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Tag: grace

Published on Leave a comment on Resolved to pray? Your resolution is belated

From last night's sermon on Galatians 4:6:

A new year has begun, it’s often a time when we assess our Christian lives and think about how they’re going.  If I were to ask you ‘how is your prayer life going?’ How would you respond?

If you belong to Jesus, you can look me in the eye and tell me ‘My prayer life is unimprovable’.  How’s your prayer life? ‘My prayer life is divine.’

I am clothed in the Son of God and His prayer-life is pretty darned good.  And Galatians 4 verse 6 tells me that the Spirit of the Son is in me.  And what is He doing?  He is praying!

What is He praying?  He is praying the prayer of Jesus to the Father.  ‘Abba, Father’ is Jesus’ own prayer – He prayed it in the Garden of Gethsemane – it’s Jesus’ own prayer “Abba, Father.”  (Mark 14:36)  And the Spirit OF THE SON is praying that prayer from within ME.

I’m not just invited to pray, I am already caught up in the prayer life of God.  The Spirit is already praying Jesus’ perfect prayer IN me and praying it to the Father.

The Spirit is praying from within you right now, ‘Abba, Father, Abba, Father, Abba, Father’ – it’s as constant as your heart-beat.  ‘Abba, Father’ – that is your spiritual pulse.  The Spirit of the Son calling out to your Father from the depth of your being.

And those words ‘Abba, Father’ – they are not just the first line of a prayer.  ‘Abba, Father’ is the essence of prayer.  It is resting like a needy child in the arms of a strong and loving Heavenly Father.

And all our little prayers that we say (when we get around to it) – they are the ‘Amen’ to the Spirit’s continual prayer.  We’re always late to prayers – did you know that?  However early you get up in the morning – the Spirit has been up earlier, and He’s been praying in you.  You join in late and add your own Amen.

And as we go on in the Christian life, the Spirit of the Son will help our little prayers to become more child-like, so that more and more we call out “Daddy” the way He does (Rom 8:15).  And then we stop praying like slaves and start praying like sons.

Every time I forget I’m a son, I start praying like a slave and it kills my prayer life.  I pray like I’m a slave and He’s a slave-master, like I’m a soldier and He’s a commanding officer.  But Jesus didn’t teach us to pray ‘Our Sergeant-Major in Heaven’ or ‘Our Line Manager in Heaven’  – instead: Our Father in Heaven.

We need to be little children in prayer and thankfully the Spirit of the Son makes us exactly that and helps us to pray child-like prayers where we depend on our heavenly Dad.

Our own attempts at praying won’t be very good but, wonderfully, the Spirit takes even our most rubbish efforts at prayer and wraps them up in the Son’s perfect prayer and lifts them the to the Father.

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Published on Leave a comment on Self-giving is absolute reality

[I]n self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm of all creation and of all being. For the Eternal Word gives Himself in mortal sacrifice; and that not only on Calvary. For when He was crucified on Calvary He did that in the wild weather of His outlying provinces what He had done at home in glory and gladness. From before the foundation of the world, Christ surrenders begotten Deity back to begetting Deity, in obedience. And as the Son glorifies the Father, so also the Father glorifies the Son. ...From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and, by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever. This is not a... law which we can escape... What is outside the system of self-giving is... simply and solely Hell... that fierce imprisonment in the self... Self-giving is absolute reality.

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, ch 10, p157
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Read it and weep.
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Published on Leave a comment on God’s Glory In John’s Gospel

Jesus insists He will not glorify Himself, but His Father glorifies Him (John 8:50,54).  Glory is other-centred - even for God.

John 13:31 - "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified IN HIM."

Let's think about the 'Now'.  The Now is the cross.  The cross glorifies God.  This truth has two aspects, both of which need to be held together:

The cross glorifies GOD.

and

THE CROSS glorifies God.

The first is important, and we'll unpack its trinitarian character below.  But too easily we can trumpet the first without realizing the radical truth latent in the second affirmation.  The cross glorifies God.  God is glorified in His gracious, self-motivated, self-sacrificial, saving action.  Where the Son is lifted up in ignominy, in weakness, in apparent folly - there God is glorified.  What kind of God is glorified by this?  What is His glory, if this is it?  It can be nothing other than His incredible self-giving.

What else to say...

The Father is glorified in the Son and the Son in the Father (17:1-4).  This is an eternal, intra-trinitarian truth.  But it also flows out via the incarnate Son and through His work.

This eternal glory is displayed at the cross. (17:5,24)

It doesn't stand behind the cross, it IS the cross.

The cross is not a bridge or stepping stone to something else called glory.  The cross is the display of God's eternal glory.  Whatever Jesus brings us into at the cross, it is the eternal glory of God.

Can we begin to grasp this?  The cross and eternity, eternity and the cross - Jesus wants us to hold these things together somehow.

The glory of God is not simply locked up in eternity - not simply an impenetrable family secret between Father and Son.  It's not a banqueting hall replete in itself and Christ crucified is merely the door into it.  Christ crucified and the bride He would thereby win is at the heart of it.  The bride is certainly in by grace and not by nature - yet it is God's glory to include us in His eternal life.

John 17:10 - Jesus speaks of His church and says, "I am glorified in them."  (KJV)

Again we need to hold onto both sides of this:

JESUS is glorified in the church

and

Jesus is glorified IN THE CHURCH

Wow.  Just as the Father is glorified in the Son, the Son is glorified in His people.

Wrap your head around that one!  The eternal Christ is glorified in His Church.

Now obviously glory is not a something we give to Jesus.  As He says:

"I do not receive glory from men."  (John 5:41)

We've got nothing to offer in the glory stakes.  So then, how is Christ glorified in His church.  It must be because His glory simply is to give Himself to us in incarnation, cross and exaltation.  In this way He is glorified.  Because His grace is His glory.

We therefore participate in the divine glory.  How?  By receiving it.  (John 5:44).

And so we find ourselves on the receiving end of God's glory, which IS His trinitarian life overflowing in creation, salvation and judgement.

But not only does this glory spread out from Father to Son and Son to Church, such glory is meant to draw in the whole world:

"I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."  (John 17:23)

So then:

God's glory is the cross.

It is other-centred.

It is ecstatic ('ek' - out of; 'stasis' - where you stand) and eccentric (out of the centre).

It overflows to include us.

We do not add to it but it is His glory to make us part of it!

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Published on Leave a comment on He loves us because He loves us

I wasn't a huge fan of this paragraph quoted on Tony's blog (as my comment makes clear).

But I love this one:

Thomas Manton, from a sermon on John 3:16

“Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love, God showed his wisdom, power, justice, and holiness in our redemption by Christ. If you ask why he made so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and had now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand, Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us; for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go. And the same reason is given by Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7–8: ‘The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you…’ That is, in short, he loved you because he loved you. All came from his free and undeserved mercy; higher we cannot go in seeking after the causes of what is done for our salvation.”

–Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, 2:340–341.

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Huh?

Huh?

That's what I'm talkin about.

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Published on 38 Comments on Glory is not…

Glory is not a something that God gets.  Glory is the display of who God is. 

And this display, shining out from Christ and Him crucified, reveals the overflowing plenitude of God's being as Giver.

Glory is not what lies behind the cross (the cross considered as a veil or mere stepping-stone).  God's glory is this self-giving cross.

It's not 'the Giver gets the glory.'  It's - 'God's glory is His giving'

Glory is not what God gets.  God's grace is His glory.

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Published on Leave a comment on No merit in man’s receiving – only in God’s giving

“To be bursting with thanksgiving is a true witness of the Spirit within us. For the voice of thanksgiving speaks without ceasing of the goodness of God. It claims nothing. It sees no merit in man’s receiving but only in God’s giving. It marvels at his mercy. It is the language of joy because it need look no longer to its own resources.

The Christian rejoicing in this blessing of a thankful heart will have his eyes fixed upon the right person and the right place, Christ at God’s right hand. He cannot be taken up with himself without being immediately reminded that everything he possesses is the gift of God.”

R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians and Philemon

ht Rosemary

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Thanksgiving for a God who is already good, merciful and radically, super-abundantly giving.  Daddy already looks good, and I'm just grateful!

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Published on Leave a comment on No merit in man's receiving – only in God's giving

“To be bursting with thanksgiving is a true witness of the Spirit within us. For the voice of thanksgiving speaks without ceasing of the goodness of God. It claims nothing. It sees no merit in man’s receiving but only in God’s giving. It marvels at his mercy. It is the language of joy because it need look no longer to its own resources.

The Christian rejoicing in this blessing of a thankful heart will have his eyes fixed upon the right person and the right place, Christ at God’s right hand. He cannot be taken up with himself without being immediately reminded that everything he possesses is the gift of God.”

R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians and Philemon

ht Rosemary

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Thanksgiving for a God who is already good, merciful and radically, super-abundantly giving.  Daddy already looks good, and I'm just grateful!

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Published on 33 Comments on Why should I let you into my heaven?

From Doug Wilson:

I was talking to a woman one time... and she told me sheepishly about her first reaction to that great grace question hypothetically presented at the pearly gates -- "why should I let you into heaven?" The right answer of course is a variant of "because of the blood of Jesus Christ, plus nothing." She told me that her first instinctive reaction was, "Gee, I hope I remember to say that."

See how faith can so easily be turned into a work?

If you are going to ask and answer this question, I think this is a much better response (from De Regno Christi)

[When I'm asked 'Why should I let you into my heaven?']  I’ll bow and be silent. Then I’ll hear a voice,
“Father, he’s mine.”

Do you see?  It's not your faith that saves.  It's Christ.

Here's Spurgeon (read the whole magnificent devotion here):

Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument–it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by “looking unto Jesus.”

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Published on Leave a comment on Mike Reeves on Justification part 1

Hour long talk.  Mike opens with the story of justification. Really, really good.

Here's an early stop along the road.  The Epistle to Diognetus:

He himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!  (Epistle to Diognetus, ch9)

Sorry I'm only posting links at the moment.  I've been wasting a lot of time trying to get my hands on workable video creating software.  No joy yet.

We always imagine technology will side-step the curse.  It's always a shock to realize technology just forces us to engage it all the deeper!

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