Yesterday I got to see Tullian Tchvidjian preach at Southern Seminary. I love his focus on the gospel of grace. Toward the end of his message he asked an interesting question: If Christ accepts me based on his righteousness and not mine, then what is my motivation to do good? In other words, if I have a great day, I’m accepted, if I have a bad day, I’m accepted. So why do good? He answered the question with a quote from Spurgeon:

When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against One who loved me so, and sought my good.

In other words, the deeper I go into the gospel, the greater my motivation toward obedience. I encourage you to watch this message and be amazed again at God’s grace for desperate sinners like you and me.

God knows that in ourselves we are not up to the tasks he calls us to, but he never makes a false assignment. When he sends us we are sent as instruments in his almighty hands. He is the one who creates the change. He is the great Restorer. He never calls us to what we cannot accomplish in him, but he always calls us to what we could never accomplish without him.

Read the whole thing …

People become wise when by God’s grace they are humble enough to accept how unprepared they actually are in themselves. Sacrificing the false god of their own independence, they run to the one place where actual certainty can be found. Then they’re able to live hopefully, productively, and courageously. Then they’re prepared for whatever comes along—not because they saw it coming, but because they’ve been students of the Word of God. They don’t know more about the future than anyone else does. But God, through the wisdom of the Bible, has made them ready for it.

In one sense, this is the secret of “going with the flow” that many people think they are pursuing. In the light of Scripture, however, the nature of all that going and flowing is completely different. It isn’t passive. Its grounded in truth, it understands the real nature of this existence, and its active and attentive.

I call this the principle of prepared spontaneity.  (Read the whole thing …)

[The Holy Spirit] does not withdraw as to His indwelling. Those whom He indwells are said to be “sealed unto the day of redemption.” But if He is grieved, He generally withdraws His free operation in the same way that your wife, when grieved by your boorishness or insensitivity, withdraws her normal attitude and expression of openness or transparency, her free flow of expressed affection. She does not pull her wedding ring off her finger and throw it out the window, although there may be times when she is tempted to do so. No, she meant the vows that she took when she said, “till death do us part,” but an aggrieved wife becomes a withdrawn wife. Therefore, we must not grieve the Holy Spirit.

~Robert Brault

(HT: Katie Weaver)

I liked his idea a lot. It reminded me of Joe Thorn’s words in his book, Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself:

People sing about the things that capture their hearts and things that give them joy. People sing of heroes, victory, longing, and hope. People even sing as a way to express their sorrow. Does anyone have more reasons to sing than you? As a sinner who has been forgiven, a slave who has been freed, a blind man who has received sight, a spiritual cripple who has been healed–all by the gospel-you have real reasons to be known as a person of song!

I’m curious. What do you do to regularly refresh yourself in the Lord? I’d love to hear from you.

Who can measure the long-term effects of nurturing helpless infants, supervising wandering toddlers, discipling self-willed children, and counseling self-absorbed adolescents? Of family outings planned, traditions built, memories made, books read, songs sung, Scripture taught? That’s why motherhood belongs under the heading, “Engage the World”; no one shapes generations or fashions cultures more than mothers.

~ Jeff Purswell, Worldliness, (edited by C.J. Mahaney, p. 159).

I know lots of people with big dreams. But they are afraid to pursue them. They are unwilling to take the plunge, waiting until they reach the point of absolute certainty. But it never comes. And it never will.  (Read the rest …)

Do you know yourself to be weak? Inadequate? Not up to snuff in intellect, family background, educational opportunities, financial resources?

Get ready.

You are just the kind of person God loves to use. The power of God—power to kill sin, power to walk in the fullness of the Spirit, power to speak courageously on the job, power to love the unlovely, power to lead many to Christ, power to make your life count—such power is for inadequate people.

Acknowledge your frailty to God. Look to the Savior. He embraced the weakness of the cross so that you and I, weak sinners, can experience the blood-bought power of God—now.

Read the whole article on Finding Strength in Your Weakness

The only way that your children will grow beyond their dependency into self-sufficient adults is for you to essentially abandon your own independence for twenty years or so…You can make the sacrifice, or they’re going to make the sacrifice. It’s them or you. Either you suffer temporarily and in a redemptive way, or they’re going to suffer tragically, in a wasteful and destructive way.

(HT: Justin Buzzard)