Thursday, August 25, 2011

SPIRITUAL DEPRESSION ITS CAUSES AND CURE

I am reading 'Spiritual Depression Its Causes and Cure' by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and have found a most profound passage that I thought worthy of sharing.  The book has been excellently written and is difficult to put down.  The passage I am quoting is concerning sin and whether or not you know that you are a sinner.

"Here is the test for you and me:  Are you loving God with all your being?  If you are not, you are a sinner.  That is the test.  'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.'  God has made us and He has made us for Himself.  He made man for His own glory and He intended man to live entirely for Him.  Man was to be His representative, and was to dwell in communion with Him.  He was to be the lord of the universe, he was to glorify God.  As it is put in the Shorter Catechism: 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever', and if you are not doing so you are a sinner of the deepest dye, whether you know it and feel it or not....So the question is:  Do you know God?  I am not asking if you believe in God, or if you believe certain things about Him.  To be a Christian is to have eternal life, and as our Lord says in John 17:3: 'This is life eternal to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent'.  So the test we apply to ourselves is that.  Not, 'Have I done this or that?'  My test is a positive one: 'Do I know God?  Is Jesus Christ real to me?'  I am not asking whether you know things about Him but do you know God, are you enjoying God, is God the centre of your life, the soul of your being, the source of you greatest joy?  He is meant to be."

Thursday, August 18, 2011

SORELY DISAPPOINTED

I am sorely disappointed this morning, both in myself and the American church.  I have been reading a book titled 'Radical' by David Platt and it has been very engaging.  I have gotten angry while reading it due to the great dilemma's he has created in my mind concerning how I have lived the last 29 years of my life and how I see the great majority of American Christians living theirs.  I must say, this book did not plant these thoughts in my mind.  I have been thinking them for quite sometime, but until reading this book I did not know how to explain the problem or describe it to others.  I will read the last chapter today before I go in to work, and truly, the main issue is a lack of one's dying to self.  I am sure all Christians, across the board, have struggled with this, but Americans have a way of not only NOT dying to self, but extravagantly living for one's self, slapping every man, woman and child in the face who has suffered severe persecution for the sake of Jesus Christ.  We live as if no one has ever suffered for the gospel's sake.  We live because they died and give little or no thought of it.  We forsake a great teaching of Christ when we decide to live our live behind our excuses, forsaking the needs of those around us.  How can the world hate us when we are just like them?  When will our families give us our promised persecution when we do nothing but think of our families?  How can we be hated in America, when we are living just like Americans do?  It isn't about what vices you've been delivered from since converting to Christianity.  It is about what you have done with the great freedom you have been given from those vices that matters.  Are you living for yourself?  I do not mean, are you still spending yourself on foolish vices, I mean are you, even though converted, living for your self?  You can be doing all sorts of Christian things, feeling as though you are not living for yourself when indeed you do nothing except that which is beneficial to yourself.  This is nothing but living for one's self!  Will you change your schedule for others in need around you, even if those closest to you will be angry with you?  Everyone can help out in their free time, even the world volunteers their free time to causes.  Are you helping when it hurts?  When no one else wants to help out and you are all alone in a situation are you willing to give up your desires, your time, your money and plans so that others can use you up like a few sheets of toilet paper that get one swipe and than thrown into the toilet?  This is death to self and it is likened to death because it hurts.  It flies directly in the face of how all Americans were raised to think and live and so you must be on guard at all times.  American self will not submit to this sort of behavior this side of eternity.  We are, as Christians, called to drown self in the pool of others needs and hold him under that blessed water until Christ returns.  He will writhe around in selfish anger and cry out for sustenance, but get violent with him!  Choke self out until he bleeds, until you sweat great drops of blood doing so.  You have been called not to glory in your American freedom, but to spend that freedom on others, even if it costs you your reputation, your family, your money and your precious, precious down time.  And so I ask, how is your freedom as an American hurting self or is it this freedom we have still a benefit to self?  The answer to this question will tell you how far off the battlefield you have wandered.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

JC RYLE ON SANCTIFICATION

Sanctification is the only sure mark of Gods’ election. . . . It is not given to us in this world to study the pages of the book of life, and see if our names are there. But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election, it is this — that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives.
“Peter . . . to those who are elect . . . in the sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Peter 1:1–2).
“Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).
“He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy” (Ephesians 1:4).
“We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5).

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

DESIRING TO FEEL SAVED BEFORE COMMITTING TO CHRIST

"I have talked with people that have no assurance of sins forgiven. They wanna feel saved before they’re willing to commit themselves to Christ. But I believe that the only ones whom God actually witnesses by His Spirit are born of Him, are the people whether they say it or not, that come to Jesus Christ and say something like this: “Lord Jesus, I’m gonna obey You and love You and serve You and do what You want me to do as long as I live even if I go to hell at the end of the road simply because You are worthy to be loved, obeyed and served. And I’m not trying to make a deal with You.” -Paris Reidhead

Thursday, August 4, 2011

PLEASE PRAY

This Saturday (8/6/2011) I am going to be visiting a man I began writing to several months ago.  He is in Potosi Correctional Center, in Missouri.  He is on death row awaiting his punishment.  This will be our first meeting together, face to face and I must admit, I do not know what to say.  He is a practicing Muslim, converting to the religion after he was incarcerated.  We have written back and forth many times, speaking much about religion.  I am hoping that we can speak candidly about where he thinks he will be after he is put to death, but how do you bring up a topic this heavy?  I am not even sure I ought to go there on my first visit.  Please be praying that I am a good friend to this man.  Pray that I love him when I see him.  Pray that I do not treat him as if he is just an evangelization experiment, but that I treat his soul as something worth 10 million times the price of my own.  Pray that God saves Him, because ten thousand visits won't do any good if God does not move.