The Holy Spirit makes men penitents long before He makes them divines; and he who believes what he knows, shall soon know more clearly what he believes. C. H. Spurgeon
We must remember this One thing in all our coming and goings to Church, in all our service and the exercises of our varied spiritual gifts. It must all be about Jesus and done as an outflow of our love and worship of him, anything more or less, is just religion.
Elegance, for the Christian, is simply a thousand actions washed in the blood and carrying the sweet savor of Jesus’ love. It is, above all, the seamless garment of worship and witness. - Harold M. Best “Unceasing Worship”
This song captures why heaven will be such bliss. Christ our Sovereign King and Treasure is there. And we will worship Him there forever and ever.
““Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!””
(Revelation 5:12 ESV)
Great advice from Rick Hogaboam on “Ten Reasons Why Calvinists Should Show More Humility”. I especially loved his insight in item number 6, “It’s His beauty that attracted us, not our intellect.”
As a Calvinist one of my goals in loving my Arminian brothers and sisters is breaking the stereotypes that all Reformed types are intellectual snobs who would rather argue doctrine than worship Jesus. Doctrine is very important, but the point of doctrine is the worship of Christ.
So for my Reformed brothers and sisters give Rick’s post some thought in regards to our humility, and for my Arminian brothers and sisters just know some Calvinists (By God’s Grace!) are working hard towards not being jerks. :~)
A direct link to the post.
http://endued.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/top-10-reasons-why-calvinists-should-show-more-humility/
I recently heard this great quote while listening on-line to a sermon from Matt Chandler at the Village Church. He said something along these lines. “We don’t follow Jesus because he makes things better, We follow Jesus because He is Better” and “We don’t follow Jesus because he makes life better, We follow Jesus because he is better than life”. Here in a couple of sentences you have the heart of what all true lovers of Christ profess. It crosses all denominations and cultures and is the only sure sign of a redeemed soul. We can talk all day about how much we are thankful and desirous of God’s blessings, we can shout and dance till our voices and bodies give out in praise for what he has done for us, and we should!. But it must go much deeper than that. We must move beyond thankfulness for His gifts, into worship for who He is! Until we can say “Jesus is better than life” we have not yet seen him nor worshipped Him as God. we have seen Him only as a means to a treasure but not “The Treasure”. My desire for my life and for the church as a whole is that we so speak, think and act that it is crystal clear why we follow Jesus. “He is better than all His gifts and blessings. He is better than safety comfort and shelter, He is better than family, friends and Church, He is better than life.”
Faith is the evidence that we have been born of God. We do not make ourselves born again by deciding to believe. God makes us willing to believe by causing us to be born again. - John Piper “Future Grace”
It is when we believe in Jesus Christ that our values change. We no longer conform to the world’s values, but find instead that we are being transformed by our renewed mind which grasps and approves the will of God. And nothing weans us from worldliness more than the cross of Christ. - John Stott “The Cross of Christ”
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
(1Peter 1:3-5 ESV)
1John 2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
“And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
(1John 3:3 ESV)
When we are sovereignly born of God we see Jesus as such a treasure that it causes us to walk in newness of life. We don’t get the Treasure because we walk in newness of life, but instead, we walk in newness of life because we have seen the Treasure. Quite simply, there is something about seeing Jesus that makes us a holy people.
The great danger of the prosperity gospel is that it allows unregenerate idolaters to remain so, all the while fooling them into thinking they have been born again. God seems worthy of worship because of what he as done for them not because of who he is. Jesus is a way to get to heaven but not the goal of heaven.
