Monday, April 18, 2011

The Nature of Sin and Its Impact on Our Relationships-- This is important to grasp!

What Sin Desires

By Tim Challies
Created 04/18/2011

There was a time when God walked and talked with the people he created. This must have been an amazing experience for Adam and Eve. But alas, it was a short-lived experience. One evening God came to the garden for his evening stroll and Adam and the woman were nowhere to be found. They had heard the sound of him and they had been terrified. They heard that sound and instead of rushing to him they ran away from him. Clutching fig leaves to themselves, they got among the thickest trees and hid away, trying to get away from God. Their joy had turned to terror, their anticipation to dread.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

As a child there were days when I looked forward to my father coming home. He would have been away on a business trip and I knew he would have something for me—a new toy or something good to eat. "Dad's home!" And I'd rush out and hug him and get whisker burn as he rubbed my cheeks with his stubbly face. Then he'd pull something out of his pocket and give it to me. That is a great memory of days long past.

And then there were days when I was terrified when dad came home. Those were the days I had sinned against my mother and she had sent me to my room; she had banished me. "You go to your room and wait until your father gets home!" I remember lying in bed and trying desperately to fall asleep, hoping dad would have pity on his poor, sweet sleeping child. I remember hiding in the closet one time, shrinking to the back of the closet and hiding, knowing that I deserved to be punished for lying to my mother yet again. This is what we do when we sin, when we are afraid of the consequence of our sin. This is what Adam did.



The Week of Christ's Crucifixion


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Don't Waste Your Cancer

Recently on Facebook Brenda Corder wrote something like this: I am determined to not waste my cancer!  Let us pray that God will pour out grace and strength on her to that end, and let us pray for relief from pain and His healing power in her life.  (Radiation and chemo begin for Brenda soon.)  Also, there is a fine booklet available entitled "Dont' Waste Your Cancer" at desiringgod.org in the Resources section.   

Thursday, March 31, 2011

No Cheap Salvation, quoted from Charles Spurgeon


No cheap salvation

. . . not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the priceless blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.  1 Peter 1:18-19

"How do you mean to live?  With these precious things about you, do you intend to live like a beggar?  I mean, will you be sinful, low, groveling, worldly?  Oh, rise to your rank, and as you are so ennobled, walk as becomes saints!  Is Jesus Christ precious to you?  Then serve Him with your best, give Him your precious things, give Him your lives, give Him your substance, give Him all that you have.  Do not give the Redeemer your odds and ends, such as you can afford to give without knowing it.  Say, 'He died to give me Himself.  I will give Him myself in return.' . . . Go and live like those who are rich to all the intents of bliss, and let your cheerful, your godly, your self-denying example be a protest to the unbelieving sons of men that you know the preciousness of Christ."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), IV:393.

No cheap salvation is a post from: Ray Ortlund