How Grace Liberates Our Parenting (19:36)

Some great words of wisdom by Paul Tripp and Elyse Fitzpatrick on how grace radically changes the way we parent and relate to  our children. 

Gospel Quotes - The Point of Being Forgiven Your Sin

"We tend to preach the Gospel as if it’s only about the forgiveness of sins. But, in fact, the whole point about having your sins forgiven is to reconnect you to God so that you can live the life He’s designed you to have. So, the gift of the Spirit is the enabler in that. And that was the missing dimension in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament and the Mosaic Covenant, is that God was working with the law, but, He wasn’t working inside the heart. So, He promised a New Covenant in Jeremiah. He says, “I’m gonna put the law in your heart, I’m gonna bring it inside of you. That’s the Gospel and that is the message of Acts 2." -- Darrell Bock 

HT -  Zach Nielsen

What is Christianity About? Michael Bird

"According to the Gospels, Christianity is not a system of neo-platonic philosophy lodged inside a Jewish casing; Christianity is not German existentialism waiting to be set free from its religious mythology; Christianity is not a conservative or liberal political program looking for legitimation in religious tracts; rather, the Gospels show that Christianity is about following Jesus the Christ. Finally, the Gospels are reminders that the words and deeds of Jesus must be uppermost in the minds, hearts, prayers, thoughts, and devotion of the church. The Gospels urge that those who bear Christ’s name must be willing to believe in him and to follow him, through Galilee and Judea, through Gethsemane and Golgotha, through to the empty tomb and one day into the kingdom of heaven." -- Michael Bird

Related Links

The Fourfold Gospel: A Rationale - Michael Bird
What is Christianity? Christianity Explored  (3:12)
What is Christianity? Christianity Explored (6:09)
What is Christianity? Max Lucado

The Babyhood of God - Oswald Chambers 

The Heart of Christianity - Mark Driscoll

Three Ways to Live

Christless Christianity - Dr. Michael Horton (5:03)

A List for Self-Examination - Tim Keller

Tim Keller wrote a blog post yesterday on the City to City blog titled Blemishes in Christian Character: a List for Self-Examination. In it he talked about a letter written by John Newton, Blemishes in the Christian Life, in which "Newton points out that while most Christians succeed in avoiding the more gross external sins, many nonetheless overlook blemishes on their character by passing them off as mere “foibles.” They “may not seem to violate any express command of Scripture” and yet, they are “properly sinful” because they are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit that believers are supposed to exhibit."

Below is a list Tim Keller has come up with for self-examination based heavily on Newton's original list. As we come to the end of one year and the beginning of a new one it would do us good to have a time of reflection keeping in mind that we are not saved by our works but that God has good works for us to do.

Austerus is a solid and disciplined Christian, but abrasive, critical and ungenerous in dealing with people, temperamental, seldom giving compliments and praise, and almost never gentle.

Infitialis is a person of careful and deliberate character, but habitually cynical, negative, and pessimistic, always discouraging (“that will never work”), unsupportive and vaguely unhappy.

Pulsus is passionate, but also impulsive and impatient, not thinking things through, speaking too soon, always quick to complain and lodge a protest, often needing to apologize for rash statements.

Querulus is a person of strong convictions, but known to be very opinionated, a poor listener, argumentative, not very teachable, and very slow to admit they were wrong.

Subjectio is a resourceful and ambitious person, but also someone who often shades the truth, puts a lot of spin on things (close to misrepresentation), is very partisan, self-promoting, and turf-conscious.

Potestas gets things done, but needs to control every situation, has trouble sharing power, has a need to do everything him or herself, and is very suspicious and mistrustful of others.

Fragilis is friendly and seeks friends, but constantly gets his or her feelings hurt, easily feels slighted and put down, is often offended and upset by real and imagined criticism by others.

Curiosus is very sociable, but enjoys knowing negative things about people, finds ways of passing the news on, may divulge confidences, and enjoys confrontation too much.

Volatilis is very kind-hearted and eager to help, but simply not reliable—isn’t punctual, doesn’t follow through on promises, is always over-extended, and as a result may do shoddy work.

As I look at this list I am most grateful for God's grace in Christ Jesus for me. I always fall short but look forward to that day when I will be just like Jesus. It is this hope that helps me get through each day plus knowing that God uses the weak things of the world so that He gets the glory. Draw near to Him and He promises to draw near to you.

Do you fall short? Do you feel weak many times? Welcome to the club!

To God be the glory!!!

Gospel Quotes - It's All in Vain If

"All your church attendance, all your religious activities, your Sunday school attendance medals, your journals, having a “quiet time,” reading the Scriptures—it’s all in vain if you don’t have Christ.

We are saved, sanctified, and sustained by what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the power of his resurrection. If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of his glory and Christ of his sufficiency.

Romans 8:1 tells us that there is no condemnation for us, not because of all the great stuff we’ve done but because Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death.

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ." -- Matt Chandler

Gospel Quotes - The Way of Renewal and Transformation

"The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others.

Every kind of character flaw comes from this natural impulse to be our own savior through our performance and achievement. On the one hand, proud and disdainful personalities come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are succeeding. But on the other hand, discouraged and self-loathing personalities also come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are failing.

Belief in the gospel is not just the way to enter the kingdom of God; it is the way to address every obstacle and grow in every aspect. The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A-to-Z” of the Christian life.

The gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ — whether a heart, a relationship, a church, or a community. All our problems come from a lack of orientation to the gospel. Put positively, the gospel transforms our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything." -- Tim Keller

Gospel Quotes - Becoming Holy

"Christ is my righteousness. Christ is my holiness. Therefore, becoming holy is not primarily a matter of pursuing holiness but primarily a matter of pursuing Christ. Rather, becoming holy is a matter of receiving his pursuit of me. And any righteousness I pursue that doesn't have Jesus in the crosshairs of my effort -- or, again rather, having myself in the crosshairs of his effort -- is self-righteousness." -- Jared Wilson

Gospel Quotes - Real Spiritual Growth

"The answer isn’t to try harder in the Christian life but to comprehend more fully and clearly Christ’s incredible work on behalf of sinners and then to live in a more vital awareness of that grace day by day. Our main problem in the Christian life, in other words, is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good, but that we haven’t thought out the deep implications of the gospel and applied its powerful reality to all parts of our life. Real spiritual growth happens as we continually rediscover the gospel." -- Jerry Bridges

Top Posts This Week

Here are the top posts from this past week:

1. The Secret to a Rick and Satisfying Life
2.  It's About the Cross - E Vorba Despre Cruce
3.  Christmas Graphic - Luke 2:11 - English & Romanian
4. Three Ways to Live
5. The Story of God
   

Gospel Quotes - Show Something Beautiful

“If we stress the love of God without the holiness of God, it turns out only to be compromise. But if we stress the holiness of God without the love of God, we practice something that is hard and lacks beauty. And it is important to show forth beauty before a lost world and a lost generation. All too often young people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called upon to show to a watching world and to our own young people that the church is something beautiful. -- Francis A. Schaeffer

Three Ways to Live

Three Ways to Live

Here are the three possible ways there are to live in this world as I see it*:

1. Be your own god.
2. Make yourself right with God.
3. Trust Jesus.

Be You Own God

1. I live for me, myself and I.
2. I decide what is right and wrong.
3. I choose what to worship, what to live for, what to seek happiness and find satisfaction in.

Romans 1:18-20

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Thoughts

In these verses we see that people reject God because they love sin. They actively suppress their knowledge of God so that they can continue in sin. But they will be without excuse on judgment day because they should have realized that God exists from looking at what He created.

Romans 1:21-23

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Thoughts

Paul shows us that when people reject God they become foolish and their hearts become dark. When they stop worshipping God they don’t stop worshipping they just turn and worship something else. Sadly, they settle for so little when they could have had the Creator of the universe.

Romans 1:24-25

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 

Thoughts

When people reject God to be their own gods, one of the things that happens is that their sexual desires go out of control and become perverse. Why? Because the human body is the pinnacle of all that God created and because of that people are drawn to it in a powerful way.

Make Yourself Right with God

1. Live for self and God. 
2. Try to earn salvation – hoping good works will outweigh the bad.
3. Acknowledge God but only give Him part of heart – live a divided life.

Isaiah 64:6

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Trust Jesus

1. Live for Jesus
2. Rest in the salvation Jesus made possible through His life and death.
3. Obey, serve and worship Jesus out of love, not out of duty.. 

John 6:28-29

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

John 14:23-24

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

Three Ways to Live

Choose wisely the way you want to live. Don’t deceive yourself. Then find out how to live that way. Remember there are consequences both now and in eternity for the choice you make!

* I got my ideas about this from Tim Keller, who got his ideas from C.S. Lewis, who was one of the great Christian thinkers and writers of the 20^th century. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, and many more.

Window13 - November 2012 | Paul Tripp

Paul Tripp answers questions showing how the gospel applies to the problems and struggles we experience every day. Window13 is a once a month video program on the 13th of each month.

Here is a quote from the web page:

Human beings, made in the image of God, don't live life based on the facts of their experience, but based on the interpretation of the facts. The window you look through shapes your interpretation. What window are you looking through?

The Goal of the Gospel - Skye Jethani

Here is some good "food for thought" about the goal of the gospel by Skye Jethani. I would encourage you to take the time to watch this video.

Gospel Reflections

It is good for those who are disciples of Jesus to think deeply about the gospel and it's implications for living on a regular, if not daily, basis. Here are links to some blog posts to help you do just that.

1. Nobody’s Perfect (yet): The Inevitable Messiness of Being Human Pt 3
2. The Gospel's Antidote for Envy
3. Two Ways the Gospel Changes Your View of Sin
4. How the Gospel Makes Us Generous and Content with Our Money
5. Grace - More Than We Deserve, Greater than We Imagine (Video)
6. Things Which Ought To Be Better Known About The Resurrection Of Jesus (Video)

The Gospel Is A Complete, Whole View Of Life

“The gospel is not something partial or piecemeal: it takes in the whole life, the whole of history, the whole world. It tells us about the creation and the final judgment and everything in between. It is a complete, whole view of life, and many are unhappy in the Christian life because they have never realized that this way of life caters for the whole of man’s life and covers every eventuality in his experience. There is no aspect of life but that the gospel has something to say about it. The whole of life must come under its influence because it is all- inclusive; the gospel is meant to control and govern everything in our lives.” -- Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression

How Does One Live a Life Worthy of the Gospel?

When I read Philippians 1:27 (HCSB) "Just one thing: Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ..." the question that comes to my mind is, "How does one live a life worthy of the gospel?" I really like Scot McKnight's answer to this question:

In some ways, Paul explained what a life worthy of the gospel is in verse 21: "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." A life worthy of the gospel is a life lived for Christ. What does that look like? He says it in v. 27: it means striving together, in fellowship, in extending the gospel and preaching the gospel to others. A life worthy of the gospel is a life dedicated to that gospel -- to living it and preaching it.

I wholeheartedly agree! There is no agenda, no cause, absolutely nothing greater than the gospel to live for. The gospel is the greatest message of all time, without it none of history would have happened because God would have had to judge Adam and Eve immediately for their sin. It is such an amazing message that even angels long to look into it!

It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Angels desire to look into these things. 1 Peter 1:12 (HCSB)

Can you imagine that! Angels want to know the gospel! Why? I think it is because they see God in His majesty and holiness. They know Him in ways we can't even begin to comprehend and then they see how we reject God to be our owns gods and how we choose to find life, security, and love in created things rather than the Creator. Yet, in spite of this, God in His love, mercy and grace dealt with our sin, having His Son take the punishment Himself, in order to make reconciliation and restoration possible for us with Him.

So, knowing all of this they stand in awe of God and they want to know the gospel better because in doing so they get to know God better. It is sad that so few, who call themselves "Christian", can say the same. If you are in Christ open your hearts and your minds and make the effort to know the gospel better and better.

Then, like Scot McKnight said, dedicate your life to the gospel- living it and preaching it in the context of life with other disciples of Jesus. Do you want your life to count? Do you want your life to have the greatest possible impact and significance? Then die to yourself and live for Jesus and live like He did, trusting the Father, depending on the Holy Spirit, knowing the Word of God and then doing what Jesus said to do. Share the gospel and make disciples of all those who believe it. Now that is a life worth living for!