G2!

I PASSED!!!

"You Max Lucado reading moron!"

I met a someone in Starbucks who strongly recommended looking up Kenneth Copeland Ministries and happily shared that he is part of a virtual church.  There are two things wrong with that and it ain't being in a Starbucks, oh and they can make me implode with sinful thoughts and feelings.  And back into the cage I go...  The following is a quote from Kevin De Young's blog that I just came across:

A second mark of crusty Christians is approachability, as in, not having any. There is a sizing up-ness that makes some theological types unnecessarily prickly. They are bright and opinionated and quickly analytical. As a result, knowingly or unknowingly, they emit a vibe which communicates something between “You Max Lucado reading moron!” and “I wish R.C. Sproul were here to teach you a thing or two!” Crusty Christians are hard to be around. They are intimidating instead of engaging and growling instead of gracious. They are too willing to share their opinions on everything and unable to put any doctrine in any category not marked “absolutely essential.”

oops.

The problem of good

Before my conversion I struggled with the problem of evil,  but ever since my conversion I've been struggling with the problem of good:  how do I make sense of all this good I see in people who are not Christian?  Seriously, I've encountered many people- unbelievers and professing Christians who I suspect are not regenerate - who are much more moral than I.  How can that be if I have the Holy Spirit?  How do they do it?  How can they consistently act so kind and selfless while I am impatient and rude, if they're not Christians -  and what does that say about my faith???

It used to ease my mind to believe that people gave to charity and did good deeds to feed the pride of their own goodness.  But how do I explain something like Dick Hoyt's self-sacrificial love for his son Rick?   What about something you see all the time: a unbelieving mother's love for her child - is the root of that totally depraved because they are not Christians? An unbeliever once challenged me about this and I started to say that there is no good in people so the root of a mother's love must be selfishness, which sounded so ridiculous to me as I had said it out loud that I scrambled to switch gears and all I could come up with was, "well it's because we are made in His image". That answer might have been o.k. with him, but it was not enough to for me! I thought no one could do any good without the Holy Spirit...

Well, hurray I can have my sanity back because of the Doctrine of Common Grace!  So far, I've read The Problem of Good by Scott Kauffmann. And adding on to my massive list of TO DO, He Shines in All that's Fair by Richard Mouw.  And a PRACTICAL conclusion of this DOCTRINE?

"We can affirm the “good” an unbeliever experiences as real good, not an illusion – and can say with confidence that this good comes from God."

It's not an illusion - I'm not crazy!  Amen!

Doctrine is practical

Tim Challies wrote this on his blog today (excerpt):

I recently read through R.C. Sproul’s book What Is Reformed Theology? Actually, I’ve recently read through almost all of R.C. Sproul’s books and have noted that he has several recurring emphases. One of these is the importance of a right understanding of God’s work of preservation. Of course this emphasis makes sense when you know that Sproul is a long-time teacher and defender of Reformed doctrine.

Sproul’s concern with understanding the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints is not purely a theological one; it is not simply that he wants to have his theology right. His concern is practical. “There is clearly a link between our assurance and our sanctification,” he says. “The person who lacks assurance of salvation is vulnerable to a myriad of threats to his personal growth. The confident Christian, certain of his salvation, is free from the paralyzing fear that can inhibit personal growth. Without assurance we are assailed by doubt and uncertainty with respect to God’s promises, which serve as an anchor for our souls.”

What Sproul wants people to see is that assurance of salvation, a doctrine which flows out of God’s act of preservation (Sproul says rightly that the doctrines may be distinguished from one another, but never separated), is critical to spiritual growth. Those who lack assurance that they are saved often become bogged down by concern for their salvation. They have trouble growing in their faith because they cannot see past the uncertainty about their own spiritual condition. And this makes perfect sense, right? It is difficult to grow in the deeper things if we are still wrestling with the very basics. This is why every Christian should seek assurance of his salvation.

So true.  I read Romans today and found this (I like the NIV's "perseverance" rather than the ESV's "endurance"):

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us."

The cage stage

Sorry guys, but I have a very serious condition and therefore should be caged off to prevent further attacks on others!

cage state | noun | demonstrating wild and possibly deranged excitement over the seventeenth century pronouncements of the Synod of the Canons of Dordt in the Netherlands. These pronouncements are often referred to as the five points of Calvinism and, once a person becomes convinced that these five points are true, he or she enters the dreaded "cage stage." The novice Calvinist is considered "armed and dangerous" during this period, which has been known to extend to six months, but in more serious cases can last up to ten years or longer.

Symptoms include: high fever that results in delirious incoherence of thought and speech; vomiting spasms brought on when anyone mentions "free will" or "asking Jesus into their heart" or the dreaded philosophy of Jacob Arminius; restlessness, especially during church services, when the sufferer goes more than an hour without hearing the TULIP's five bells ringing in their ears; and diahrrea of the mouth, where uncontrollable spasms of verbal nonsense put everyone within earshot at risk.

The recommended treatment is complete isolation, restriction of movement and speech, until the symptoms pass. Unfortunately, this treatment is rarely sought by the afflicted person, so family and friends are often left to suffer silently. The only person who can reach the cage stage victim is a more experienced Calvinist, because the victim's state of mind does not permit trust in any others. Please DO NOT attempt intervention without consulting an expert.

(from thin-edge.org)

Hymn: Dear refuge of my weary soul

Just found this hymn by Indelible Grace (I love love their version of Come Ye Sinners) and these are the first two verses. I can only be comforted by God and His Word when I have painful thoughts but there are times when I despair because of the thought that I may not be His - but what else can I do but trust...!

Dear refuge of my weary soul,
On Thee, when sorrows rise
On Thee, when waves of trouble roll,
My fainting hope relies
To Thee I tell each rising grief,
For Thou alone canst heal
Thy Word can bring a sweet relief,
For every pain I feel

But oh! When gloomy doubts prevail,
I fear to call Thee mine
The springs of comfort seem to fail,
And all my hopes decline
Yet gracious God, where shall I flee?
Thou art my only trust
And still my soul would cleave to Thee
Though prostrate in the dust

Meditation cont'd

I'm really curious about transforming the inner thought life. What am I supposed to be thinking about? Is it sinful to not think about God every second? Well, here's one thing I've just found so far in my search, an excerpt (all emphases mine) from Soul Nourishment First (by George Mueller):

I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, while meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon his precious Word, was, to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul.

The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer...

Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, either very soon after or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

Meditation

"on your law I meditate day and night"

"I have hidden your Word in my heart that I may not sin against you"

"take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ"

"O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day"

"I will ponder all you work, and meditate on you mighty deeds"

"whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God"

Low self-esteem is a manifestation of PRIDE

Here's a clip of "Blessed self-forgetfulness" sermon by Pastor Tim Keller. A must-hear.

DJ Kitteh!

I just find this hilarious (from YouTube).

I know Jenn will appreciate this one:

***note: The track "Wasted" by Gucci Mane from the YouTube clip, and the show Jersey Shore (fist pump reference) glorify sin, and desensitize us to it.