To Be Visited of God

I saw this on a friend's status today:

"Whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome, Jesus, what may soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee; and sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the beside and draw the curtains, and say, 'Courage, I am thy salvation' than to enjoy health..., being lusty and strong and never need to be visited of God."
- Samuel Rutherford

Of Men and Women

Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary writes some humorous lines on men and women in his book, God on Sex:

Is it a cat? Is it a woman? Maybe it's both! Why?

1. They do what they want.
2. They rarely listen to you.
3. They're totally unpredictable.
4. They whine when they're not happy.
5. When you want to play, they want to be alone.
6. When you want to be alone, they want to play.
7. They expect you to cater to their every whim.
8. They're moody.
9. They can drive you nuts and cost you an arm and a leg.
10. They leave hair everywhere.

Conclusion: Cats are tiny little women in fur coats.

Is it a dog? Is it a man? Maybe it's both! Why?

1. They lie around all day, sprawled out on the most comfortable piece of furniture in the house.
2. They can hear a package of food opening half a block away, but they can't hear you even when you're in the same room.
3. They leave their toys everywhere.
4. They growl when they're not happy.
5. When you want to play, they want to play.
6. When you want to be left alone, they still want to play.
7. They are great at begging.
8. They will love you forever if you feed them and rub their tummies.
9. They do disgusting things with their mouths and then try to give you a kiss..
10. They can look dumb and lovable all at the same time.

Conclusion: Dogs are tiny men in fur coats.

Reflecting on this with tongue firmly lodged in cheek, let us not be men and women who reflect the image and glory of our pets, but let us be genders that glorify God. And men, let us lead in the manner to which we have been called.

Let us be men who love their wives as Christ loves the Church, by laying down our very lives. Men who lead as Christ led, by washing feet, blessing children, and bearing others' burdens. Husbands whose faithfulness mirrors the faithfulness of Christ. Fathers who care for our children as our heavenly Father cares for His. Men who hold their God-given authority as those who are held responsible by God and will give account for how we spent it. Men like Christ, the First One who stepped down to become last.

(final paragraph adapted from a sermon by James Hamilton)

Your Passion, O Loving Christ, is My Refuge

"You have offended the infinite God with your sins, but an infinite price has been paid. You ought to be judged for your sins, but the Son of God has already been judged for the sins of the whole world, which He received in Himself. Your sins ought to be punished, but God already punished them in His Son. The wounds from your sin are great, but more precious is the balm of the blood of Christ.

Moses pronounces a curse against you (Deut 27:26), because you have not kept everything that has been written in the book of the law, but Christ has been made a curse for you (Gal 3:13). The handwriting has been written against you in the court of heaven, but Christ's blood has deleted it (Col 2:14).

Therefore, Your passion, O loving Christ, is my ultimate refuge."

~Johann Gerhard, Sacred Meditations

God's Justice Defended at the Cross of Christ

"By Jesus' sacrifice, God reveals and defends His justice in two ways. First, Jesus' suffering for the sins of His people means that any sins unpunished beforehand are now fully punished in Christ. God leaves no sin unpunished. Mercy and grace do not come at the expense of justice. Second, because the sins of the faithful are fully punished in Jesus, God may justly declare righteous those who have faith in Jesus. That's what it means to be justified in God's sight - to be declared righteous by faith in Jesus. The cross, rightly understood, is God's own answer to any objection that He is unfair to substitute Jesus for the unrighteous."

-Thabiti Anyabwile, The Gospel for Muslims, pp75-76

The Lord Rejoices Over Us

Isaiah 62:5b - For... as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

How heart-cheering to the believer is the delight which God has in his saints! We cannot see any reason in ourselves why the Lord should take pleasure in us; we cannot take delight in ourselves, for we often have to groan, being burdened; conscious of our sinfulness, and deploring our unfaithfulness; and we fear that God's people cannot take much delight in us, for they must perceive so much of our imperfections and our follies, that they may rather lament our infirmities than admire our graces. But we love to dwell upon this transcendent truth, this glorious mystery: that as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so does the Lord rejoice over us.

-Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, September 21st

You Can Change

I wanted to use this space to plug a book that I'm currently reading called You Can Change by Tim Chester. For those of us who have struggled against sin and often lost hope that we may ever have victory over those areas, then this book is awesome!

First of all, this book is about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and how His person and His work give us an expectation and power to change the way that we think, feel, and live. Some of us may struggle with lifestyles that we desire to change, but have a hard time actually changing. Some of us may have "decent" lifestyles, but our joy is almost completely gone and we find ourselves depressed, bored, joyless, and full of pessimism and complaining. Some of us may struggle with anxiety that overwhelms us or anger that controls us. The gospel is for us!

This book is also about hope. It's about hope in the power of God to transform our lives and our hearts, about connecting the gospel of grace with the "Monday-mornings" of our lives. It's about the promise of God to shape us into the image of Christ. It's about the hope that God is making us holy, and that is a great and wonderful thing.

Here's an excerpt from the book:

"One of our problems is that we think of holiness as giving up some things we enjoy out of a vague sense of obligation. But I'm convinced that holiness is always good news. God calls us to the good life. He's always bigger and better than anything sin has to offer. The key is to realize why change is good news in your struggles against sin."

To the glory of God,
Richard

Faith is Drawn and Driven

Notes on Jacob's wrestling with God in Genesis 32:

"Jacob's faith lays hold of the Angel in sheer desperation. Here is the core of his lifelong desire for the blessing. He grasps the One who is the Giver and the Gift, the Lord of life and hope.

True faith is not a flaccid acceptance of a better state of affairs. It is drawn and driven: drawn by the bursting recognition that God is real, and that he is here with me; driven by the emptiness and horror of guilt and dread apart from his blessing.

Faith grips the Lord, lays hold on eternal life. What Jacob claims is God's promise; he cannot be denied, for God has bound himself."

-Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture, p91