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The Mission of the Church

acasteel — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:46:46 +0000

"The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship and obey Jesus’ commands now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father."

Greg Gilbert from What Is the Mission of the Church

Weak Tendencies Never Corrected

acasteel — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:52:48 +0000

People in their younger days naturally have more vigorous, active, and quick affections. As their minds begin to naturally slow down, the edge and keenness are lost. Nevertheless, unless they are steeped in sensuality or lustful corruptions, they will grow in their insights, resolutions, and judgments. If, however, their affections (or inclined and disciplined emotions) are not educated, they will become foolish old people. It is as if the weak tendencies of childhood are never corrected and lead to greater more exaggerated forms of weakness in old age.

John Owen

This Good News of Salvation

acasteel — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:52:19 +0000

Moved by His incomprehensible love for mankind, the Triune God was pleased not to abandon our rebellious and corrupt race to the misery and hell that it justly deserved, but to undertake to save a great multitude of human beings who had absolutely no claim on His mercy.

In order to bring this plan into execution, the second Person of the Godhead, the Son, took unto himself a full human nature, becoming in all things like his brethren and sisters, sin excepted. Thus he became the Second Adam, the head of a new covenant, and he lived a life of perfect obedience to the Divine Law.

Identifying with his own, he bore the penalty of human sin on the cross of Calvary, suffering in the place of the sinner, the just for the unjust, the holy Son of God for the guilty and corrupt children of man.

By his death and resurrection he has provided the basis

for the reconciliation of God to humans and of humans to God;
for the propitiation of a righteous Trinity, justly angry at our sins;
for the redemption of a multitude of captives of sin whose liberty was secured at the great price of His own blood.

He offered himself as an expiatory sacrifice sufficient to blot out the sins of the whole world and secured the utmost triumph over the enemies of our soul: sin, death, and Satan.

Those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ are thus to be absolved from the guilt of all their sins and are adorned with the perfect righteousness of Christ himself. In gratitude to him they are to live lives of obedience and service to their Savior and are increasingly renewed into the image of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This good news of salvation by grace through faith is to be proclaimed indiscriminately to mankind, that is to every man, woman, and child whom we can possibly reach.

Roger Nicole (1915-2010)

(via Justin Taylor)

Where Will You Point?

acasteel — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:28:11 +0000

When you stand before God at the judgment, I wonder what you plan to do or say in order to convince him to count you righteous and admit you to all the blessings of his kingdom? What good deed or godly attitude will you pull out of your pocket to impress him? Will you pull out your church attendance? Your family life? Your spotless thought life? The fact that your haven’t done anything really heinous in your own eyes? I wonder what you’ll hold up before him while saying, “God, on account of this, justify me!”

I’ll tell you what every Christian whose faith is in Christ alone will do, by God’s grace. They will simply and quietly point to Jesus. And this will be their plea: “O God, do not look for any righteousness in my own life. Look at your Son. Count me righteous not because of anything I’ve done or anything I am, but because of him. He lived the life I should have lived. He died the death that I deserve. I have renounced all other trusts, and my plea is him alone. Justify me, O God, because of Jesus.”

Greg Gilbert – What Is the Gospel?

Don’t Give Up On The Church

acasteel — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:36:56 +0000

If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is the hope of the world — not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.

Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me. Put away the Che Guevara t-shirts, stop the revolution, and join the rest of the plodders. Fifty years from now you’ll be glad you did.

Kevin DeYoung – The Glory of Plodding

Make Mine Freedom

acasteel — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:09:57 +0000

Get your bottle of Dr. Utopia’s ISM and all your problems will be solved. All you have to do is sign this:

I hereby turn over to Ism, Inc. everything I have, including my freedom and the freedom of my children and my children’s children, in return for which said Ism promises to take care of me forever.

The Resurrection Is Worthy of the Most Careful Consideration

acasteel — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:02:35 +0000

Apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no savior, no salvation, no forgiveness of sin, and no hope of resurrected eternal life. Apart from the resurrection, Jesus is reduced to yet another good but dead man and therefore is of no considerable help to us in this life or at its end. Plainly stated, without the resurrection of Jesus, the few billion people today who worship Jesus as God are gullible; their hope for a resurrection life after this life is the hope of silly fools who trust in a dead man to give them life. Subsequently, the doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection is, without question, profoundly significant and worthy of the most careful consideration and examination.

In closing, no one can remain neutral regarding Jesus’ resurrection. The claim is too staggering, the event is too earthshaking, the implications are too significant, and the matter is too serious. We must each either receive or reject it as truth for us, and to remain indifferent or undecided is to reject it.

Mark Driscoll, from his new book Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe

Download his chapter on the resurrection here

Are You Convinced In the Resurrection?

acasteel — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:38:00 +0000

(found at adrianwarnock.com)

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

acasteel — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:41:19 +0000

From the autobiography of Patrick, originally written in Latin around AD 450:

Thus I give untiring thanks to God who kept me faithful in the day of my temptation, so that today I may confidently offer my soul as a living sacrifice for Christ my Lord; who am I, Lord? or, rather, what is my calling? that you appeared to me in so great a divine quality, so that today among the barbarians I might constantly exalt and magnify your name in whatever place I should be, and not only in good fortune, but even in affliction? So that whatever befalls me, be it good or bad, I should accept it equally, and give thanks always to God who revealed to me that I might trust in him, implicitly and forever, and who will encourage me so that, ignorant, and in the last days, I may dare to undertake so devout and so wonderful a work; so that I might imitate one of those whom, once, long ago, the Lord already pre-ordained to be heralds of his Gospel to witness to all peoples to the ends of the earth. So are we seeing, and so it is fulfilled; behold, we are witnesses because the Gospel has been preached as far as the places beyond which no man lives.

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How To Treat Your Children So They Have Good and Right Thoughts About God

acasteel — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:34:00 +0000

Click here for wise advice from C.J. Mahaney to a concerned dad who fears that that the way in which he insists his kids obey him in the Lord could lead them to think of God the Father apart from love and grace.

Here is a sample of his advice:

You have the privilege of introducing them to God the Father and describing the ways in which he is different from you, different from all sinful fathers, and how in any way you are like him it’s only because of grace that you reflect him. See Luke 11:11–13.

Your honest confession of your sin to your children will protect them from having hard thoughts about you or God.

Communicating your affection for them—and joy when you are with them—promotes both good and accurate thoughts about God.

(Thanks to Justin Taylor)

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