read aloud. Try it! Meditate upon it.

Look that ye love the Lord Jesus Christ with a superlative love, with an overtopping [superior] love. There are none have suffered so much for you as Christ; there are none that can suffer so much for you as Christ. The least measure of that wrath that Christ hath sustained for you, would have broke the hearts, necks, and backs of all created beings.

O my friends! There is no love but a superlative love that is any ways suitable to the transcendent sufferings of dear Jesus. Oh, love him above your lusts, love him above your relations, love him above the world, love him above all your outward contentments and enjoyments; yea, love him above your very lives; for thus the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, primitive Christians, and the martyrs of old, have loved our Lord Jesus Christ with an overtopping love: Rev. 12:11, 'They loved not their lives unto the death;' that is, they slighted, contemned, yea, despised their lives, exposing them to hazard and loss, out of love to the Lamb, 'who had washed them in his blood.'

I have read of one Kilian, a Dutch schoolmaster, who being asked whether he did not love his wife and children, answered, “Were all the world a lump of gold, and in my hands to dispose of, I would leave it at my enemies' feet to live with them in a prison; but my soul and my Saviour are dearer to me than all.”

“If my father,” saith Jerome, “should stand before me, and my mother hang upon, and my brethren should press about me, I would break through my brethren, throw down my father, and tread underfoot my mother, to cleave to Jesus Christ.”

“Had I ten heads,” said Henry Voes, “they should all off for Christ.”

“If every hair of my head,” said John Ardley, martyr, “were a man, they should all suffer for the faith of Christ.”

“Let fire, racks, pulleys," said Ignatius, "and all the torments of hell come upon me, so I may win Christ.”

Love made Jerome to say, “O my Saviour, didst thou die for love of me, a love sadder than death, but to me a death more lovely than love itself? I cannot live, love thee, and be longer from thee.”

It is reported of Babylas, that when he was to die for Christ, he desired this favour, that his chains might be buried with him, as the ensigns of his honour.

Thus you see with what a superlative love, with what an overtopping love, former saints have loved our Lord Jesus; and can you, Christians, who are cold and low in your love to Christ, read over these instances, and not blush? [emphasis mine]

Certainly the more Christ hath suffered for us, the more dear Christ should be unto us; the more bitter his sufferings have been for us, the more sweet his love should be to us, and the more eminent should be our love to him. Oh, let a suffering Christ lie nearest your hearts; let him be your manna, your tree of life, your morning star. It is better to part with all than with this pearl of price. Christ is that golden pipe through which the golden oil of salvation runs; and oh, how should this inflame our love to Christ! Oh that our hearts were more affected with the sufferings of Christ! . . .

If a friend should die for us, how would our hearts be affected with his kindness, and shall the God of glory lay down his life for us, and shall we not be affected with his goodness (John 10: 17, 18)? Shall Saul be affected with David's kindness in sparing his life (1 Sam. 24: 16) and shall not we be affected with Christ's kindness, who, to save our life, lost his own? Oh, the infinite love of Christ, that he should leave his Father's bosom (John 1: 18), and come down from heaven, that he might carry you up to heaven (John 14: 1-4); that he that was a Son should take upon him the form of a servant (Phil. 2: 5-8), that you of slaves should be made sons, of enemies should be made friends, of heirs of wrath should be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8: 17); that to save us from everlasting ruin, Christ should stick at nothing, but be willing to be made flesh, to lie in a manger, to be tempted, deserted, persecuted, and to die upon a cross!

Oh what flames of love should these things kindle in all our hearts to Christ! Love is compared to fire; in heaping love upon our enemy, we heap coals of fire upon his head (Rom. 12: 19, 20; Prov. 26: 21). Now the property of fire is to turn all it meets with into its own nature: fire maketh all things fire; the coal maketh burning coals; and is it not a wonder then that Christ, having heaped abundance of the fiery coals of his love upon our heads, we should yet be as cold as corpses in our love to him. Ah! what sad metal are we made of, that Christ's fiery love cannot inflame our love to Christ! Moses wondered why the bush consumed not, when he sees it all on fire (Exod. 3: 3); but if you please but to look into your own hearts, you shall see a greater wonder; for you shall see that, though you walk like those three children in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3), even in the midst of Christ's fiery love flaming round about you; yet there is but little, very little, true smell of that sweet fire of love to be felt or found upon you or in you. Oh, when shall the sufferings of a dear and tender-hearted Saviour kindle such a flame of love in all our hearts, as shall still be a-breaking forth in our lips and lives, in our words and ways, to the praise and glory of free grace?

Amen!

12 Sins We Blame On Others--Part 2 of 2

Continued from yesterday . . .

7) A Critical Spirit--It's not my fault that the people around me are ignorant and inexperienced.

8) Bitterness--If you knew what that person did to me, you would understand my bitterness. How could I forgive something like that?

9) Gluttony--My wife/husband/roommate/friend is a wonderful cook! The things they make are impossible to resist.

10) Gossip--It's the people around me who start the conversations. There's no way to avoid hearing what others happen to say. And when others ask me questions, I can't avoid sharing what I know.

11) Self-Pity--I'll never be happy, because my marriage/family/job/ministry is so difficult.

12) Selfishness--I would be more generous if we had more money.

Making excuses like this is arrogant and foolish. It's a proud way of trying to justify our actions and pacify our guilty consciences. And it keeps us from humbling ourselves before God to repent of our sins and seek his forgiveness.

Consider James 1:13-15, which leaves us with no way of escaping our own sin and guilt. We cannot blame God, for he "cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one."

Instead, we have to accept the humbling truth that "each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire." This will end the blame game, and it will send us pleading for Christ's mercy and grace.

12 Sins We Blame On Others--Part 1 of 2

The following is thanks to Ben Reaoch, pastor at Three Rivers Community Church in Pittsburg, and found on Desiring God blog.

It started in the Garden. Adam said to God, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. (Genesis 3:12)

The first man, caught in the first sin, turns to blame his wife. And he extends the blame to God as well! He implies that he would have remained innocent if God hadn't put Eve in the garden with him.

The blame-shifting in the Garden continues today. Our proud hearts send us desperately looking for someone else to point to every time we're confronted with our own sin. There must be someone else—our spouse, sibling, parent, boss, co-worker, pastor, friend, or God, himself.

We are so desperate to justify ourselves that we become irrational. Here are 12 examples.

1) Anger--I wouldn't lose my temper if my co-workers were easier to get along with, or if my kids behaved better, or if my spouse were more considerate.

2) Impatience--I would be a very patient person if it weren't for traffic jams and long lines in the grocery store. If I didn't have so many things to do, and if the people around me weren't so slow, I would never become impatient!

3) Lust--I would have a pure mind if there weren't so many sensual images in our culture.

4) Anxiety--I wouldn't worry about the future if my life were just a little more secure—if I had more money, and no health problems.

5) Spiritual Apathy--My spiritual life would be so much more vibrant and I would struggle with sin less if my small group were more encouraging, or if Sunday school were more engaging, or if the music in the worship service were more lively, or if the sermons were better.

6) Insubordination--If my parents/bosses/elders were godly leaders, then I would joyfully follow them.

Part 2 tomorrow--

The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

The following insightful blog is thanks to John Piper:

I would like to encourage you to make some autumn resolutions. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Well, the examined life is not worth living either if the examination produces no resolutions. What examination and experience teach us is that the unplanned life settles into fruitless routine. The drifting life—the coasting, que-sera-sera, unreflective life—tends to be a wasted life.

The opposite of this is self-examination—life-examination, routine-examination, schedule-examination, heart-examination—followed by “resolves for good.” That’s what I encourage you to do. Here’s why I think God will be pleased when you do this by faith in Jesus.

Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12,

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I find this extremely encouraging. Paul prays for us—and I pray for you even as I write this—that God will “fulfill every resolve for good” that we have. This means that it is good to have resolves. God approves of it. It also means that our resolving is important, but that God’s enabling us to “fulfill” the resolves is crucial. Paul wouldn’t pray if God’s help weren’t needed. “The heart of manplans [resolves!] his way, but the Lord establishes [fulfills!] his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

But it matters how we resolve. When Paul says, “every resolve for good and every work of faith,” he is not describing two different acts. He is describing one act in two ways. It is a “resolve for good” because we will it. It is a “work of faith” because we depend on Jesus to give us power to fulfill it. That’show we resolve—by faith in Jesus.

So Paul says that the fulfilling of the resolve is “by his power.” That’s what we are depending on. That’s what we are looking for when we resolve. We are looking to Jesus who promised to be with us and help us. “I know that through . . . the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance” (Philippians 1:19).

This explains the words “so that” in Paul’s prayer: “...so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.” When you resolve something good and trust in the power of Jesus to help you do it, then “the name of our Lord Jesus is glorified.” If you depend on your willpower, your name will be glorified.

So Christian resolutions are different from the world’s resolutions. We believe that by grace alone we have been “called”—that is, captured by the truth and beauty of Christ. We resolve things not to make God be for us, but because he is already for us—that’s what his call makes plain. He opens our eyes to see and trust Christ. He shows us, in the cross, that he is totally for us. All our resolves are to walk more worthily of this calling.

They are faith resolves—faith that we are loved and called and justified. And faith that therefore Jesus will help us do what we resolve to do. When we resolve like that, the name of our Lord Jesus is magnified.

So pause sometime soon. Pause and examine your life this autumn. Examine what is missing that should be there. What is there that should be removed? What new dreams for ministry might you venture? What new habits do you want to build into your Fall schedule?

Evangelism: Man-centered Christianity

A. W. Tozer was a gifted prophet who was able to "see" the current situation with a keen eye and write insightfully about how the Church should respond. As a pastor, I have been delighted by the daily Tozer devotional which I have recommended to our flock and heartily recommend to you as well. This devotional is divided monthly by theme, which for August is "Evangelism." The following is from August 11th.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all. --1 Chronicles 29:11

Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show. (Man, The Dwelling Place of God: "Why People Find the Bible Difficult"), p. 27.

The Gospel Is A Complete Surprise

It’s the gospel that’s surprising; it’s the gospel that comes to us and throws us off our horse, because the gospel isn’t wired into us. The gospel only came about because after the Fall—though God could have invoked the judgments that he threatened in the Law—he instead promised a Savior and clothed Adam and Eve, took all their fig leaves, and clothed them with the sacrificial skins of animals pointing forward to Christ. That was a surprise, a complete surprise. God could have wiped them off the face of the earth at that point and that’s why they ran because their law compass said, “we’d better run.” That’s why religions, you know, throw kids into volcanoes; and have things like penance where they’ll go through and make all kinds of satisfaction—crawl on their knees, bloody their knees–do whatever needs to be done; go on suicide missions; do whatever it takes in order to appease this God they know they’ve offended.

Cheap v. Costly Grace

The following jewel issues from the pen of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from his classic, The Cost of Discipleship.

"Cheap grace is the enemy of the church. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth . . . an intellectual assent to that idea is held to be sufficient to secure remission of sins. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance. . . grace without discipleship, grace without a cross . . . Costly grace is the gospel . . . It is costly because it costs a man his life, and grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son . . . it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God . . . When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."