The Gospel Coalition

From Christ Is Deeper Still:

“It is a growing conviction of mine that no parish can fulfill its true function unless there is at the very center of its leadership life a small community of quietly fanatic, changed and truly converted Christians.  The trouble with most parishes is that nobody, including the pastor, is really greatly changed. . . .

We do not want ordinary men.  Ordinary men cannot win the brutally pagan life of a city like New York for Christ.  We want quiet fanatics.”

John Heuss, Our Christian Vocation (Greenwish, 1955), pages 15-16.

While much of the U.S. has seen its share of snow this year, total snowfall in the Caribbean has been… let me see… zero!  So much for radical climate change.

Aware that my son has never seen snow, my dear mother shoveled large amounts of the powder into plastic bags, dropped them into her deep freezer, and awaited the arrival of her 3-year old grandson.  Titus actually opined that snow came from tree leaves because one of his children’s books has a picture of a snow clad tree.  He asked Kristie one day: “Mom, do you remember snow?”

Yesterday, we went out to the back yard, ripped open the plastic bags, and watched little man examine the powder, taste it, dig his hands in, and participate in his first snowball fight.  A memory was definitely made.  This will be Titus’ “first snow.”  And my mom is “Grandmother of the Year.”

So, day one of our sojourn to South Africa is under our belts.  The Lord granted us safety and joy in the travel.  And again, I had the treat of experiencing a couple firsts with my son, Titus.

I hadn’t realized until we reached the Atlanta airport (sorry, Tony, not my favorite airport) that Titus had never had a ride on a train.  So, the little shuttle between terminals was his first time on a tram or subway car.  We sat in the last car, and he looked with wide-eyed fascination out the rear window as we sped through the tunnels.  He already has a fascination with tunnels… so a train in a tunnel was a double pleasure for him.  He didn’t want to get off the train when we reached our spot.  On the whole, it was planes, trains, and automobiles for little man.  He’s all boy, so that was a great adventure for him.  We pointed out that all he was missing was a boat ride.  “Boat?!” he said with renewed excitement.  “Not this time, fella.”

A second first.  I’m pretty old school.  Under no circumstances are children to sleep in the bed with their parents.  About 3am I rolled over to snuggle with my wife.  And who should I find lying between us, calling hogs like a farmer at the county fair?  Titus.  Okay… I still don’t want the kids in the bed with us, but it was cute.  Sounded ike he was sawing logs with long, slow strokes.  I rolled over again, and joined the melody.

Waaayyy… south.  The family and I have the privilege of traveling to S. Africa today.  After dropping my son with his grandma (we miss him already and we’ve not even dropped him off yet), we catch a flight from Atlanta to Jo’burg, then on to Durban.  It’ll be a great blessing to renew fellowship with Grant Retief and family in Durban, then to have a several days in the Cape with Mervyn Ellof and the saints at St. James.  I’m really looking forward to seeing Africa through the eyes of my daughters.  It’s only my second trip to the continent, but it’ll be their first.

My wife is excited, too.  Though she doesn’t really like to fly.  Today she’s waxing spiritual about flying.  Should be a lot of fun!

Laugh… it’s Monday.  HT: Mockingbird

“If the world is a vale of tears, Haiti is the best watered corner on the globe.  Since I was born Haitian, sainthood seemed to me to be the only way to attract Christ’s attention to a planet without tenderness or consolation.”

Haitian poet, essayist, and educator, Rene Depestre, from the short story, “Rosena on the Mountain,” in The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, p. 119.

More as to why…

A final snippet from Sinclair Ferguson’s Grow in Grace (pp. 58-59):

The Cross Demonstrates the Wisdom of God

How else could guilt and forgiveness appear in the presence of God at the same time?  How else could God remain equally faithful to his love for us and his just judgment of our sins?  The glory of the cross, its unimaginable wisdom lies in the way God has devised to provide for his people:

O loving wisdom of our God!

When all was sin and shame

a second Adam to the fight

And to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood

Which did in Adam fail,

Should strive afresh against the foe,

Should strive and should prevail.

It is truly the ‘trysting place where heaven’s love and heaven’s justice meet’, as Elizabeth Clephane’s great hymn puts it.

The cross is the heart of the gospel.  It makes the gospel good news: Christ has died for us.  He has stood in our place before God’s judgment seat.  He has borne our sins.  God has done something on the cross which we could never do for ourselves.

But God does something to us as well as for us through the cross.  He persuades us that he loves us.

The view that the cross shows us the love of God is inadequate if taken on its own.  But when taken alongside what we have already seen it sheds important light on what we should discover when we trust in Christ crucified.

God has accepted us for Christ’s sake.  But he wants to go further.  He intends to persuade us that he does accept us for Christ’s sake.  So he demonstrates, by adequate proof, his love to us.  When I look at the cross, I learn to say, “The Son of God loved me, and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20).  I begin to believe with Paul that if God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up to the cross for me, then he loves me so much he wil always give me only what will bring me blessing (Rom. 8:32).

Such conviction is a key point in Christian growth.  If we have deep-seated fears that God does not really love us (as many Christians have), we can only go so far in growing nearer to God.  There will come a point at which we will fear to trust him any further because we cannot be sure of his love.  When we look at ourselves, or our own faith, or our circumstances we will never be free from those lurking fears.  Satan will see to that.  But when we lift up our eyes and look on the cross we find the final persuasion that God is gracious towards us.  How can he be against us when all his wrath against us fell upon Christ?  How can he fail to care for us when he gave the only Son he had for our sake?  How can we doubt him when he has given us evidence of his love sufficient to banish all doubts?

The reason we lack assurance of his grace is because we fail to focus on that spot where he has revealed it.  But if we fail to focus our understanding there, we will fail to grow in grace.

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.  This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.  If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.  I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.  There is a sin that leads to death.  I am not saying that he should pray about that.  All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:13-17).

Follow the apostle’s thoughts link by link.

1.  He writes so that believers would be assured of eternal life (v. 13).  That’s what the letter is about: How can I know that I have the Son and have life.  Assurance of our fellowship with God, of His love for us, of our love for Him is the birthright of all those who have been born of God.

2.  Along with assurance, God wants us to know that He hears our prayers when we “ask anything according to his will” (v. 14).  We are to be confident of this when we approach God.  Believing, confident, God’ will-dependent prayer is also our birthright, for we know He hears us.

3.  Since God hears us, we know that we have whatever we ask of Him (v. 15).  Wow.  Savor that for a moment: we have life in the Son, we have an audience with the Father, and we have anything we ask for in accord with God’s will.

4.  But then John tells us one thing in keeping with God’s will that we should pray for specifically.  Imagine: The attention of heaven is riveted to our prayers and God is leaning forward desiring that we should ask something specifically in keeping with His will.  What should that be?  Pray for any brother we see committing a sin so that God will give him life!  “Anyone” who sees a brother in such sin and prays will be answered by God.  The effectiveness of the prayer isn’t limited to some special, select “prayer warriors.”  Anyone in Christ may move heaven to grant life by interceding for any brother caught in sin.

Oh, we should pray fervent, believing, confident prayers for one another’s deliverance from sin to life!  Who can you pray for today?  What brethren do you know committing sin and in need of life?

“If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who… corresponds to me, is agreeable to me….  But if it is God who says where he will be,… the place is the cross of Christ.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Meditating on the Word, p. 45.