FINE, UPLIFTING AND GOOD

“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”  (Proverbs 3:7 ESV)

You have but to look at our culture to realize that it’s perishing. We have broken with our traditional and spiritual past and find ourselves stumbling and lurching into a new dark age of uncertain and bewildered character. There is a growing sense that nothing is true and everything is permitted. “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.” (Psalm 12:8)

Evil, morbid influences lead us into ever-deepening confusion -- a clutter of distortions, half-truths, bald-faced lies and an addled notion of tolerance that demands we accept everyone’s version of truth. There is no final standard; everything varies according to the weather.

G. K. Chesterton once observed that morality, like art, consists of drawing a line. Now no one knows where to draw the lines! Once there were boundaries and absolutes. Now, traditional concepts of right and wrong have warped so radically and thoroughly that no one knows what is fine, uplifting and good.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NRSV) 

-- Adapted from David Roper in “A Beacon in the Darkness: Reflecting God’s Light in Today’s World”

#5208

THOUGHTS ON REPENTANCE

“So [the son] got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”  (Luke 11:20 NIV)

“Like the father of the Prodigal Son, God can see repentance coming a great way off and is there to meet it. The repentance is the reconciliation.”  (Dorothy L. Sayers)

“Today we need to learn what it means to repent, to convert, to seek forgiveness; to learn how merciful the Father is to those who truly come home and ask His forgiveness.  Unfortunately today there are all too few who come home; and if they do they come home to argue with the Father, and defend their way of life rather than to recognize it as sin.  Or worse they stay at a distance, like the proud elder brother who values earthly goods more than the love of anyone, and in the midst of moral and even physical ruin remains defiant to the last. It is always the time for the alienated, the prodigal, the lost to come home, to recognize the Eternal Love of the Father who did not spare His only Son, that we might be forgiven and have a new life in Him.”  (Rev. Mark A. Pilon)


#4610

FLESH AND SPIRIT

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."  (John 3:6 ESV)

Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead.  Don't you believe a word of it!  At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal -- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.

I was born of the flesh in 1837.  I was born of the Spirit in 1856.  That which is born of the flesh may die.  That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.

-- Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899) 


#4582

ASH WEDNESDAY: SIN, REPENTANCE AND ETERNAL LIFE

“Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions… But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.”  (Romans 6:12,22)

Apparently, some of the early Christians interpreted the new freedom that Paul talked about in a way that permitted them to do whatever they wished -- as long as they said they had faith. Paul practically accuses them of deliberately sinning in order to see how much grace God will bestow to counteract the sin. He asks, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1)

The apostle quickly answers his own question. “By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” (Romans 6:2) While the Christian is free of the ceremonial laws, there is no freedom for immorality or license. Such attitude and behaviors are inappropriate to the new life in Christ, just as they were to the old covenant. Sins are still acts to be avoided, dangers to be fought.

Paul maintains that justification has cleared the decks of a Christian’s past sins; these are no longer held against the faithful. But he has no sympathy for the notion that Christians are therefore free to do anything. Sin is still sin. Morality is still morality. God expects the best of those who claim the promise. 

-- William Carter in “Good News for God’s People: A Study of Romans” published by Abington Press


#4539

SUFFERING TODAY, REJOICING TOMORROW

“Weeping may linger for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning…
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
    You have taken off my sackcloth
    and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise You and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”  (Psalm 30:5b,11,12)

Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. They come, but blessed be God, they also go. Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. But they cannot make their abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow. 

-- Charles Spurgeon


#4441

THE WELL-ORDERED HEART

When the heart is well-ordered, we are not only increasingly free from sin, but also increasingly free from the desire to sin. If the heart were truly well-ordered, we would love people so much we would not want to deceive or manipulate or envy them. We would be transformed from the inside out.

Imagine what the world would be like if it were filled with people who had well-ordered hearts. Television programs such as Miami Vice would be replaced by Miami Virtue. Tabloids sold at grocery stores would be filled with stories about acts of lavish generosity and spontaneous sacrifice committed by noncelebrities we have never heard of. Television talk shows would feature [morality and not immorality.]

We would sleep at night the untroubled sleep of innocence -- no staring at the ceiling at two o'clock in the morning because of regrets. We would have no need for "do-overs" or mulligans.

-- John Ortberg in The Life You've Always Wanted

#3743