No merit of our own

While putting together my thoughts for yesterday’s leftovers, I received an email blog post from Desiring God where John Piper revealed, “My happy confession of having no merit.” A short piece, it reinforces what we’ve been saying all the way through these first chapters of Ephesians — the merit of our salvation is only Christ. […]

Sunday Leftovers (8/16/09)

The truth of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone has been a part of the church now for almost 500 years. You would think we would understand it with clarity. It’s been repeated and explained over and over in church after church. Countless sermons have been preached about it. Innumerable books […]

Today’s Quote – Good Works (Cawdray)

Daniel Cawdray, in A Puritan Golden Treasury: As the apple is not the cause of the apple tree, but a fruit of it: even so good works are not the cause of our salvation, but a sign and a fruit of the same.

Today’s Quote – Grace (Edwards)

Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within: When He’s viewed almost exclusively as a God of love, we see forgiveness as just part of His job. That leaves His love with no punch for us, no fizz, no sprakle. Assumed grace can never be transforming grace. We must be primed by the blazing holiness of God before His […]

Grab Bag

A few links of interest that I’ve come across in the past couple weeks: “Great Cloud of Witnesses” — missionary stories compiled by Urbana. I’ve not read much on this site, but what led me to it was an interest in a pair of articles about Jim Elliott, written by his brother-in-law, David Howard (Pt […]

Today’s Quote – Sin and Grace (Lundgaard)

Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within: …[the] first and most wretched attack [of the flesh] is to abuse God’s grace to make sin seem less sinful, less dangerous, less threatening. You must understand this: the flesh weakens conviction against sin by separating the remedy of grace for the design of grace.… The flesh works to make […]

How well do you know your spouse?

In a recent blog post, John Piper provides a list of “Questions to Ask When Preparing for Marriage.” His list includes the areas of theology, worship, roles of husband and wife, children, entertainment, conflict, work, friends, and health and sickness. These excellent questions are designed to help couples move past superficiality and infatuation and help […]

Who is John Calvin?

Okay. It’s the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth, so that question may be somewhat irrelevant. Most will know that John Calvin was a theologian, pastor, and essential participant in the Reformation. But what about the details of his life? Without reading (or reciting) a biography, do you know who John Calvin is? I’ve been […]

Today’s Quote – Success (Lutzer)

Erwin Lutzer, Failure: the Backdoor to Success: What is failure? It is living with perverted values. It is being hooked on one or more of the three worldly motivations [the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes]. What is success? It is learning to apply the grace of […]

Too much success

He had all the trappings of 21st century, American success. He was a master builder — massive revitalization projects produced much income and resources for a struggling city. He was a motivating leader — thousands of men served underneath him and gladly followed him. He was a successful soldier — he led his nation out […]

Today’s Quote – Faith (Bonar)

Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness: Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but […]

Saved by grace through – how much? – faith

We are saved by grace. We are undeserving of it, yet recipients of God’s benevolent love all the same. In Ephesians, Paul also includes the prepositional phrase, “by faith” as a component to the process of salvation. That is, faith is not the cause of our salvation — grace through the work of Christ is […]

Today’s Quote – Faith (Spurgeon)

Charles H. Spurgeon, All of Grace: Trust is the lifeblood of faith; there is no saving faith without it. The Puritans were accustomed to explain faith by the word “recumbency.” It meant leaning upon a thing. Lean with all your weight upon Christ. It would be a better illustration still if I said, fall at […]

Sunday Leftovers (8/9/09)

“How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” (Mt. 18:21; NASB) One South African home owner might have paraphrased that question, “how often shall I rescue a man who sins against me?” It seems that the man come home one evening to find nine men robbing his […]

Today’s Quote – Faith (Piper)

John Piper, Battling Unbelief: The test of whether our kind of faith is the kind of faith that justified is whether it is the kind of faith that sanctifies. These are not two different kinds of faith. Both embrace Christ who bore our punishment, provided our righteousness, and promises to meet every need to the […]