Christian preaching works heavily through the concepts of justification and sanctification, and for good reason. We have seen many instances throughout the history of the church where the two concepts have been muddled and confused, and it has led to a great deal of strife. To this day we still struggle with discerning the difference, either by mixing sanctification into justification in a way that requires perfection in the now in order to be or remain justified, or by emphasizing justification so heavily that sanctification becomes an afterthought. The former leads to pharisaism and legalism, and the latter leads to antinomianism and a lack of care for holiness.

From God’s eternal perspective, we are clean and holy in Christ, a finished work that glorifies Him. But to us as we walk through each day of life, the sanctification of the Spirit can involve hardship, frustration, conviction, and even suffering. One passage that captures this duality is Romans 8:28-30:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

The battle within ourselves

Yet in our daily experiences we don’t often feel this. Indeed, we often experience a deep sense of frustration as we live out the words of Paul in the preceding chapter, that “when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.” As we strive forward towards the cross, our flesh continues to fail us. We find our motivations called into question, our hearts heavy, as we mourn the effects of sin even as we also rejoice in our circumstances and struggles. But this is not something we ought to lose hope over. There is, after all, excellent reason that chapter 7 is followed by chapter 8, and the joyful, life-giving truth that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s words in chapter 6 spell out the reality of sanctification for the Christian, and indeed I think it is how we can see the Lord working in our lives. It isn’t in moments of ease and contemplation that our love for God is most cultivated, but the times we experience and resist temptation. Our happiest times are made all the sweeter when we reflect on what we endure to get there, and especially in knowing that God walks through them with us. Our Lord is not distant, after all, because He too suffered with us. He too endured temptation, and in His power we have the right to reject our sinful desires and weaknesses. We can reject the condemnation of the enemy and embrace the truth that we are dead to sin, and alive in Christ.

We endure many things in this life, which serves to grind away at the hardness of heart, fear, doubt, and all the other things that point to the ways that we don’t trust God’s love and promises. For the person who loves God, when we consider all the experiences life may hold, God is promising that each and every one of them will work for our good. This idea is awe-inspiring, but also becomes incredibly vexatious to many when we consider what that might include. Disease? Financial hardship? Horrible abuse? The evils of war? Loss of a child? God’s Word is clear: yes, even these, though to walk with someone through this notion who has experienced suffering on this scale demands a great deal of empathy, patience, and pastoral care.

Purpose in all things – even the hard things

Sanctification in the Christian life is a significant part of our answer to the question of suffering and evil in this world. Why does God allow them to persist? We do not know His wisdom at its greatest height, nor would we be foolish enough to attempt to, but we do know suffering works its way through our lives so that we may be transformed, degree by degree, into the image of Christ. It is through the lens of Christ – His life, His work, His suffering and death, and His resurrected life – that we are able to endure suffering. 

When we experience hardship, grinding away at our lives and comforts, we are able to most fully embrace the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:17 and 18. We have a freedom by the Spirit that this world cannot take away, and as we behold the truth and love of Christ we further embrace this freedom to endure this dark world. We have freedom in Christ to live knowing that He is better, He is stronger, He is more loving and gracious and providing than this world will ever be. We have freedom to endure evil knowing that He will bring justice to bear upon it in perfect time. We have freedom to be generous ourselves because He is infinitely generous towards us with what we need. And we have the freedom to give up everything, even our lives, because He stands with us, and receives us in glory as His own.

Sanctification’s role in what Paul describes in Romans 8:28-30 can be summed up in the phrase, “God ordains the ends and the means.” I can look at my life and at experiences like struggling to make ends meet, at relationships beginning and ending, or times of literal pain. I can think of moments that the Holy Spirit has lifted an idol from my hands in love, one I had been holding back for so long, and in the aftermath of that I found not loss, but true gain. I found my step lighter and my heart more free. This is why I say that sanctification is dying to ourselves, and finding freedom in Christ. We die to desires that weigh us down and find that the weight was only oppression on our souls. And when passages like Paul’s come to mind in those times when we are wrestling with our flesh, we can take heart in them. 

Whatever the pain and suffering, whatever the idol being wrenched from our grasps, whatever evil the world is throwing at us, all of it serves ultimately for our good in Christ. All of it demonstrates that no matter what the world says we need or what we should value, no matter what our flesh longs for, no matter what evil another may perpetrate against us, God’s love is greater. His good plan will come to full fruition in perfect time. And so, we strive to endure it by the strength granted us as we follow behind Christ, our crosses on our shoulders, knowing that death is not the end. J. Todd Billings writes in his book Rejoicing in Lament:

As the Heidelberg Catechism states, “Even as I already now experience in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God forever.” The continuity between now and then is none other than our incorporation into the life of Christ.

So we walk through sanctification each day, whatever that may look like, and we encourage one another in it in patient love, rejoicing in the Lord always. We do the work before us because it is what leads us to the day that we will truly, as Paul writes in Romans 8:29, “be conformed to the image of Christ.” To us now, that day seems far in the distance, but God sees it clearly before Him, a people made holy and perfect and honored for enduring to the end. 

Hope in all seasons, patience in affliction 

Our story is one of sanctification. All the victories and failures of live, the pleasures and discomforts, they are not purposeless. They are meant to pry our hands free from this life – not in a nihilistic way, but in a manner that points to eternity. 

I think of all the encouragements I could give to others in this, it is that we are not meant to walk through this alone. We are never truly alone of course, in that the Holy Spirit is with us and within us, giving us strength and guidance through all things. But we should seek out those who encourage our spiritual strengthening, who aid in stirring our affections for Christ and who in turn we can serve and encourage in their own walks and strivings. Be with believers who will listen, and who will aid in prayerful and practical ways – and be ready to serve. 

The Bible is full of warnings against hardening our hearts, and encouragement that to endure is to see the fruit of Christ grow in our lives. I want to encourage those of you who may be struggling in any way that you are not alone in that. If nothing else, Jake and I are here to provide prayer and encouragement. The Lord knows your needs, and is with you through it all. After all this comes not a statement, but a question: how can we pray for you?

Jake and I sat down to record this a couple weeks before Christmas, but life got hectic as it does this time of year, so we’re a bit later than we expected to get it uploaded. As a result, some of the things we talk about as upcoming – like Tuba Christmas, or Jake’s winter solstice performance at our church, have already happened. But! You can still enjoy our end of year wrapup. It’s been a year of highs and lows, and we reflect on our year and our favorite holiday traditions, and what we hope to see accomplished as we mark the new year’s entry. Join in, and email us or comment below your thoughts and prayer requests.

Justification is that work of God in our lives that makes us righteous, able to stand before God as holy, when we are most assuredly not by our own human work and reckoning. Justification is what we receive and in which we walk in life after we have been regenerated. It is not just a simple hand-wave of God saying “all right, you’re fine.” It is a Trinitarian work that begins with the Father’s calling of His people, the Son’s sacrifice of Himself for the sins of His people and taking the wrath due to them on Himself, and the Spirit bringing new life to those people which enables them to place their faith in that work of the Son on their behalf. 

Justification can be described simply, such as when Paul and Silas told the Roman jailer in Acts 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Yet the closer we look at it the deeper the truth of it runs. It is also a concept that has held heavy controversy and disagreement throughout the age of the church. One challenge I have noted as I’ve written this is discussing justification specifically without moving into its lifelong effect, sanctification. The truth is simple, however: the former begets the latter, always. One who is in Christ will bear the fruit of Christ. 

The transforming, heart-changing work of Jesus

Justification is the hinge on which our life in Christ turns. It is the seed which grows into the tree of our faith. It is the root of life that brings dead men to their feet, and puts holy and obedient desires in their hearts. When the Holy Spirit baptizes us, He baptizes us into that truth that we may walk in it. Every good thing we are able to do is rooted in the faith and hope in that justification, authored by the blood of Jesus. It is difficult to speak of justification without addressing the whole work of salvation.

However, it isn’t uncommon for this to be a misconception among many, that salvation is simply mentally assenting to the fact of Jesus dying for their sins, and that’s that. Justification is often treated as a form of spiritual insurance, as though it’s a single transaction rather than the beginning of a transformed life. But if Christ is truly the object of our faith, He must also be our Lord. A mind may hold a fact in spite of a hard and unrepentant heart. But justification is not wrought in us simply because we got the right answer. It is the fruit in our lives of the truth of Proverbs 9:10, where the personification of God’s wisdom tells her listener that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” 

Washed clean, made new

If sin, the thoughts and deeds and desires that make us unholy is like mud covering us, justification is what cleans us off and washes our clothes and wipes our shoes, and makes us ready to reenter our Father’s house. Sin is the thing that brings us deep, heartbreaking shame, the thing that haunts our minds and hearts and separates us from our Father. Justification is the way by which we find ourselves free from this shame and regret, and when we see its work before our eyes, we find not a slavery to religion, but freedom – freedom to rejoice, freedom to trust the One who made us and called us to Himself. 

Throughout all their epistles, the apostles seek to emphasize what the life of someone who is following the way of Jesus should look like. Their call is unified and consistent: loving others is a fruit of God’s love for us, and we ought to cultivate this in our lives. James writes in the first chapter of his letter that we must be “doers of the word and not hearers only,” and builds on that in the second chapter by giving examples of what this love looks like – for example, doing away with favoritism over human reasons like money, or truly sacrificing of ourselves for the needs of others. 

The greatest passage of Scripture delving into the concept of justification, its nature and its fruit in our lives, is doubtlessly Paul’s epistle to the Romans. He begins the book addressing the “why” of justification. He calls out sin in both Gentiles and Jews, the two groups that made up the church in Rome, describing in great detail that neither has a right standing with God by their own nature. Jews did not, because they found themselves guilty of breaking the very law they were entrusted with, and the Gentiles did not because of the deep and besetting nature of the sins of their lives. Paul concludes this argument in chapter 3 with passages from the Psalms, concluding with this striking statement: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Why is this important?

Let’s break this down more plainly and answer what is probably the most basic question: why do we need to be justified? I’ve talked about “sin” and I think at least for most in the West there’s a general idea that sin is doing things against God’s rules, but that concept is both rather vague and reductive. Let’s define this in the way the Bible does, then.

The first sin, often referred to as the fall of man, is seen in Genesis chapter 3. The garden of Eden is a place where man and God are able to commune with one another, where heaven and earth mingle. God has created humans not simply as another form of animal to roam the earth, but as co-rulers of creation in a sense. We are made to truly know him, and to share in His image, to reflect it to the world in how we love and care for it. However, we don’t share in the entire nature of God, and of course we cannot – we are creatures, bound to the nature of such a being. We have limits, while God has none. We have a beginning, and at least for the moment, we have an end, while God has neither.

God placed a tree in the garden and commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from it. The tree is dubbed the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Knowledge, in this sense, is not simply an understanding that such concepts exist, for certainly they had that idea from the very beginning, since God had told them that to eat from it was forbidden – and to do so carried the stiffest of penalties, which is death. This image is a warning against trying to take the power of declaring what is good and what is evil into their own hands. This is not what we as creatures get to decide, but God has set the boundaries of creation.

Yet Adam and Eve listen to the lies of the serpent, who convinces them that they can in fact transcend their role as creatures and become like God, “knowing good and evil” – again, in the sense that they would define it. They would control the nature of right and wrong outside of God’s wisdom. And yet when they do, they don’t find empowerment or joy or pleasure. They find sadness and guilt, as they immediately recognize that apart from God’s perfect provision they are naked and exposed. 

This is why the concept of sin is so much deeper than simply “don’t do it, it’s naughty and God will get mad.” It’s also one of the biggest themes woven throughout Scripture, that the wisdom of God is what governs the world and sin, rebellion against that wisdom, finds its end only in death. In the future I’d like to dig into that subject at length but for now I will settle for quoting one of the most striking verses in the book of Proverbs, from the end of chapter 8: “For the one who finds me [God’s wisdom] finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, but the one who misses me harms himself; all who hate me love death.”

And so, we have humanity, trying to do everything in its power to make itself right and good through its own diverse and foolish efforts. We have aching cries for justice in an unjust, wicked world filled with evil, and our own efforts leave us naked, exposed, and dying.

By His work

We can draw from this the important truth that our first step into finding justification is to discover our true need for it. One of the psalms that Paul quotes from in the Romans 3 passage is Psalm 14, which begins with the bold statement that “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.” This is not simply a rebuke to open atheism, but against nominal religiosity that claims perhaps even the name of Christ, yet empties that name of its power through a true trust in human wisdom over God’s. I won’t belabor this point for now, but we’ve discussed ways this idea manifests even within so-called “reformed” Christianity on the podcast many times.

The justified person sees Jesus on the cross with the opened eyes of his heart and sees that but for God’s grace, his fate would be to receive that death himself, leading only to destruction. The justified person cries with the tax collector of Luke 18, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” The justified person is open-handed and joyfully generous not out of obligation or because he believes it manipulates the level of God’s approval for him, but because He has seen God’s great love and generosity on His behalf in the price paid for him. And the justified person is able to be open-handed even with his own life, because he knows that just as Jesus laid His life down and picked it up again, he too will live again with Christ no matter what may happen in this world. 

Justification is a fact of our relationship with God in Christ, and it is a truth of the hope we hold in Him. When we stand before the throne our right standing before God will entirely be the work of God in justifying us. This is a tremendous encouragement to walk in it now, and the desire to append works to it is entirely destructive to what Scripture teaches on this matter. As Paul writes in Romans 6, we put sin to death day by day precisely because of the grace God has shown us in this, not in order to deserve it. We honor God by confessing and repenting of sin, and we are shown the fruit of this justification in our ability day by day to walk more clearly in step with our Lord who achieved it for us.

Look to the cross and live

For believers in all times and places, this is why the truth of justification must bear the fruit of repentance, and in that repentance must come humility. We must recognize that we cannot stand on our own two feet, but that God’s great mercy in Christ’s work on the cross is the foundation of our lives. It’s what allows us to endure anything the world throws at us, not in pride and a sense of being better, but in the knowledge that we had absolutely nothing to bring to God that earned us a gold star. He did it all, and we rest in it.

And so must our message be to our neighbors. We aren’t judging them. We’re inviting them. We’re serving them, and loving them. And our thoughts and deeds must be in step with that. Christians must not be legalistic finger-waggers, but we should be pointing out to the people around us that there is a great hope we are telling them about – that they can know the One that made them, and that the empty pursuit of wealth and pleasure is not what we were made for. We were made to live lives that honor God and bless each other, and through that to know the deepest blessings and love the world can share. Christians, place the love of God in justification before your eyes each day, and love your neighbors because of it. For everyone else, hear Jesus’ words: 

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

If you are a Christian, how have you seen the justification of Christ worked out in your life? If you are not, or you are not sure where you fall here, how have you felt the struggle to reckon with the darkness of your life? How can we pray for you? What questions can we answer? Comment below or email us.

It’s been a week or two, right? All right, all right…ten months. So sue us. No, don’t…sue us. Just listen as we talk about life and family amidst our musical endeavors, enduring loss and more. We go through the latest post to the blog that Dave just finished and talk about Jake’s recent performance marking the seasonal transition at our church. We dip our toes into the current political scene as we talk about one of Dave’s current selections for light reading, and our prayerful desires to help our neighbors who will be encountering hardship as government benefits face interruption. We also get to hear Dave try his hand at a bit of audiobook production, reading a brief selection from Lord of the Rings, and discuss what it means to share these kind of stories with kids as they grow. Listen in and let us know what you think, and how we can pray for you!

Visit our website at https://coronationradio.net/

Email us: spurgeonaudio@gmail.com

Jake’s livestreamed fall equinox performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z37fSsijI0g

Dave’s band performing locally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifh5ZFm26p4

Two posts ago I wrote on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and in the previous one I moved onto regeneration, the effect of that baptism.  Now the fruit of regeneration comes into view: faith and repentance. While they are two separate concepts with different definitions, they are hand in hand in the work these words describe in the lives of Christians. No one will have saving faith in Christ that is not accompanied by a lifetime of repentance from sin. Likewise, no one can walk away from their sin in any method that does not involve a faith in Christ born of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

Faith Misunderstood

In his theological text Foundations of the Christian Faith, James Montgomery Boice uses the definition of faith provided in Hebrews 11:1, that it is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” This is an idea that has been taken many directions by humans, and unfortunately many of them are to the detriment of the biblical God-centered understanding of faith.

Scripture shows us faith as a reaction of hopeful obedience to the testimony of God, of the work of Christ, imbued by the Holy Spirit. By that faith, we see ourselves as those awaiting an inheritance: true, eternal, sinless life, and a restored intimacy with God. By that faith we are empowered to trust God in obedience for the things He calls us to do, no matter what they may be. 

It is in this vein that human misunderstanding or even false teaching may begin to bear bitter fruit. For example, in Matthew 17 Jesus’ admonition of the disciples that they were unable to drive out the demon because of their little faith, and that “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Boice brings up the example of Norman Vincent Peale and his ideas of positive thinking, and we have Peale’s intellectual descendants today in the form of teachers and even secular leaders who claim that we can truly do or have anything we desire if we simply gather up enough faith, or focus, or self-actualization, or whatever other term may be employed.

Faith, in this thinking, becomes a currency of sorts, which we can gain or lose and which, typically, is displayed through actions such as handing over as much money as possible to said teacher, in hopes of receiving much more. By this thinking, Jesus is no longer the object of faith, but rather the means by which the true object of faith – money and earthly comfort – is gained. 

Probably the most common place this notion is found is in churches that operate with “word of faith” or “prosperity gospel” theologies, and there is no end of rebuke found throughout books and the web of such ideas, as popular as they remain. However, this is not an issue that is confined to a single theological stream or political “side” – you see this same poisonous idea infecting even supposedly “conservative” camps with the idea that “if we just obey God enough, He’ll bless our country and make it great,” as though we can manipulate God into giving us enough favor that we won’t suffer any longer in this world.

Faith and Obedience

When Jesus gave the example of what faith as small as a mustard seed could accomplish, He wasn’t telling them to work on stirring up a certain emotional response within themselves, because such an idea would be contrary to all He taught and accomplished, and to the concept of faith Scripture teaches. But when a believer with even a small amount of faith is called to an act of obedience, faith in Christ is what enables us to walk in that obedience. 

Nor is it a call to pharisaical concepts of “if we toe the line in exactly the right way, then we’ll unlock the kingdom of heaven on earth.” Seeking to live in obedience to God is good, but this attitude contains the same lack of faith in God’s sovereignty over even the hardships of this world. It also bears the rotten fruit of a lack of love for neighbor, and even for enemy – two things that Jesus explicitly called believers to walk in. 

There are many images of the working out of faith in Scripture in the lives of Jesus’ followers in the years after His ascension – for example, Peter’s healing of the lame man in front of the temple. But the most profound examples we see are the apostles’ and their followers’ faithful patience in enduring suffering and facing death itself, rather than refusing to silence their proclamation of the gospel and their service of the lost, downtrodden and oppressed.

We see it in Stephen boldly rebuking the chief priests in that by murdering Jesus they had dipped their hands in the same blood as their forebears who murdered the prophets, resulting in his being stoned to death. We see it in Paul’s endurance of threats, violence, and imprisonment for the sake of bearing witness to the gospel in love to Jews and Gentiles alike. And we continue to see it repeated over and over again in the millions of little ways that Christians live open-handedly with their resources, their time and energy, and their very lives in hope of seeing the redemption of creation continue through the love of Jesus. And all of this is enabled by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as He gives glory to Jesus.

The Lifelong Work of Repentance

That brings us to the other word in view: repentance. True faith and true repentance are two sides of the same Spirit-given response to grace: faith turns us toward Christ, and repentance turns us away from sin. Repentance is not a singular moment but a lifetime for a believer, as sin is seen and brought to heel before Christ by faith. Faith enables us to repent of sin, for it is a work of the Spirit in our hearts, and repentance in turn sees our faith grow just like a seed, day by day as it reaches full flowering. 

Hebrews 11 gives many examples of Old Testament figures who displayed faith, with one who is frequently cited throughout Scripture being Abraham. He lived in comfort in Ur of the Chaldeans – that is, in Babylon, or its ancient forerunner, but when God called him to step out in faith and go to a distant land armed only with a promise beyond his reckoning, he obeyed. 

Through it all, he saw the ways that God would faithfully provide for him, even when he was unfaithful, and he lived to see God’s miraculous provision of a son with Sarah against all odds. But he never lived to see the true culmination of his faith, in a people more vast than he could ever dream of – not by the blood of relation, but by the blood of the cross, uniting people across every human-made boundary that might separate people. As we stand on the other side of that amazing fulfilled promise, we have a great and clear object of faith in Jesus, and we must continue to walk in repentance day by day, putting our sin to death and awaiting for the day that He will truly clothe us in pure righteousness.

Walking by faith, practicing repentance

Unlike Abraham, we who live today have seen the work of Jesus to conquer sin and death. We have faith that His work is truly sufficient, and we have a hope that our death, like His, will not be permanent but only temporary, only a passing moment that will be undone when Christ returns. But what does it mean to actually live our life in a way that reflects this faith, and to have repentance as a part of our daily battle with our sinful human lusts?

I think we should put it in simple, straightforward terms: it looks a lot like us humbling ourselves before one another. It looks like accepting the loving rebukes and gentle remonstrances that those who are close to us may give when we are being pulled in one way or another by sin, doubt, or worldly desires. 

Practicing Repentance in Community

This may sound like a simple concept, but it very much rubs against our natural instincts as humans. How often have you had someone approach you, even someone you’re close to, and received a word that you need to change some aspect of your behavior with a great deal of grace? I’ll venture a guess, especially based on my own decades of experience, that you who are reading this can think of many moments that you haven’t exactly handled such moments with grace and aplomb.

I’ve seen deep relationships break down over such things, and churches split because someone would rather leave than accept even the mildest reproach. We have seen the stress of our cultural and political climate bringing destructive division to bear on many churches. An outside observer might see a person who genuinely cares for another expressing that through concern in love. But to the receiver, it can come across as a blow to the deepest part of how we see ourselves – as good, as right and well-meaning in all things.

In other words, it sounds simple. But in practice, it’s very difficult. Impossible, without a true change of heart. Even many Christians, those who believe in the work of Jesus and have seen the Holy Spirit move in their lives still struggle with this – but God’s grace is still there. The mark of a church where this is happening is one where they take with deadly seriousness Jesus’ words, “He who would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all.”

It’s also critical to understand that this message is one that must first take root in each of us. It’s for good reason that Jesus warned that we must “first remove the plank that is in your eye, before you help your brother remove the speck that is in his.” It’s easy to call out sin in someone else, especially if it’s not a sin we struggle with. It’s very different to face it in ourselves – but again, it is a mark of the Holy Spirit that we can do this at all. Again, this is why humility must be a mark on the life of a believer, for even a hint of pride can blind us to our own sin.

So, we keep practicing repentance, so that we may practice repentance. We live in faith that Christ has truly made the path we are on, and we seek to place our peace not in our ability to obey and be perfect, but in His perfect love and completed work. We screw up…and we confess our sins, we forgive and seek forgiveness, and we wait another day for the moment when what is hoped for, will be what is seen. And that is a hope that never grows stale, but instead becomes clearer and more refreshing the longer we rely upon it fully. 

How does the working out of faith and repentance in your life look? Where do you struggle to set aside your own desires for the sake of serving and loving others? Where are the ways you have seen God work out His faithfulness in your own life? And how can we pray for you in this daily battle all believers face? Comment below or email us.

The Old Testament is full of vivid imagery from God, on the subjects of His will for His people, warnings of the consequences of sin and rebellion, and the coming work of His Messiah. Some of it is delivered in words, but there are many examples of God giving visions to His prophets to show what was to come. 

One of the most striking examples is in Ezekiel 37, where God brings the prophet to a valley full of dry bones. Not simply dead bodies, but the desiccated remains of countless humans. God tells Ezekiel to “Prophesy concerning these bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will live. I will put tendons on you, make flesh grow on you, and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you so that you come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel obeys and it happens exactly as God had said it would. God then repeats His command to prophesy, this time to “the breath,” to come and fill the bodies with life. Again, Ezekiel does so, and again, it happens exactly as God said it would. Dead bones become a massive host of living humans.

When we think about what regeneration is, this is the kind of image we need to keep in mind. Another image of this is given in the preceding chapter in Ezekiel, in verses 26 and 27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.” Paul echoes this idea in Ephesians 2 when he writes, 

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses.

In many ways, to speak of regeneration is to simply reiterate what I wrote about in my last post on the baptism of the Spirit: this is the work of God in His people to bring spiritual life to those who were previously dead in spirit. He takes the unwilling, the rebellious, the God-hater, and makes them not simply able to choose to obey God, but to actually do so. 

This is the same idea that Jesus speaks of in John 3 when he tells Nicodemus that “unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus expresses incredulity at this, struggling to understand this picture, but Jesus asks him how he can not understand it, being a man who is in his position in part because of his deep knowledge of the Scriptures. He would have intimately known both references I mentioned above, yet he didn’t connect it to what Jesus was talking about. Jesus even points to it in his imagery in verse 8 when he says “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

To talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and regeneration is to talk about the planting of a seed and the fruit that the plant that rises from it later bears. He who the Spirit baptizes lives again, and believes, and obeys. This is not, as some say, a “prevenient grace”, grace that puts everyone into sort of a neutral space where they can “choose their own destiny.” He who sees the Spirit work in his heart will find spiritual life, and he who lives in the Spirit will walk in that life. The Spirit’s work of regeneration becomes the sign and seal of the promised eternal life we hope for in Christ. This is what Paul means in Romans chapter 8:

For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.

Regeneration points ahead to resurrection, both in the images used to convey the idea, and in its effect in the lives of believers. By the faith empowered in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make war on the sinful desires of our old dead humanity while striving ahead towards our new, true humanity, our hope in Christ. 

Spiritual death followed Adam’s sin, but spiritual life follows Jesus’ obedience. It is not our work that brings regeneration about – and how could it? Could those dry bones raise themselves? As Nicodemus asked, could a man enter his mother’s womb a second time? Salvation is a trinitarian work of God. Just as the Father has chosen His people, and just as Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice for us and is our brother in the resurrection to come, so the Holy Spirit is the one who works in our hearts to bring newness of life and spiritual eyes which look ahead to Christ in hope and faith.

There is a larger picture to consider here but also a very personal one. As I edit this to post for the blog, there is a lot of turmoil going on in the world. I won’t belabor this post with pontificating on recent events, and those will likely wait for the next podcast episode for further discourse. But I will say this: If you are dismayed by the turn the world is taking, if you are angry or afraid or embittered: pray. Call out to your Lord and cast your cares on Him. As His church, let’s pray for our neighbors that He will transform the hearts of our neighbors – and do your part to that end by displaying Christ’s love to them.

Beware those who desire to turn you into an army for human ends, or into a voting bloc. Human power is fleeting and vanishes as quickly as it arrives. Trust that God does listen to the prayers of His people, and that He is powerful enough to save, to bring vitality where there is only death, and then: look at your neighbor. Literally, who lives around you? How are they hurting – or how are they rejoicing? Love them in that, serve them in their needs, and be patient as we all endure tribulation. Reject the urge to live a fearful life, and display the patient love of Jesus by trusting that He will be the one to bring mercy and justice to bear at the proper time – but above all, let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will bring life into the hearts of many, and by doing so, bring the only true means of transformation to a hurting and broken world.

How have you see the Holy Spirit work in your heart and in the lives of others to transform? How do you want to see Him further moving in your communities? And above all, how can we pray for you? Leave a comment below or email us.

The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, and is seen in Scripture as the one who ministers most directly to the hearts of God’s people, bringing conviction and comfort to hearts, and glorifying the work of Jesus in His work in the church. The Old Testament speaks of Him on several occasions, such as the opening of Genesis 1 where He is described as “hovering over the surface of the waters.”  In Psalm 51 where David grieves his sins with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, he cries out to God asking Him “Do not banish me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me.” In Isaiah 63, the Israelites are described as having “grieved [God’s] Holy Spirit” with their rebellion, leading to punishment. 

The New Testament sees the Holy Spirit described by Jesus as the Counselor in John 14, and as the Spirit of truth in chapter 15. Acts 16 calls Him the Spirit of Jesus, while Revelation uses the title of “seven spirits” or “the sevenfold Spirit” – not that there are seven separate Holy Spirits, but seven is a number associated with completeness in God. Just as Hebrews 1 describes Jesus as being “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature,” the Holy Spirit also bears the fullness of God’s being. He is often misrepresented as being merely an expression of God’s will, or an impersonal force representing God working in the world. But Jesus’ description of Him as being “another Counselor,” using a word that in Greek means “one like the first” as Boice points out, makes it clear that the third Person of the Trinity is not lesser in any sense.

His role in the church is to bring glory to Jesus, as John 15:26-27 says, to testify about Him, and in doing so, to bring forth testimony from those who follow Jesus. He does not bring glory to Himself, just as Jesus did not come to glorify Himself but was glorified by the Father. The Trinity’s perfect unity is seen in that giving of glory to one another and drawing the eyes of all to Christ as the object of our Faith. His work is described in John 3 by Jesus as bringing about a second birth, new life in the hearts of God’s people, and yet like the wind – moving in ways we may not understand and certainly could never hope to control.

Paul speaks of two significant ways in which the Holy Spirit’s work in the church is evident: the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the gifts of the Spirit, described in different places such as 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. The distinction between the two is important, because the fruit of the Spirit is in and for all believers and they are one fruit, even as it is described as being different qualities of believers. No one will grow in faith and patience but have no self-control or love. 

The gifts, however, vary and all are intended for the building up of the church as the body of Christ. We see leaders, teachers, helpers, and much more. The controversy and questions arise around the concept of “sign gifts,” what these are, and whether they persist. This is a question for a later discussion, but the Spirit most certainly continues to empower Christians throughout all church history to this day to minister to the flock and to the lost world around us, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to bear on the hearts of the lost and making hearts ready to receive these words and respond to them.

The Holy Spirit takes residence in us when He transforms our hearts, when that new birth comes to us. Apart from the work of the Spirit, as Paul writes in Romans 8, we are of the flesh and “the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” This new heart, this transformed mindset, is a work of the Holy Spirit that is necessary for us to have faith and to walk in it.

To cry out to God, to hope in Christ, to rejoice in all circumstances because no matter what He is our Lord, that is the Spirit’s doing. There is a desire on the part of some to necessitate human action before the Spirit can do what He will, but there can be no room for this idea from Scripture. Man on his own will not submit to God. God must do the work He describes in Ezekiel 36:26: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” This is the true life that the Holy Spirit brings to us, as faith in Christ is made not only possible but absolutely certain in the hearts of all God’s people. 

The Holy Spirit is the sign and seal of our life in Christ. He is the means by which God ministers to our hearts, transforms us, enables and empowers our faith, and directs our steps. The Holy Spirit is the fire burning in us that enables endurance through all things, as He calls us to fix our eyes on Christ. He unifies the church around the cross and the empty grave, and prepares our hearts for the day when we will be finally and fully unified around the throne.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit – What, and Why?

The Holy Spirit’s work in the church is what empowers all believers to walk in the way of Christ. Scripture testifies that the Son is begotten of the Father (John 3), and John 14 says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father in the name of the Son. But it is the goal and work of the Holy Spirit that helps us to understand what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is. 

Jesus says in John 14:17 that the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth,” and in verse 26 that He “will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.” All four of the gospels carry a statement from John the Baptist, comparing his work of baptizing with water for repentance with the work of Jesus to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire – statements that themselves point back to the prophetic passages of Isaiah 32 and 44 and Joel 2 that use the image of baptism in the Holy Spirit to prophesy about the work of the Messiah in transforming the hearts of His people. 

But what does it look like to see this baptism at work in the church? In Acts 2 we see a very profound image of this, as the apostles are together when “a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.” 

They experience a physical manifestation of this baptism, as a demonstration of this new stage of the work of God among his people. This manifestation, of each of them having tongues of fire descend on them, is of the same kind of image as that of the coming of God’s presence into the tabernacle and into the first temple as a pillar of fire and smoke. Now however, God’s temple is within His people, His church. And they go forth from that room doing exactly what Jesus said they would in Acts 1, preaching the gospel to everyone in Jerusalem and empowered so that everyone could understand them regardless of their language.

This grabs the attention of these thousands of people, that a handful of Galilean Jews are suddenly proclaiming to them in languages they have no business knowing. And as a result, Peter is able to stand before them and preach the first sermon of the church, bringing up the prophetic words of Joel 2 on what has happened: that they are bearing witness to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and that it is to point to the work of Jesus, the Messiah, and the one who was killed at the wishes of the crowd. He preaches boldly from the Scriptures, expositing the truths of the Old Testament and how they point to Jesus, and the hearts of his listeners are convicted. We see the Holy Spirit working in the apostles through the gifts of teaching and preaching, of tongues, and through convicting the hearts of Peter’s hearers.

Paul builds on this more in 1 Corinthians 12, in teaching on the gifts of the Spirit. He emphasizes to the Corinthians that while there are different ways in which the Holy Spirit has gifted believers – including teaching, tongues and interpretation, faith, healing, and more – with the focus on the fact that all of it is intended to build one church united in Christ. Paul’s words are just as pressing today, as division comes very easily to Christians.

We see the effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the changed life of believers, from leading self-centered lives of idolatry, into leading humble lives of service to God and to others. A person baptized in the Holy Spirit is a person who has the capacity to be generous in the right circumstance because he knows everything he has is from God. We see the wisdom of the Holy Spirit working out in wise teachers discerning truth, and preaching the gospel of Jesus from all of Scripture. And we see the power of God worked out in the Holy Spirit’s work to perform miracles that display God’s power over the evils of this world and His will to restore what is broken. 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a baptism into the work of Jesus. That baptism may involve what we consider miracles, but the purpose is more important than the method. As Dane Ortlund writes in his book Gentle and Lowly,

Jesus walked the earth rehumanizing the dehumanized and cleansing the unclean. Why? Because his heart refused to let him sleep in. Sadness confronted him in every town. So wherever he was, whenever he was confronted with pain and longing, he spread the good contagion of his cleansing mercy. [p.32]

We join in this great and holy work in everything we do, enabled in will, in word, and in deed by the Holy Spirit that draws our hearts to worship and to long after our holy Lord, and to walk in His ways.

One thing I always point to when discussing the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the context of 1 Corinthians 12 is that it is immediately followed by chapter 13, and the truth that the greatest gift is one we all receive: love. The church is unified in our love for God and for one another, and where we see that lacking in our hearts, we ought to pray earnestly that this love would be ignited within us. The baptism of the Spirit enables faith and obedience, that second birth of John 3, and we can trust that He will bring glory to God through even the small everyday acts of obedience in our lives.

The death of Jesus on the cross rightfully is the focus of so much Christian thought and worship, because in His death we have a complete atonement for our sins. But we have just as much of a hope in His resurrection, because by it we see the true defeat of the curse of death, that consequence of sin that most plagues mankind. When Adam died, all he could do was exactly what God said would happen – decay into the dust he was made from. But when Jesus died, the second Adam, He knew that it would have no hold over Him. He had told his disciples as much many times, and the Scriptures promised as much. Psalm 16:10, for example, looks ahead and says “For you will not abandon me to Sheol; you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.” 

Sheol – the grave – was the place all men went at the end of life. Death was the co-curse with sin, for to sin – to live life according to the wisdom of the flesh, in opposition to the wisdom of God – has no possible end but death. God warned Adam and yet Adam sinned and so, took this evil onto himself and all his descendants. Even beyond humanity, in all the world death reigned where life once did. Decay and entropy threatened the end of creation’s blessed existence. Man’s self-deceived foolishness is so self-destructive, in fact, that God had to destroy almost all of humanity with a flood. When the descendants of the survivors began to thrive and seek again their own power, God had to confuse their languages and scatter them across the globe.

Yet Christ conquered all of it. Man embraced sinful living and yet lived in understandable fear of its consequence in death. Christ rejected sin, living without its marks all His days, and yet walked wholeheartedly into the embrace of death – and a most horrifying and humiliating death at that. And in doing so, by letting death take Him as the perfect sin offering for all God’s people, He overcame it. He became a seed that, falling into the ground and dying, grew up into a vast tree of eternal scope and life-giving fruit that will never fail. 

Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain, was given glory in His resurrection, and we hope in His glory and life. We don’t simply look at His death as a tragic killing of a good man by an evil regime, because His story does not end there. He took His life back up and more than simply returning from the dead for a short period then dying again, as Lazarus did, He lives still. He ascended to the Father, to await the day that He will return to finally well and truly destroy sin and death in all creation, to bring His work to its full consummation in the redemption of all creation. 

His disciples stood where they saw him ascend for some time, until angels told them that He would return the same way He went. They held that hope and it led them to prayer in unity, and that same hope enriched all their preaching. No longer was there simply life that ended in the grave, but the resurrection of Christ was and is the hope of all. Apart from it, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, life is foolishness and hope is in vain. But with it, we can endure everything that life brings, every dart of the enemy, every pain and loss and moment of suffering, because they all cease and are undone in the life of Christ.

So what?

While re-reading C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra recently, I was struck by the horrifying description of death and damnation by a character that has suffered under demonic possession for most of the novel. While much of it is rooted in Lewis’s particular views of the nature of hell and the enemy, the idea that dying in sin is to sink farther away from God and away from all His hope is one that sat in my mind for a long time. 

I was also reminded that this is why the hope of Christ’s resurrection and ascension are so crucial and powerful. No longer do we who trust in Christ fear that sinking away, that loss of connection with God. Instead, we look to when that connection grows stronger, and our intimacy goes from at arm’s length to true, face to face knowledge. We know this is true, and we long for the day we finally have this most rich possession as our own.

This is bedrock Christian theology, truly the cornerstone of Christ’s work is found in His death and resurrection. Yet it can feel like a rote recitation, like something that loses its potency the more we repeat it to ourselves, if we don’t actually meditate on it. “Jesus died for our sins.” “Jesus lives.” These two sentences ought to be a soothing truth to our deepest beings, not only because of their simple truth but also because within their few words the whole of life in Christ is enfolded.

Perfect love

Jesus came as the messiah, the chosen one who would end the rule of evil and usher in God’s kingdom. When He came, so many expected him to drive out Israel’s enemies with overwhelming power – and who could doubt that He was perfectly capable of doing so? A man who was capable of feeding thousands with a handful of bread and fish could sustain endless legions. Someone who can tell a storm to cease could command the ground to open up and devour His enemies in a moment. Surely Jesus could have crushed Rome and every other human empire with a single word? 

And that’s the image John gives in Revelation 19 – the victorious Christ riding to earth on a white horse, his weapon a sword that comes from His mouth. His robe is stained with blood. Yet Jesus came before His people riding on a donkey’s colt. His clothing certainly was stained with blood – His own. 

And all of this, an image of a life in the kingdom. Our lives are not our own, but they are held in His hands – and so we can lay them down for the sake of others. We can love that neighbor who’s in need and know that such service is deeply loved and blessed by the Father. We can be patient in those times when life’s turmoil weighs on our hearts, because we know He has been there, and He walks with us in them.

I want to close with two hopes:

We hope in the death of Christ because in His death, we are forgiven for all sin. A picture of this was carried out over and over in the Israelite sacrificial system as sin was atoned for through the shedding of blood. Everything was made holy through the sprinkling of blood, and there could not be any entering into God’s presence without it. There was an endless reminder of humanity’s sinfulness in those sacrifices – yet Jesus has taken the place of all of it, and through His death He has made the way by which every people group may come to know the One who made them.

We hope in the resurrection of Christ because He has overcome death, and we look forward to the day that we too will be like Him. I love the way Paul talks about being “in Christ” in Ephesians 1, and what it truly means for us to receive the benefits of that – “holy and blameless,” “adopted as sons,” recipients of “an inheritance” and “sealed with the Holy Spirit.” So when suffering enters our lives, we know that the words of the author of Ecclesiastes, that our lives are but a vapor, is true – but we also know that in Christ’s resurrection, we have a greater life ahead of us that will never end. 

When I think of the weight of my sin, my struggles, the things that drag me down day by day, and I compare them to this tremendous promise, I can’t help but ponder the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:17 – it truly is an “incomparable weight of glory.” 

How does the doctrine of the resurrection affect your thoughts and living? Do you struggle to see it as real and meaningful? Share your thoughts below or email us – prayer requests are welcome!

“Salvation belongs to the Lord.” 

This statement, or variations of it, is all throughout Scripture. It’s like a diamond that you can hold up and see many facets as you turn it. Salvation belongs to the Lord because to be saved means to belong to God. Salvation belongs to the Lord because it is by His work – the Father’s choosing, the Son’s death and resurrection, and the Spirit’s renewal – that we are saved. And salvation belongs to the Lord because it is entirely His work. There’s a famous quote that’s attributed to various Christians in history, including Philip Melancthon and Jonathan Edwards: “The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.” This is a simplification of the life of a believer, but it does capture in its essence the truest nature of the life of God’s people from beginning to end: God has saved us. God is saving us. And God is going to save us. His hand holds us fast.

I originally wrote this for our class almost exactly one year ago, and in that time, it wound up with a personal context I couldn’t have possibly anticipated, one which still lingers on my heart as a wound. My friend Jarod, who I had known for years, took his own life, an act that brought a deep and abiding grief to me and many others in my community. Wrestling with this grief while also thinking through this question required a great deal of conversation with those close to me, as well as a lot of prayer. 

Now that I’ve come to this paper, one that was written in such a raw moment, reposting it with just a bit of tweaking seems inappropriate. I also want to take time to consider everything I write here in a pastoral light. While the sadness over Jarod still lingers, I have taken a lot of time to consider what it is that needs to be said. What does it mean for God to be the author of salvation in the face of sin, tragedy, terror and loss? What does it look like for someone to reach his breaking point – can he break the hold of grace? Or perhaps, do we shrug and go “well, I guess he was never saved to begin with?” Neither seem sufficient either to minister the Word rightly, nor to answer humanity’s deep need for God’s bottomless grace.

This brings me to the phrase “perseverance of the saints,” the last point of the famous “five points of Calvinism.” When we say that the saints will persevere, we say that those who are Christ’s will ultimately stand before the Lord in triumph, that no blow the enemy might strike or sin that might lead to backsliding will undo what Christ has done. And this is so because God is the one who saves. It is the very name of our savior – Jesus, Yeshua, “God saves.”

So we have this doctrine, and we have significant Scripture pointing to it. Paul says to the Philippian church in chapter 1 of his epistle, “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Or Jesus’ own words in John chapter 6, verse 37: “Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.” And again in verse 44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” 

But when I got the heart-breaking news about my brother, I was forced face to face in reckoning with many questions. The first and most frustrating one remains “Why?” But along with it comes questions and doubts that linger around the work he had accomplished in his life in serving others in Christ. To see one of our own brothers, one who has served in ministry so faithfully over the years, who has been seen by our and other churches as a faithful servant take his own life is a strong blow dealt to our experience of the faithful love and work of Jesus. The very real pain that is poured out in such a time cannot be ignored, nor can we simply turn away from the enemy’s assault on the faith of brothers and sisters. 

It is one thing to say simply that God saves us. But here we had an example of someone who has demonstrated with so much of his life that he placed his faith in Jesus, but suddenly he displayed a deep and abiding despair, or at least that is what it seemed. In this life we shall never know the true depths of his heart in those final moments. So we have to turn to God’s promises. Jesus said no one will snatch His people out of His hand. But can we jump out?

Christian tradition is certainly divided on this. But if salvation is founded on the work of God, and continued by the work of God, it must certainly be completed by the work of God. Over and over my mind has returned to 2 Timothy 2:13, where Paul seems to be quoting from a hymn or creed of his day: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Believers will struggle and feel weak, but His strength far exceeds any we could ever need. Believers will have crises of faith, but He never will. Believers can find the way clouded, we can fear to take the next step that’s set before us. We can sin. We can fail in myriad ways. But in those times, it is more important than ever to take the character of God into account. 

Does God cast aside His people? No, He does not. Does He found their place as “His own” on their deeds and strength and faith? No. While the means of salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, the rock upon which it all rests is Christ – His love, His work, His life. I think in a tragic way it was fitting that I should have to address this topic in such a time of heartache and sorrow. I believe that in that dark moment, my brother struggled with believing that Jesus was enough—and yet, I trust that God’s grace covered him even in that doubt, as it does for all of us when we face our darkest moments. 

In His Hands

When I wrestle with what this means for his faith, for his eternity, I have to come face to face with the Bible’s prescription over and over that salvation is God’s, from beginning to end. On one hand it feels almost terrifying. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit? Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work? The room for doubt grows by the minute. But really, this is something that should be a call to rest, to peace. I can do nothing to save myself, not even one tiny bit. Even the parts that are worked out through my actions are rooted in the Holy Spirit’s work. The words of Paul in Romans 8:31-39 are a balm to my soul: 

What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

Because of you
we are being put to death all day long;
we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And so, I pray that the Lord will prepare my heart to endure to the end, even though I am still a broken and sinful human who longs for wholeness in Christ. My brother Jarod acted in a way that made many wonder – did he really believe that Jesus was enough? I believe that for a moment, a critical, horrifying moment, he believed that He wasn’t – and now, He is with Jesus, and learning that he was wrong. May the Lord’s grace strengthen us to endure trials and temptations until the day comes that we all stand before Him.

How have you faced the dark moments of the night? How can we and other believers support you in such moments? Leave a comment below or email us – prayer requests, comments, reflections are all welcome.

God’s grace is a subject that is on my mind daily, every hour as I struggle against sin or feel the weight of failure. The beauty of His grace in my life is has been transformative in the way I’ve grown, and yet it provides so much relief from the weight of the fact that on my own, I am utterly incapable of doing what is pleasing to God. God showers the whole world with His grace even as it revolves daily in rebellion – rain falls on saved and unsaved alike, happiness and joy persist even for the most virulent atheist. His common grace is a sign of who God is – the loving Creator and Father of all of us. Yet the grace that we seek is the grace that is available in Christ. This is the special grace that saves all who receive it, all who stand in Christ in faith. I think about this often, as I pray and work after my desire to grow into the image of Christ.

What is grace?

Grace could be described as the application of God’s love. His love is shown in all creation through grace as I mentioned, by His provision of our needs. God provides for our need for food, in abundance and variety. He “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” He gives both work and rest to humanity.

And more than that, He provides an abundance of beauty in our world, of a form that humans continue to seek to recreate through our own artistic methods. I’m reminded of what I like to call the “Holmes apologetic,” from a Sherlock Holmes story where the detective stops mid-thought to remark on the beauty of flowers, and how a flower’s “smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives these extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.” When we look at nature and consider it, from the incredibly minute detail of particles so small no eye could see them, to vast stellar nurseries discovered deep in our galaxy and beyond, the artistry of God demonstrates His love for his creation.

In theological terms, we see two concepts of grace: what is called “common grace,” which is God’s provision for our existence and for creation itself, and “special (or saving) grace,” which is His provision of salvation in Christ. Common grace is what I described above, in God’s provision for all His creation. Special grace is not given to all, but to His people – to all who believe in the name of Jesus and look to Him for life and hope. For those who do not, God’s common grace will ultimately become a condemnation – they received God’s goodness while refusing to worship Him as God.

As Paul says in Romans 1, the truth of God seen in creation is not new information to humanity. We know this, but we also “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” In our sin and our refusal to honor our Creator, we deny God’s handiwork as being special or of showing His glory. We allow cynical, nihilistic beliefs to draw us into attitudes of self-absorption, rather than humility. But humility is the key that unlocks the gate to the way of Christ, a humility brought about by the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who hear the gospel and by God’s grace respond. In Romans 3:23 Paul writes that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But Paul answers this problem with the only possible solution: the grace that is given to us through the sacrifice of Jesus. We are all tainted by sin, and there is no way we can “un-sin” by our own means – as Isaiah writes, even our attempts to do good are tainted by our evil desires before God. But the special grace of Christ truly and perfectly covers our sin, and He delights to administer that to us each day, as our great high priest before the Father. 

God’s grace transforms our hearts

Paul continues in that chapter to demonstrate that humility is the necessary consequence of this realization – boasting in ourselves “is excluded” he writes, “by a law of faith.” Our way is not a free ticket to do what we please because God doesn’t care any longer. His grace creates in us a realization that we have received what we do not and could never deserve.  And as that truth works inward like a seed that is sprouting out of the ground, it changes us bit by bit, breaking away hard-hearted and selfish attitudes and bringing idols to light so they may be thrown down. God’s saving grace shows us that truly resting in God for all our needs, from the most basic to the most profound, is precisely the life God intends for us to live in Him, now and in eternity. As Charles Spurgeon said, “The more grace we have, the less we shall think of ourselves, for grace, like light, reveals our impurity.”

I remember how this happened in my own life, and the moment I experienced that deep conviction of my own sin even as I also felt a tremendous sense of joy of knowing that Jesus was, in fact, enough. It was during a sermon many years ago that the Holy Spirit used as a transformative moment beyond description, and I think about that day often, even as I think about the days and years to come walking the path of Christ.

This applied love of grace is not simply an expression of pity, though pity could be said to share in it. When God saw the sorry state of Adam and Eve in the garden, even though He surely was not surprised by any turn of events, might pity not have had its place in His promise that the woman’s offspring would destroy the enemy and his work? When Jesus stood among weeping mourners at the tomb of Lazarus and joined in their tears, pity surely must have been one of the feelings he bore as he demonstrated the great hope of life that was His gift to humanity, when he called Lazarus forth from the tomb. But this great love expresses the perfect love in unity shared by Father, Son, and Spirit. Again returning to Romans, Paul writes in chapter 5 that “God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

Knowing that, we can bring our heavy burdens to Him. We can truly obey the call of Psalm 55:22, to “cast all our burdens on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” We often do feel shaken, it is true, but God knows our needs and provides for them, in His love, by His grace. The more we realize this grace, the more we lower our own self-estimations, and raise our worshipful attitudes in expressing that love we have received to God, and to one another.

Living in His grace

The implications for our day to day lives are nothing short of tremendous. Yet they are also the implications that we often find ourselves blinded to the most by our day to day lives, our personal sin struggles and sufferings, and even our successes. When we build our lives around His grace, we find a rest that supports and extends far beyond all our earthly hopes, because life in Christ itself likewise is far beyond our brief years in this world. 

I want to end with three ideas of ways we can grow in the grace of God in our daily lives:

• Pursue the things that bring His grace to mind. This can be done in many ways, from taking time to reflect on the beauty of God’s grace in nature and the goodness of His provision for your life in things like a good meal, to meditating on the testimony of Scripture and the teachings of those who have pursued this deeply. 
• Find ways to express the ways you’ve seen God’s grace move in your life. You don’t have to have a big formal journaling effort, though keeping a personal record of the ways you experience God’s grace is a good idea. When dark times come, being able to remember that God’s presence has not lessened is wise.
• Don’t try to walk alone. Have people who are close to you, who you trust and who knows you. When hardship comes and clouds fill the horizon of life, have someone who can encourage and pray with you. This should be a person who can listen to confessions of the sins, fears and failures of your life and remind you of your true worth in Christ. My podcast cohost Jake is a person like this for me, someone who I turn to often when I’m needing to talk about life struggles or confess sins.

None of this is dynamic and new, but then that’s not the point. The goal is to build a reminder into our lives of the constant grace of God, and the Holy Spirit has given us so many ways to do so through the Word, through prayer, and through the people around us. Pursue the grace of Christ daily, and the day will come where both suffering and success in this world will be a dim memory compared with the joy of truly being in the presence of Jesus. My prayer for everyone who reads this is that you will strive each day towards that moment for yourself.

How has the grace of God impacted your life? How do you want to see God move further in your life and transform your heart? Leave a comment below or email us, prayer requests are welcome!