Month: March 2022

Posted by

0

DEALING WITH SIN

“A principal hindrance to our embracing Christ’s righteousness, is the want of a due sense of our own unrighteousness” John M’Laurin (ref#333, p264).

“The beginning of our cure is to be sensible of our disorder” James Hervey (ref#333, p273).

“I must discipline ‘my members which are upon the earth’ (Col 3:5)—my affections, lusts, passions, pride, self-glory, and all like things. I must keep them down; I must mortify them. I must deal violently with them, in order that I may become more and more like Him” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p526).

“Repentance is being sorry enough to quit your sin” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p17-18).

“We must recapture the lost art of meditation, and meditation especially upon Him. We must think again about that birth in Bethlehem—what it meant, what it cost, what it really involved. Try to grapple with it; it is baffling—the sacrifice, the humiliation. Look at His life; take it step by step and stage by stage. Look at what He endured and suffered through the thirty hidden years and the three busy years of his earthly ministry. Look at Him; remember what He has done and what He literally and actually suffered. Let us go over these things, let us remind ourselves of them; and then as we begin to realise what He did, we shall realise His love to us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p525).

“[I]f we hate our corruptions and strive against them, they shall not be counted ours” Richard Sibbes (ref#311, p55).

“[I]t is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom 7:17 ESV).

“It is an unequivocal mark of great spiritual fruitfulness in a believer when tenderness of conscience, contrition of spirit, low thoughts of self, and high thoughts of Jesus mark the state of his soul” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Oct 14th).

Posted by

0

NEED MORE THAN UNDERSTANDING

“When we do something wrong, we all tend to point outside ourselves for the cause: ‘This traffic makes me so angry’, ‘She gets me so upset’; or ‘My boss pulls the worst out of me.’” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 7th).

“It is hard for us to accept that our words and behavior are not caused by what’s outside us, but by what’s inside us” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 11th).

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:43 ESV).

“[T]he Scriptures are clear that every wrong you and I do flows out of the thoughts and desires of our hearts. It is only when you admit and confess this that you begin to feel the need for and get excited about God’s grace. It you have convinced yourself that you’re not your problem, but people and situations are, you are not excited about God’s provision of powerful forgiving and transforming grace, because, frankly, you don’t think you need it. For many of us, subtle patterns of blaming God are in the way of receiving the grace that we need at the very moment we are working to convince ourselves that we don’t need it” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 11th).

“An act may be very praiseworthy; but if it displeases God, nothing can excuse its commission” William S. Plumer (ref#358, p3).

“The best thing we ever did independent of the merit of Jesus only swelled the number of our sins. For even when we have been purest in our own sight, we have not been pure in God’s sight” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Oct 27th PM).

“A hundred preachers are unable to make an unregenerate person realize the dreadful nature of sin, or show him that he has been a lifelong rebel against God, or change his heart so that he now hates himself and longs to please God and serve Christ. Only the Spirit can bring man to the place where he is willing to forsake every idol” A.W. Pink (ref#360, p20).

“I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O LORD” (Jer 10:23-24 ESV).

“By nature we are not only ignorant of God’s way, but reluctant to walk therein even when it is shown us. [W]e never seek unto God till we are Divinely drawn. This humbling truth was well understood by David of old. First, he prayed, ‘Teach me, O LORD, the way of Thy statutes. Give me understanding’ (Psa. 119:33,34). But second, he realized that something more than Divine illumination was needed by him: therefore did he add, ‘Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p 118).

Posted by

0

LITTLE SINS

“[Y]ou are very stubborn and do only what you want to do; you have not obeyed me” (Jer 16:12 NCV).

“For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (James 2:10 ESV).

“The character of any person’s life is not shaped by two or three grand, big moments of life. A person’s character is formed in ten thousand little, mundane moments of everyday life. [T]hose ‘little sins’ are not so little after all:

  • the nasty retort
  • the ‘me first’ pride
  • the flash of lust at the mall
  • the anger at someone who got in your way
  • those little bitter thoughts
  • your addiction to little pleasures
  • the impatience with a loved one

[Y]ou may fail to notice them, but they depict a deeply needy heart” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, June 16th).

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ‘I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.’” (Jer 17:9-10 ESV).

“Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you” Austin O’Malley (ref#315, p430). “Envy is like a fly that passes all a body’s sounder parts and dwells upon the sores” George Chapman (ref#315, p196). “To criticize is like complaining that the rain is too damp” Justin Davidson (ref#315, p149).

“God’s grace will expose what you want to hide, not to shame you, but to forgive and deliver you. [B]ecause he knows that we cannot grieve what we do not see, we cannot confess what we have not grieved, and we cannot turn from what we haven’t confessed” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 14th).

“Since sin means that you are a bigger danger to you than anything else in your life and since it is impossible for you to run from you, there is only one hope for you. It is that someone with power, wisdom, and mercy will invade your life, forgive your sins, and progressively deliver you from the hold that sin has had on you. That mercy comes to you in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his mercy is always fresh, uniquely fashioned for the sin struggles of this new day” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 16th).

Posted by

0

PRIDE

GOD accuses:

“I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine” (Jer 2:21 NIV)?

“[H]e does not regard any who are wise in their own conceit.’” (Job 37:24 ESV).

“[P]ride, private agendas, personal ambitions, self-promotion, self-reliance, self-determination, rebellion, competitiveness, etc. God is setting His face against flowery orations, hype, and personality-driven leadership styles that get God’s people enamored with the messenger instead of the Sender” Bob Sorge (ref#197, p18).

“If we have to bear the ridicule of the world, that is not so hard. Its flattery, its soft words, its oily speeches, its fawning, and its hypocrisy are far worse. Our danger is that we would grow rich and become proud, that we would give ourselves up to the trends of this present evil world and lose our faith. If wealth is not our trial, worldly care is just as dangerous. If we cannot be torn in pieces by the roaring lion, we may be hugged to death by the bear. The devil does not care which it is, as long as he destroys our love for Christ and our confidence in Him” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, April 26th PM).

“There is scarcely any sin more natural to us than pride, and no pride worse than spiritual pride. But good works are rewarded solely out of God’s mercy and grace; and therefore not out of man’s merit” Edward Veal (ref#225, p315).

“The fact is that sin is a bigger disaster than we think it is and grace is more amazing than we seem to be able to grasp that it is. The thought that any fallen human being would be able to perform his or her way into acceptance with God has to be the most insane of all delusions. Yet we all tend to think that we are more righteous than we are” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 5th).

“The armor-bearer of sin is self-confidence” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Jan 17th PM).

GOD’s call to repentance:

“If you change your heart and return to me, I will take you back. Then you may serve me. And if you speak things that have worth, not useless words, then you may speak for me. I will make you strong as a wall as strong as a wall of bronze. I will rescue you and save you” (Jer 15:19-20 NCV).

Our response:

“Let us lie down in our shame, and let our humiliation cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God. And we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.” (Jer 3:25 NASB).

Posted by

0

SELF-PLEASING

“You disobey not because you lack the God-given grace to obey, but because you love something more than the God who’s given you that grace” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 11th).

“Sin is to look away from Him, to be interested in anything that the world can give rather than in Him. Oh, if it is something foul it is ten times worse; but the best that the world can give me is an insult to Him if I put it before Him” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Mar 29th).

“Sin is the rebellious assertion of myself against the love and authority of God, against the welfare of my neighbor” John Stott (ref#258, p85-86).

“[T]he true nature of sin—opposition against God, expressed in self-pleasing” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p70).

“There is no spiritual love for the true God until self is hated” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p67).

“Sin is an infinite evil because committed against an infinitely great and excellent Being, and so a violation of infinite obligation” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p70).

“The masquerading nature of sin plays to the fickleness of our idolatrous hearts. So what is often is not what we think it is, and the masquerading idol has no power at all to deliver to our hungry hearts what Jesus alone can give us. Only God can give us insight into our hearts and free us from our bondage to the little costume kingdom of one” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 31st).

“[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13 ESV).

“Here is a call to be serious about the life that grace has made possible for you. [T]he example reminds you that if you follow, if you obey, and if you do what is right in the eyes of your Savior, you can take no credit whatsoever. This is because your right desires and your right actions exist only because of his indwelling presence and ever-active grace. [W]e do the right that we do because grace is at the moment rescuing us from ourselves” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 17th).

Posted by

0

FAUX CONFESSION

“People are optimistic about this world, and they are so because they have never understood the nature of sin” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 11th).

These are people “who are under the impelling urge of variegated, passionate desires, ever learning and never able to come to a precise and experiential knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:6-7 Wuest).

“The mere presentation of the cross to the natural eye will awaken no emotion, other than natural ones. Thus, in a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, there may in minds of deep natural sensibility be emotion, the spectacle may affect the observer to tears—but it is nature only. [B]eware of mistaking nature for grace—the emotions of a stirred sensibility—for the tears of a broken and a contrite heart” Octavius Winslow (ref#365, p46).

“We may repent of our sins outwardly and even respect God’s Word, absorbing its teaching week after week at church and in Bible study, and getting a certain amount of joy from it. But if we repeatedly succumb to temptation without heart-sorrow and fail to change our ways, even when we are reprimanded by other godly people, we should beware lest our faith be only temporary” John Calvin (ref#164, June 25th).

“The unsound covert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but he is not for sanctification. Jesus is a sweet Name, but men do not love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Every man’s vote is for salvation from suffering, but they do not desire to be saved from sinning. They would have their lives saved, but still would have their lusts. O be infinitely careful here; your soul depends upon it” Joseph Alleine (ref#225, Oct 16th).

“[I]t is most important that we should distinguish between mock mortification and true, between the counterfeit resemblances of this duty and the duty itself. There is a pagan ‘mortification,’ which is merely suppressing such sins as nature itself discovers and from such reasons and motives as nature suggests. This tends to hide sin rather than mortify it. It is not a recovering of the soul from the world unto God, but only acquiring a fitness to live with less scandal among men” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p113).

“Nobody is free who is unforgiven. If I were not sure of God’s forgiveness, I could not look you in the face, and I certainly could not look God in the face. I would want to run away and hide” John Stott (ref#258, p84-85).

“God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will” (John 9:30-33 MSG).

Posted by

0

PLANNING TO DO BETTER

“I realized that deep within my heart my real aim was not to sin very much” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p93).

“Many have sought to live a holy life by their own willpower” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p50).

“People who acknowledge that what they’ve done is wrong and then immediately lay out plans to do better unwittingly deny what the gospel of Jesus Christ says about them, how real change takes place, and where help can be found. What they have omitted or neglected is confession. When you confess your sins to God, you don’t just admit that you have sinned; no, you also confess that you have no power to deliver yourself from the sin you have just confessed. True confession always combines an admission of wrong with a plea for help” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Nov 17th).

“[A]ll our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isa 64:6 ESV).

“[W]hen confronted with your failure [y]ou can comfort yourself with plausible arguments for your righteousness, giving ease to your conscience. Or, in the face of your failure, you can wallow in guilt and shame, beating yourself up because you did not do better and working hard to hide your failure from God and others” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 6th).

“Change is not found in defending our righteousness, but in admitting our weakness and crying for help” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, May 18th).

“Breaking sinful habits must be done in cooperation with the Holy Spirit and in dependence upon Him. The determination that ‘I’ll not do that anymore,’ based upon sheer human resolve, has never once broken the shackles of sin” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p133).

“We have all experienced the joy and motivation of forgiveness. But too many of us have lost sight of it and have slipped into a performance relationship with God. The only cure for this is to come back to the gospel and begin to preach it to ourselves every day. It is only the gospel that will keep us living by grace. And it is only grace that will give us the courage and motivation to mortify sin and to keep seeking to make the right choices even when we fail so often” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p207).

Posted by

0

NO LASTING CHANGE

“Our physical bodies and natural appetites were created by God and are not sinful in themselves. Nevertheless, if left uncontrolled, we will find our bodies becoming ‘instrument of wickedness’ rather than ‘instrument of righteousness’” (Rom 6:13)” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p108).

“We tend to act according to our feelings. The trouble is, we seldom ‘feel’ like doing what we should do” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p111).

“There is no point in our saying that we believe that Christ has died for us and that we believe our sins are forgiven unless we can also say that for us old things are passed away and all things are become new, that our outlook toward the world and its method of living is entirely changed. It is not that we are sinless, nor that we are perfect, but that we have finished with that way of life” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, March 28th).

“[T]hrough our union with Christ we have died to this realm of sin. We have been set free from sin (Romans 6:18), rescued from the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13), and turned from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). Before our salvation we were in bondage to sin, under the reign and rule of sin. Regardless of how decent and moral we were, we lived in the kingdom of sin. But now through our union with Christ in His death to sin, we have been delivered out of the realm of sin and placed in the kingdom and realm of righteousness” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p54).

“A person who manifests a self-reliant recognition of wrong assigns to himself the power to do better and then gives himself to spiritual-looking acts of penance that make him feel good about himself and his potential ability to do better. But while he is acknowledging sin, there is no verticality to what he is doing. [T]here is no Godward confession, no recognition of his desperate need for rescue, and no repentance that is motivated by a heart filled with gratitude for and worship of God. It is an ‘I can save myself’ way of dealing with sin, and it is far more prevalent in the church of Jesus Christ than we would think. It never results in lasting change” Paul David Tripp ( ref# 190, Nov 17th).

Posted by

0

PURIFYING MYSELF

“Satan would try to confuse us on the issue of what God has done for us and what we must do ourselves” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p51).

“God has indeed made provision for us to live a holy life, but He also has given us definite responsibilities” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p51).

“’Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself.’ He does not submit to purification; he purifies himself. The whole emphasis is upon the activity. In other words, the New Testament teaching about holiness is not one which tells me that all I have to do is to let myself go and to surrender myself, to give up effort and striving. It is not just telling me that all I have to do is to die and get rid of myself and forget myself and then life will come in. No! It is active, and I am told to purify myself ‘even as he is pure.’” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p45).

“To confuse the potential for resisting (which God provided) with the responsibility for resisting (which is ours) is to court disaster in our pursuit of holiness” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p57).

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5 ESV).

“’Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth’. I have to do that; these members will not agree to be mortified; I have to take them, and I have to punish my body. I am enabled to do that by the Holy Spirit who has been given to me; yes, and that is included in the fact that I am a child of God. I have been born again, I have received a new nature, and the Holy Spirit is in me. Therefore, because of that, I must do this, I must purify myself even as He is pure. I purify myself by considering Him, by looking at Him and His perfect life; that is the pattern I am to follow” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p45).

“There is no point in praying for victory over temptation if we are not willing to make a commitment to say no to it” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p93).

“Remember the statement that ‘discipline without desire is drudgery.’ Where will the desire to engage in the discipline of mortification come from? It will only come from the gratitude and joy of knowing that however miserably I have failed, God’s grace is greater than my sin” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p206).

“For God to cease to love his own, God would need to cease to exist, because God does not simply have love; he is love (1 John 4:16). In the death of Christ for us sinners, God intends to put his love for us beyond question. The sun is shining. It cannot stop. Clouds, no clouds—sin, no sin—the tender heart of the Son of God is shining on me. This is an unflappable affection” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p193).