Underlined Bits

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Bowen) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 19:29:00 +0000

"The greatest sin of the evangelical church is telling God what He could not do".

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones in conversation with Terry Virgo - http://www.terryvirgo.org/Articles/224236/Terry_Virgo/Resources/Articles/Dr_Martyn_Lloyd_Jones_preaching.aspx - accessed Sunday 20th October 2013

Luther on Facing Sickness and Death

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:17:00 +0000

Therefore, let us rejoice with all assurance and gladness. Should any thought of sin or death frighten us, let us lift up our hearts and say: "Behold, dear soul, what are you doing? Dear death, dear sin, how is it that you are alive and terrify me? Do you not know that you have been overcome? Do you, death, not know that you are quite dead? Do you not know the One who has said of you, 'I have overcome the world'? It does not behoove me to listen to or heed your terrifying suggestions. I shall pay attention only to the cheering words of my Saviour, 'Be of good cheer, be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.' He is the Conqueror, the true Hero, who in these words, 'Be of good cheer,' gives me the benefit of his victory. I shall cling to him. To his words and comfort I shall hold fast. Whether I remain here or go yonder, he will not forsake me. You would like to deceive me with your false terrors, and with your lying thoughts you would like to tear me away from such a Conqueror and Saviour. But they are lies, as surely as it is true that he has overcome you and commanded us to be comforted."

Martin Luther in a letter to his dying mother in Letters of Spiritual Counsel

Theatrical encore

noreply@blogger.com (Stephie) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:42:00 +0000

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning,"Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike;it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE.

Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton

worldliness

noreply@blogger.com (ricki) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:16:00 +0000

Being dead to the world means that every legitimate pleasure in the world becomes a blood-bought evidence of Christ's love and an occasion of boasting in the cross. When our hearts run back along the beam of blessing to the source in the cross, then the worldliness of the blessing is dead, and Christ crucified is everything.

John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, p83

Luther on the Treasure of the Church

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:33:00 +0000

The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.

Martin Luther, 95 Theses (no. 62)

Authentic church life

noreply@blogger.com (Stephie) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:52:00 +0000

To put it candidly, you will never have an authentic experience of the body of Christ unless your foundation is blindly and singularly Jesus Christ. Authentic church life is born when a group of people are intoxicated with a glorious unveiling of their Lord.The chief task of a Christian leader, therefore, is to present a Christ to God’s people that they have never known, dreamed, or imagined. A breathtaking Christ whom they can know intimately and love passionately. The calling of every Christian servant is to build the ekklesia upon an overmastering revelation of the Son of God. A revelation that burns in the fiber of their being and leaves God’s people breathless, overwhelmed, and awash in the glories of Jesus.

Viola "From Eternity to Here"

Pearse on Maturity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:35:00 +0000

But if there's one thing all that psychology could have taught us, it's that the self-directed person remains, in most respects, an infant. Growing up consists in becoming other-centred. That is why Jesus was the most grown-up person who ever lived.

Meic Pearse, cited by Tim Chester in The Ordinary Hero, p84

Carson on Waiting for the Second Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:56:00 +0000

It is one thing to wait for the Lord's coming; it is another thing to wait well. One may honestly and self-consciously wait for the Lord's coming, not only acknowledging that the Second Advent is a necessary part of our creed but even after a fashion looking forward to the Parousia, and hoping it will occur in our lifetime - only to find, on reflection, that the way we live has been affected very little by this perspective. In fact, this waiting for the return of the Lord may be nothing more than a hobbyhorse in our reading or teaching, a well-handled map of the future that divides us from other believers, rather than a fixed point in our worldview that decisively shapes how we conduct ourselves.

Don Carson in For the Love of God, vol. 1, Meditation for November 23.

Sibbes on Power over Sin as well as Pardon for Sin

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:41:00 +0000

Some weak notions would place all the change in justification. They separate Christ's offices, as if he were all priest but not a governing king; or as if he were righteousness but not sanctification; or as if he had merit to die for us and to give us his righteousness, but no efficacy to change our natures; or as if in the covenant of grace God only forgave our sins but did not write his law in our hearts. But in the covenant of grace he does both. Where God makes a combination, we must not break it. Efficacy and merit, justification and sanctification, water and blood, go together. There must be a change.

Richard Sibbes in Glorious Freedom, p104

Piper on the Deadliness of Television

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:59:00 +0000

It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ...
TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it.

John Piper in article, Why I Don't Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies, http://tinyurl.com/n54qrh

Piper on Exposure to Nudity and the Beauty of Christ

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:55:00 +0000

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching...
Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

John Piper in article, Why I Don't Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies, http://tinyurl.com/n54qrh

Piper on Relevance in Preaching

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:50:00 +0000

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.
If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

John Piper in article, Why I Don't Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies, http://tinyurl.com/n54qrh

Redman and Tozer on God's Unshakeableness

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:45:00 +0000

There’s so much uncertainty in the world we live in - the economic troubles being a recent example. And there amidst all of the confusion and worries we find our unchangeable, unshakeable God - standing as steadfast and strong as ever. Jesus is the solid ground, the firm place to stand. And He is perfectly faithful. As Tozer reminds us, God is never ‘partly’ anything. He is full-on in everything He says and does and is. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. God remains faithful, even when we are unfaithful, because He cannot disown who He is.
Our constant and unfailing God deserves our constant, stable, unfaltering worship. God is everything He says He is.

Matt Redman in blog post, God is never partly anything, http://mattredman.com/blog/?p=16

Carson on Sidelining the Bible

noreply@blogger.com (Hainesy) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:37:00 +0000

The danger in contemporary evangelicalism is not formal rejection of Scripture, but an unrealistic assumption that we know the Bible while in fact we press "on" (in reality, slouch backwards) toward endless conferences on leadership, techniques, tools, gimmicks, agendas. Some of these might even be useful if the Bible itself were not so commonly sidelined.

Don Carson in For the Love of God, vol 1., meditation for Oct 31

Packer on the Priority of Knowing God

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:00:00 +0000

We have been brought to the point where we both can and must get our life's priorities straight. From current Christian publications you might think that the most vital issue for any real or would be Christian in the world today is church union or social witness or dialogue with other Christians and other faiths or refuting this or that 'ism' or developing a Christian philosophy and culture or what have you. But our line of study makes the present day concentration on these things look like a gigantic conspiracy of misdirection. Of course, it is not that that, the issues themselves are real and must be dealt with in their place, but it is tragic that in paying attention to them so many in our day seem to have been distracted from what was, and is, and always will be, the true priority for every human being. That is, learning to know God in Christ.

J I Packer in Knowing God

Piper on evangelism

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Haughty, condescending proclamation of Christ, with no feeling of brokenness or servanthood, contradicts the gospel. And silent servanthood that never speaks the gospel contradicts love. ... We tell people the good news of Jesus from a life of service and a heart of love.

John Piper in Finally Alive p167

Ponsonby on experiencing the Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:08:00 +0000

...the Spirit meets us as individuals, with different psychological, physiological, emotional and sociological constitutions. Our encounter with him is never off the peg, it is always tailor-made. The Spirit squeezes us into our unique mould in order to mould us in his image. There is never a 'one size fits all', never a homogeneous experience of God.

Simon Ponsonby in More p122

Ponsonby on intimacy with God

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:47:00 +0000

We alone out of all creation were made not merely to serve God but to love him and be loved by him. It was not the angels and archangels whom he made for love; them he made for ministry (Heb 1:14), us he made for intimacy (Heb 1:13; Eph 2:6)

Simon Ponsonby in More p31

Ponsonby on desiring more of God

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:43:00 +0000

The desire for more of God is a sign of spiritual health. The mature want more.

Simon Ponsonby in More p24

Brunner on the gospel and the church

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:41:00 +0000

At every period in the history of the church, the greatest sin of the church and the one that caused the greatest distress is that she witholds the gospel from the world, and herself

Emil Brunner cited by Simon Ponsonby in More p23

Graham on the Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:39:00 +0000

The most desperate need of the nation today is that men and women who profess Jesus be filled with the Spirit.

Billy Graham in cited by Simon Ponsonby in More p13

Spurgeon on Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Some tell us that we must keep abreast of the times; but if the times run the wrong way, I see no reason why we should run with them. Rather let us leave the times, and dwell in the eternities.

C H Spurgeon in A Sermon for a Winter's Evening preached in 1910

The God who desires our fellowship

noreply@blogger.com (Stephie) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:18:00 +0000

"The God who desires our fellowship and communion is not hard to please, although he may be hard to satisfy. He expects of us only what He has Himself supplied. He is quick to mark every simple effort to please Him and just as quick to overlook our imperfections when He knows we meant to do His will.
This is the best of good news: God loves us for ourselves. He values our love more than He values galaxies of new created worlds. He remembers our frame and knows that we are but dust.
The God we love may sometimes chasten us, it is true. But even this He does with a smile-the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming ever day to look more and more like the One whose child he is."

A.W. Tozer 'Whatever happened to worship?'

True worship

noreply@blogger.com (Stephie) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:15:00 +0000

"True worship is to be so personally and hopelessly in love with God that the idea of a transfer of affection never even remotely exists."

A.W. Tozer 'Whatever happened to worship?'

Wright on Personal Calling

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Part of Christian obedience, right from the beginning, was the call to play (apparently) great parts without pride and (apparently) small parts without shame. There are, of course, no passengers in the kingdom of God, and actually no 'great' and 'small' parts either. The different tasks and roles to which God assigns us are his business not ours.

Tom Wright on Acts 1:26 in Acts for Everyone Part 1 page 20