It will not be laid to my charge that I thought too highly of Jesus or expected too much from him. On the contrary.
John Newton
HT: Miscellanies
Author Archives: Matt Jury
“Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Will Only Make Me Stronger”
What cannot be cured must be endured is paganism. It is wonderful that paganism ever climbed to that height. It is a great attitude, it is heroic up to a certain point, but it is not Christianity. Christianity does not say what cannot be cured must be endured, it says, rather, These things must be endured because they are part of the cure. These things are to be cheerfully borne because they have the strange and mystic power to make whole and strong, and so lead to victory and the final glory. Christianity is never the dour pessimism which submits. Christianity is the cheerful optimism which cooperates with the process, because it sees through suffering and weakness, joy and strength come.
Christ Is No Careless Advocate
Christ is no careless advocate for His people. He knows your precise condition at this moment, and the exact state of your heart with regard to the temptation through which you are passing; more than that, He foresees the temptation which is awaiting you, and in His intercession He takes note of the future event which His prescient eye beholds. ‘Satan hath desired to have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.’
Do You Thrill at Being Forgiven?
One of the reasons that many Christians seem to have no thrill at being forgiven through the gospel is that they have not been broken hearted over their sin. They have not despared. They have not wrestled with warranted self-loathing. They have not grieve over their sin because of its moral repugnance, but have grieved only because of guilt feelings and threats of hell.
John Piper, God Is the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 105.
America the Beautiful
God Is Vastly Wonderful
God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful, that He can without anything other than Himself meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature.
Get the Telephone Pole out of Your Eye First
It is sad…that saints should have many eyes to behold one another’s infirmities, and not one eye to see each other’s graces.
HT: Challies.com
Is Your Prayer Request Your Own Curse?
We indeed feel our misery, but are not fully acquainted either with the cause, or the remedy…. If we know at all what to pray for, yet we have not adequate views of our original depravity, and our exceeding sinfulness and unbelief; nor of the fulness and power of Christ the Saviour. We do not regard the glory of God, but our own ease and pleasure. By nature we love outward good, and are ready to ask, in sickness for health, in pain for ease, in sorrow for comfort, in poverty for wealth, in disregard and contempt for honour and esteem; without considering God’s glory, or our eternal good. The mother of Zebedee’s children asked for a place of great honour for her sons; but our Lord said, “Ye know not what ye ask.” Matt. xx. Often those things which we are ready to ask for, would, if God were to give them to us, be our greatest curse.
Laboring To Learn and To Teach
The ministry of the word is a cooperative activity, in which the laity are to labor to learn just as hard as the minister labors to teach.
HT: @MarkDever
Grace Overwhelms Us with God’s Love
Grace overwhelms us with God’s love, and as a result our heart resonates with the desires of God. His purposes become our own. Our soul delights in his service as love for him and thanksgiving for his mercy make us long to honor him. True grace produces joy and promotes godliness.
Bryan Chapell, Holiness by Grace
HT: Reformed Quotes
Life Is Worship 