I am again grateful to Ben for providing a much-desired blog feature--blog subscription. You can now have the power to subscribe to my blog, receiving an email notice whenever a new post is made. You can also unsubscribe if you ever get sick of weekly/daily/sporadic emails from me. :-)
If you are already on my notification list, you will not need to subscribe. (but you could unsubscribe if you ever want. so now you have the control to unsubscribe without having to write a detailed letter explaining to me why you want to leave my thought-provoking, well-written, and informative blog :-).
Again, many thanks to Ben, and to all those people he thanks, too.
The doctrines of grace are the biblical teachings that
define the goal and means of God's perfect work of redemption.
They tell us that
God is the one who saves, for His own glory, and freely.
And they tell us that
He does so only through Christ, only on the basis of His grace, only with the perfection that marks everything the Father, Son, and Spirit do.
The doctrines of grace separate the Christian faith from the works‑based religions of men.
They direct us away from ourselves and solely to God's grace and mercy.
They destroy pride, instill humility, and exalt God.
James White, The Potter's Freedom
"...well, I'll just wear it, and if I get stopped I'll know it's bad..."
two girls overheard in a hallway
I'd like to recommend the "Who else am I?" search, sure to provide at the very least an amusing diversion.
(i'd use Google so you at least find out a little about the site you're going to before you get there.)
For instance, davidmorris.com reveals that I'm a big name international jeweler localized in the UK. (and that's a pretty nice looking site)
And at dmorris.com, I'm a real estate agent in the Reno area. (nice mustache, huh?)
And my personal favorite--davidmorris-whistler.com--where I'm the 2003 World Whistling Chamption. (another flash site)
(I wouldn't be too concerned about what else your name is associated with. It does make one wonder though...while I'm either providing useful services or winning world championships, Cathy's results seem to revolve around some pretty crazy spiritualism and self-helpism--see catherinemorris.com and this one too. Hmm... :-)
The followers of Jesus are to be different —
different from both the nominal church and the secular world,
different from both the religious and the irreligious.
The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation
anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian value-system,
ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition,
life-style and network of relationships — all of which are
totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world.
And this Christian Counterculture is the life of the kingdom of God,
a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.
John Stott
Sometimes I think it sounds a little cheesy when people describe a particularly compelling Bible verse as "jumping off the page at them." My experience has normally been that verses become meaningful, not at first glance, but after repeated meditation. In this case, however, perhaps both ideas were in action. Call it jumping off the page, or arresting my attention, or what you will, my attention was riveted in an unusual way to I Peter 2:24.
I'd been reading through 1 Peter, and I was just getting ready to start chapter 3, so I was going back to get a little bit of context out of the end of chapter 2 when verse 24 halted my progress. I never did make it out of that verse in the time I had that morning.
I think it was the recurring pronouns and focus on Him contrasted with His creation. He himself...our sins...his body...upon the tree. He bore my sin.
He--Divine Son of God, perfection, love, truth, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Creator. He bore our sins.
Our sins--heinous, deliberate, rebellious, recurring, disgraceful, God-hating.
And He bore those in His very own body. No transcendant eradication, no distant fix, no wooden agent. Genuine flesh and blood of God incarnate.
In the 4th century, Athanasius described it:
"What—or rather Who—was it that was needed for such grace...as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing?.... For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.
For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are.
But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us.... [Pitying] our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery ... He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own.
Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body.... He, the Mighty One, the Artificer [Creator] of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt.
Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us."
...by His wounds you have been healed.
It took Divine wounds to heal me.
Was my sin so great, my offense so extensive, my ability to make amends so impoverished? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. The Puritan John Flavel put it, "Judge the greatness of the wound by the breadth of the plaster." The plaster had to be the spotless Lamb, the great "I am", the Son of the only God. I had an enormous wound, and it took Divinity in flesh to heal me.
This isn't the first time Peter has been awed by the greatness of the Sacrifice. You were not redeemed with corruptible things,
but with precious blood...
And what did that Divine sacrifice accomplish? What can you get in exchange for precious blood? What kind of healing comes from Divine stripes?
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness...
His death made it possible for me to die to sins and live for righteousness. I could never do either of those things on my own! In fact, I'm not so sure I'm doing them well right now. I have willfully contradicted Christ's purpose in His extravegant gift of Himself. Every time I live to sins and die to righteousness, when I run to sin and live for self, or flirt with sin and only dabble with righteousness, I am living contrary to the very purpose and provision of Christ's agonizing stripes.
It took Divine wounds to heal me, and precious blood to buy me.
But they did. And now I'm free to sin no more! And to live doing righteousness!
Will I?
Will you?
My God, I love Thee;
Not because I hope for heaven thereby,
Nor yet because who love Thee not must die eternally.
Thou, O my Jesus, Thou didst me upon the cross embrace;
For me didst wear the nails and spear, and manifold disgrace.
Why, then why, O blessed Jesus Christ, should I not love
Thee well?
Not for the hope of winning heaven, or of escaping hell;
Not with the hope of gaining aught; not seeking a reward;
But as thyself hast loved me, O ever-loving Lord!
E'en so I love Thee, and will love, and in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God, and my Eternal King.
anonymous 17th-Century Latin poem
translated by Edward Caswall
These two articles are by Dave Doran from Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary . Due to a class on current church issues, I found them interesting.