If you do not see so much weakness and corruption, so much deadness and distraction, attending your best duties, as to convince you of the absolute need of the blood of Jesus, it is evident that you are not yet come off from Mt. Sinai Law as a covenant.
—Ebenezer ErskineMonday, February 28, 2022
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Never Expect Strength by Looking to Your Faith
Never expect strength by looking at your faith; look to Christ.
-- Dustin Benge.
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Biography Note on Luther's Death
On this day, February 18, 1546, 476 years ago, Martin Luther (1484-1546) died from a stroke, having delivered his last sermon only three days prior. As is true of all of us, Luther was not perfect. He had his faults. But God still used this godly man to set in motion the Reformation, preserving the integrity of His Word and the way of Salvation....by grace alone through faith alone.
"One aspect of Luther is often overlooked. Before Luther went to the monastery, he had already established himself as one of the brightest young minds in the field of law. Some heralded him as a legal genius. Once he applied his legal mind to the law of God, he saw things that most mortals miss.
Luther examined the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to love God with all the heart, then the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.
Most people do not think that way. None of us keeps the Great Commandment for five minutes. We may think that we do in a surface way, but upon a moment’s reflection it is clear that none of us loves God with our whole heart or our whole mind or our whole strength. No one loves his neighbor as he loves himself. Our comfort is that nobody is perfect. We all fall short of perfect love for God, so why worry about it? If God punished everyone who failed to keep the Great Commandment, He would have to punish everyone in the world. The test is too great, too demanding; it is not fair. God will have to judge us all on a curve.
Luther didn’t see it that way. He realized that if God graded on a curve, He would have to compromise His own holiness. To count on God doing so is supreme arrogance and supreme foolishness as well. God does not lower His own standards to accommodate us. He remains altogether holy, altogether righteous, and altogether just. But we are unjust and therein lies our dilemma.
Luther’s legal mind was haunted by the question: How can an unjust man survive in the presence of a holy God? Where everyone else was at ease in the matter, Luther was in agony. He wrote about others who so easily dismissed their sin: “Don’t you know that God dwells in light inaccessible?
Lesser minds went merrily along their way enjoying the bliss of ignorance. They were satisfied to think that God would compromise His own excellence and let them into heaven. They thought that surely God must grade on a curve.
Two things separated Luther from the rest of men: First, he knew who God was. Second, he understood the demands of the Law of that God. He had mastered the Law. Unless he came to understand the Gospel, he would die in torment.
Luther would look at the Law of God and its demands of perfection and he would analyze himself in light of the holy Law of God and he couldn't stand the result. He kept evaluating himself not by comparing himself to other human beings but by looking at the character of God, the righteousness of God, and he saw himself so awful in comparison of the righteousness of God.
One night while preparing his lecture for his students, he was reading Romans chapter one..."the righteousness of God is revealed by faith, and the just shall live by faith." Suddenly, the concept burst upon his mind. What this passage was teaching about was the righteousness that God provides for you and me, freely to anyone who puts their trust in Christ. Anyone who puts their trust in Christ receives the covering in the cloak of the righteousness of Christ.
Luther said that for the first time he realized his justification is established not on the basis of his own naked righteousness which will always fall short of the demands of God but solely on the righteousness of Jesus Christ which we receive through trusting faith. He said, "For the first time I understood the Gospel, the doors of Paradise swung open and I walked through. The just shall live by faith alone."
“The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11). The idea that justification is by faith alone, by the merits of Christ alone, was so central to the Gospel that Luther called it “the article upon which the church stands or falls.”
Once Luther grasped the teaching of Paul in Romans 1:17, he was reborn. The burden of his guilt was lifted. The crazed torment was ended. This meant so much to the man that he was able to stand against pope and council, prince and emperor, and, if necessary, the whole world.
I pray that the Gospel will not be eclipsed, that we may understand that in the presence of a holy God, we who are unjust may be justified by the fact that God in His holiness, without negotiating His holiness, has offered the holiness of His Son as a covering for our sin. Whoever puts their trust in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life (John 3:16). That is the Gospel for which Luther was prepared to die."
~ R. C. Sproul 1939-2017, “The Holiness of God - Luther's Insanity"
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Daily Grace is Needed
Beloved Christian reader, in matters of grace you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength.
Day by day you must seek help from above. It is a very happy assurance that you are provided with a regular allowance.
In the Word, through the ministry, by meditation, in prayer, and waiting upon God you will receive renewed strength.
In Jesus everything you need is provided for you. So enjoy your continual allowance. Never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.
Charles H. Spurgeon...
Friday, February 11, 2022
HOGS COME IN THE OPEN GATES
He who prays and watches not, is like him that sows a field with precious seed — but leaves the gate open for hogs to come and rout it up!
-- William Gurnall (1616 – 1679)We are not constrained
Let us open our mouth wide, since Christ is so ready to fill it. We are not constrained in his love, but in our own hearts.
SibbesThursday, February 10, 2022
Salvation is like God
Our salvation is like God, from everlasting to everlasting, from 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 [in eternity past] to [future] 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘺.
—Puritan Richard Sibbes, Works 7:62
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
LOOK ONLY UNTO CHRIST
God calls us to look off from all other things; look off from the law, look off from self, look off from sin,—look 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 unto Christ.
John OwenTuesday, February 8, 2022
INFINITE LOVE
The fountain of the grace and mercy of Christ is infinite. Whom he loves, he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had a beginning, and shall never have an end.
John Owen, on John 13:1; voices from the past, vol 2
WE PREACH AND PRAY
We preach and pray, and you hear; but there is no motion Christ-ward until the Spirit of God blows upon them.
John Flavel
NOT A LEGAL SANCTIFICATION.
This sanctification of the believers must then be properly understood.
It must not become a legal sanctification [by the terrors of Law] but is and must remain an evangelical sanctification [by the comforts of the Gospel]. —Herman Bavinck, Wonderful Works of God, Pg. 461
Sunday, February 6, 2022
CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST
When faith is lacking the antidote is not introspective self-examination but contemplation of the object of
our faith: Jesus the Lord, our sufficient Saviour. —Graeme Goldsworthy, Prayer and the Knowledge of God, Pg. 71Friday, February 4, 2022
GRASP THE TOTALITY OF THEIR DEPENDENCE
A Christian who rarely prays has yet to grasp the totality of their dependence on God in all things. Without God, you will not take your next breath; yet you think you will raise your children, be a good spouse, even do ministry work without seeking Him? --Jeff Bys.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
God did not wait
God did not wait for a change of heart on our part. He made the first move. Indeed, He did more than that. He did all was necessary to secure our reconciliation, including our change of heart. Even though He is the One offended by our sin, He is the One who makes amends to Himself through the death of Christ.
Jerry Bridges
I have prayed earnestly
“No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.” ~ Martin Luther
Fervency in Prayer
“Prayer is a lifting up of the mind and soul to God, which cannot be done rightly without offering violence to one's self. The names given to prayer imply violence. It is called wrestling (Genesis 32:24), and a pouring out of the soul (I Samuel 1:15), both of which imply vehemency…. That we may offer violence to ourselves and by fervency feather the wing of prayer, let these things be duly weighed. Consider the majesty of God with whom we have to do…. Nothing will sooner make God's anger wax hot than a cold prayer. Prayer without fervency and violence is no prayer; it is speaking, not praying…. [I]f anything may excite prayer and carry it in a fiery chariot up to heaven, it is when we know we pray for nothing but that which God is more willing to grant than we are to ask…. How then should we ply this oar and by a holy violence stir up ourselves to take hold of God! It is only violence and intenseness of spirit in prayer that has the promise of mercy affixed to it, ‘Knock, and it shall be opened’ (Matthew 7:7). Knocking is a violent motion.” ~Thomas Watson, Heaven Taken by Storm
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
CONVINCED OF THEIR NEED OF GOD'S POWER
For men have no taste for [God’s power] till they are convinced of their need of it and they immediately forget its value unless they are conditionally reminded by awareness of their own weakness.
John CalvinLife of David
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous" (Ps. 34:19): some internal, others external; some from friends, others from foes; some more directly at the hand of God, others more remotely by the instrumentality of the devil. Nor should this be thought strange. Such has been the lot of all God’s children in greater or lesser degree. Nor ought we to expect much comfort in a world which so basely crucified the Lord of glory. The sooner the Christian makes it his daily study to pass through this world as a stranger and pilgrim, anxious to depart and be with Christ, the better for his peace of mind. But it is natural to cling tenaciously to this life and to love the things of time and sense, and therefore most of the Lord’s people have to encounter many buffetings and have many disappointments before they are brought to hold temporal things with a light hand and before their silly hearts are weaned from that which satisfies not.”
~ Arthur Pink 1886-1952, “The Life of David”
AN EMPTY VESSEL
Prayer of Martin Luther (1483-1546)
"Behold, Lord, An empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in faith; Strengthen thou me. I am cold in love; Warm me and make me fervent That my love may go out to my neighbour. I do not have a strong and firm faith; At times I doubt and am unable to trust thee altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in thee. In thee I have sealed the treasures of all I have. I am poor; Thou art rich and didst come to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; Thou art upright. With me there is an abundance of sin; In thee is the fullness of righteousness. Therefore, I will remain with thee of who I can receive But to whom I may not give. Amen."
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
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