by: John Park, July 14th, 2010
Just got through reading C.J. Mahaney’s book, Humility: True Greatness. It was a timely reminder for me, a person who constantly struggles with intense pride and arrogance. I would recommend this short and practical book to anyone. But, just in case, here’s a good list of suggestions found in the back of the book on how to weaken pride and cultivate humility.
Always:
1. Reflect on the wonder of the cross of Christ.
As Each Day Begins:
2. Begin your day by acknowledging your dependence upon God and your need for God.
3. Begin your day expressing gratefulness to God.
4. Practice the spiritual disciplines – prayer, study of God’s Word, worship. Do this consistently each day and at the day’s outset, if possible.
5. Seize your commute time to memorize and meditate on Scripture.
6. Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.
As Each Day Ends:
7. At the end of the day, transfer the glory to God.
8. Before going to sleep, receive this gift of sleep from God and acknowledge His purpose for sleep.
For Special Focus:
9. Study the attributes of God.
10. Study the doctrines of grace.
11. Study the doctrine of sin.
12. Play golf as much as possible.
13. Laugh often, and laugh often at yourself.
Throughout Your Days and Weeks:
14. Identify evidences of grace in others.
15. Encourage and serve others each and every day.
16. Invite and pursue correction.
17. Respond humbly to trials.
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by: John Park, June 9th, 2010
For those of us who wanted to grow deeper in our understanding of the Gospel and other great biblical truths (but, for one reason or another, never had the time), here’s a link to all the audio of the messages that were delivered at the NEXT Conference that was held this past May. Topics that were covered include:
- What Are You Built On? by Joshua Harris
- The Doctrine of Christ’s Work Accomplished and Applied by Mark Dever
- Scripture by Kevin DeYoung
- Sanctification by C.J. Mahaney
- God by D.A. Carson
- The Church by Kevin DeYoung
- The End Times by Jeff Purswell
Just finished listening to C.J. Mahaney’s message on Sanctification as it was something that I’ve been wrestling with recently to understand – and let me say, God spoke powerfully as C.J. Mahaney clearly and powerfully expounded Philippians 2:12-13.
Again, here’s the link.
[HT: Justin Taylor]
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by: John Park, June 4th, 2010
Here’s a helpful post on Kevin DeYoung’s blog about how one can go about distinguishing between godly grief and worldly grief. But first, here is how he defines the two terms, as according to 2 Corinthians 7:8-13.
Once we hate sin we are more inclined to run away from it. Grief, you notice, is not the same as repentance. Most people think grief equals repentance. They feel really bad about something, therefore they are repentant. But notice in verse 9 (2 Corinthians 7:9) that godly grief leads to repentance.
There is an eternal difference between regret and repentance. Regret feels bad about past sins. Repentance turns away from past sins. Most of us are content with regret. We just want to feel bad for awhile, have a good cry, enjoy the cathartic experience, bewail our sin and how selfish/stupid/sorry we are. But we don’t really want to change. We don’t really want to live different than we have been.
Godly grief produces true repentance, which leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10). Instead of obsessing over regrets and feeling bad due to the opinions of others, godly grief mourns for sin, turns from sin, and finds forgiveness for sin in Christ.
Now, here’s a helpful description of how we can go about distinguishing godly grief from worldly grief:
Here’s one way to distinguish between worldly grief and godly grief: one mobilizes you into action and the other immobilizes you.
- Godly grief is a fruitful and effective emotion. We are not meant to wallow in this grief. It is supposed to spur us to action, to change, to make right our wrongs, to be zealous for good works, to run from sin and start walking in the opposite direction.
- But worldly grief makes you idle and stagnant. You don’t change. You don’t grow. You don’t fight against the deeds of the flesh. Instead you ruminate on your mistakes and obsess about what people’s opinions and ponder what might have been. If you feel sorry for your sin you will be moved to action not to wallow in it week after week, year after year. Do you want to feel bad or do you want to change?
Some of us, truth be told, would rather feel bad. It’s easier than being changed.
Here’s the link to the rest of the article.
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by: John Park, June 1st, 2010
This past Sunday, looking at Mark 13:32-37, I made the point that Jesus Christ is calling us to live each and every single day of our lives with the following mentality: “Today could very well be my last day here on this earth before I stand before a holy and righteous God.”
Jesus, in Mark 13:32-37 essentially says, “Be on guard, keep awake because you don’t know when I’m coming back!” Also, James, in James 4:13-17, admonishes us to not boast about tomorrow because we have absolutely no guarantee that we’ll even live to see tomorrow. Instead, we “ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’ (James 4:15).
For Christians especially, this shouldn’t produce fear in us, but rather a deep joy because, in the end, this is a clear reminder that our good, gracious, and loving master, who paid for our freedom with his blood, is coming back (1 Corinthians 6:20; Mark 13:34-36). And because he’s coming back, we want to do everything to please our master and hear those glorious words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:21).
And so, this is a clear principle laid out in Scripture: live each day with the mentality that today could very well be the last day on this earth before we stand before a holy and righteous God.
But the question that inevitably comes up, then, is this: “Does that mean that we don’t plan for the future? Is it wrong to plan to go to college; to get a job; have a family; etc?” Simple answer is no.
Though the Bible is clear that we should live our lives with this mentality (mentioned above), the Bible is also clear that we should plan as best as we can. For example, the book of Proverbs is filled with practical advice about planning (e.g. Proverbs 3:29, 12:20, 15:22, 21:5, etc.).
And so the issue, then, isn’t “Do we plan at all?” – because the Bible is clear that we do. But rather, “After I’ve planned, am I living each day with the mentality that says, ‘Today could very well be the last day here on this earth before I stand before a holy and righteous God?’”
In other words, do I plan with the clear understanding that God can call me even before I achieve those plans? If not, then could it be that we’re living not “to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31), but for our own?
May we live each day in anticipation of seeing our good, gracious, and loving master – who is infinitely more satisfying than even the biggest dreams that we plan.
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by: John Park, May 6th, 2010
Perhaps one of the most important truths that Christians must cling to is a thorough understanding of what true, biblical faith and repentance means. Greg Gilbert, in his extremely practical and simple book titled What Is the Gospel? explains just that. For the next few entries, I will be sharing some excerpts from the book. Here’s the first:
Faith Is Reliance
Faith is one of those words that’s been misused for so long that most people have no idea what it really means. Ask someone on the street to describe faith, and while you might get some respectful-sounding words, the heart of the matter will most likely be that faith is belief in the ridiculous against all evidence.
…
It’s a charade, a fun and comforting game that people are free to engage in if they wish, but with no real connection to the actual world. Children believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Mystics believe in the power of stones and crystals. Crazy people believe in fairies. And Christians, well, they believe in Jesus.
Read the Bible, though, and you’ll find that faith is nothing like that caricature. Faith is not believing in something you can’t prove, as so many people define it. It is, biblically speaking, RELIANCE. A rock-solid, truth-grounded, promise-founded trust in the risen Jesus to save you from sin.
Paul tells us about the nature of faith in Romans 4, in his discussion about Abraham. here’s how he describes Abraham’s faith:
18In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:18-21)
Despite all that was working against God’s promise – Abraham’s age, his wife’s age and barrenness – Abraham believed what God had said. He trusted in God without wavering and relied on him to accomplish his promises. Abraham’s was not a perfect faith, of course; Ishmael’s birth to Hagar proves that Abraham at first tried to RELY on his own schemes to fulfill God’s promises. But having repented of that sin, Abraham in the end put his faith in God. He RELIED on him, as Paul says, “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”
The gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to do the very same thing – to put our faith in Jesus, RELY on him, and trust him to do what he has promised to do.
So this is what faith is biblically. Tomorrow, we’ll go into further detail about exactly what we are to be RELYING on Jesus for. But for the meantime, some questions to think through for yourself:
- What was your understanding of faith prior to reading this? Was your “faith” in Jesus, as Gilbert puts it, like believing in the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, etc? If not, then what was it?
- How does Gilbert’s explanation of faith as RELIANCE on something differ from this notion of faith as casually believing in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, etc.?
- What or who are you practically RELYING on in your life currently? That is to say, what or who, if it was not in your life right now, would you feel as if something important was missing? (i.e. friends, money, reputation, intellect, God? Bible? Affection for Christ?)
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