Sunday Reflections

Cheer up...you're worse than you think. But God's grace is greater than you could ever imagine.

--C. John Miller For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

Sunday Reflections

God is both one and three. He is the one...God..., Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There can be no question of his unity. The Christian affirms this as strongly as any Jew or Muslim. 'The LORD our god is one LORD' (Deut. 6:4). He says, 'I am the LORD, and there is no other, beside me there is no God' (Isa. 45:5). The unity of the Godhead is fundamental to all evangelism. It is because 'there is one God' that he demands and deserves the total allegiance of all mankind. Yet this one God revealed himself in three stages (first as the God of Israel, then as the incarnate Lord, then as the Holy Spirit) in such a way as to show that he exists eternally in these three personal modes of being. So the risen Jesus has commanded us to baptize converts 'in the name (not the singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28:19).

--John Stott, The Lausanne Covenant

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

(Matthew 3:16-17)

Sunday Reflections

Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. "You were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-- yes, even his own life-- he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Luke 14:26-27

Sunday Reflections

We need to keep our heart full of a sense of the love of God. This is the greatest perspective available to us against the power of temptation in the world...Fill your heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, and apply the eternal design of grace and shed blood to yourselves. Accept all the privileges of adoption, justification and acceptance with God. Fill your heart with thoughts of the beauty of holiness..,.then in the ordinary course of walking with God, you will experience great peace and security from temptation.

--John Owen, Sin and Temptation Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born, of God and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

1 John 5:1-4

Sunday Reflections - Happy Easter

If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense - [then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world - news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn't just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things - and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement the victory of Jesus over them all.

--N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Sunday Reflections

We must be aware of the various ways sin pulls us to wrong thoughts about God, righteousness, grace, ourselves and sin itself. Only the truth of God's word and meditation in prayer can reveal the deceitfulness of sin. Sin works against God. Sin will either deceive us into thinking God is a cruel taskmaster, or, if that will not work, will deceive us into thinking He is like a doting grandfather who really does not care what we do. Sin affects every Christian's view of God and leads us to worship idols, figments of our own imaginations, and not the true God. Sin will deceive us concerning grace. We will either be deceived into thinking it is too good to be true, or we will buy into cheap grace and think that ethics are unimportant.

--Dr. Bob Flayhart, Oak Mountain Pres. Church In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

Hebrews 12:4-6

Sunday Reflection

Most of us find it very difficult to want "Heaven" at all - except in so far as "Heaven" means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want or Heaven is present in us, we do not recognize it. Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1 John 2:15

For God so Loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Sunday Reflections

When unburdened by superstitious rites, Lent ... holds, tremendous promise if we will recover its evangelical purpose; namely, leading us and our children to Christ by his Word. Hopefully we can all agree that this goal remains the central mission of the church every Lord's day.

--Michael Horton Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, "it is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Matthew 4:1-4

Sunday Reflections

"And what is this valley called?" "We call it now simply Wisdom's Valley: But the oldest maps mark it as the Valley of Humiliation."

--C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God, For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 2:1-6

Sunday Reflections

We sin because our longings are so strong at the operational level - not at the verbal level, where we confess "Jesus is Lord" - we feel that something in addition to Jesus is necessary for our happiness and well-being. We will never find the full freedom promised in the gospel if all we want from Jesus is relief.

-James Wilhoit, Spiritual Formation As if the Church Mattered

Therefore God exalted [Jesus] to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

Sunday Reflections

Christ teaches us that it is not enough to speak gloriously about Christ and faith. We must look at the fruits. For where these do not appear, or the opposite appears, surely there is not Christ, but nothing except a false name. This is why we must tell such people: "To be sure, I hear the beautiful, splendid name; it certainly is noble and worthy of all honor. But who are you?"

--Martin LutherAnd without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

Sunday Reflections

Christian liberty is not inconsistent with law any more than love is. True, Christians are not "under law" in that our salvation does not depend on obedience to the law. Yet This does not relieve us of the obligation to keep the law. The freedom with which Christ has made us free is not freedom to break the law, but freedom to keep it.

John Stott, The Letters of John I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought your prcepts.

Psalm 119:45

Sunday Reflections

I guess we should call this gospel brokenness, because only the gospel of God's grace can enable us to be completely honest about our stuff without falling into toxic shame or self-contempt. And only the gospel can humble us, soften us, and give us the power to repent-or, at least, not run away or rant. When followers of Jesus walk openly in this kind of brokenness--gospel brokenness--angels in heaven rejoice, and people without faith or those with much cynicism about Christians are likely to reconsider who Jesus is.

--Scotty Smith, Restoring Broken Things O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise.

Psalm 51:15-17

Sunday Reflections

In the ministry of Jesus words and works, gospel preaching and compassionate service went hand in hand. His works expressed his words, and his words explained his works. It should be the same for us. Words are abstract, they need to be embodied in deeds of love. Works are ambiguous, they need to be interpreted by the proclamation of the gospel. Keep words and works together in the service and witness of the church.

--John Stott, "Evangelism and Social Responsibility" Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world,to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

1 Peter 2:11-12

Sunday Reflections

God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if He had taken up the sins of His people, or as if they were laid on Him, though that were true, but as if He Himself had positively been that noxious-that God-hating-that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, 'Where is sin?' Christ presented himself. What a grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass-murder, lust and stealing, and adultery. And the Father looked on Christ as if He were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on upon Him as made sin for us. Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on our iniquity and God treats Him as if He had been sin. How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast upon Christ and Christ has suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, 'Yes, it is true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it all upon Himself and suffered in my place.'

--Charles Spurgeon, The King's Highway God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Sunday Reflections

God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if He had taken up the sins of His people, or as if they were laid on Him, though that were true, but as if He Himself had positively been that noxious-that God-hating-that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, 'Where is Sin?' Christ presented himself. What a grim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass-murder, lust and stealing, and adultery. And the Father looked on Christ as if He were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but the Father looked on upon Him as made sin for us. Christ stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on our iniquity and God treats Him as if He had been sin. How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sin, because his sin was cast upon Christ and Christ has suffered in his place? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, 'Yes, it is true but my Lord is answerable for it all, for He has taken it all upon Himself and suffered in my place.’
--Charles Spurgeon, The King's Highway

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Sunday Reflections

No matter where you are reading in the Bible, faith is the first mystery you should recognize. Faith is not believing that the story you're reading is true as written. That does nothing for anyone. Even unbelievers can believe this Bible story about Jesus' birth is true. Faith is not a natural work apart from God's grace, as the Scripture clearly teaches. Rather the right kind of faith, the kind that flows from grace and tat God's Word demands, is firmly believing that Christ was born for you. His birth is yours and occurred for your benefit.

--Martin Luther, Faith Alone This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:22-26

Sunday Reflections on Monday

Carols stir us. Holy words inspire us. The golden glow from the manger warms us. A little religion at Christmas is fine. But that glow in the manger comes from the Light of the world. It exposes evil and either redeems it or destroys it. The babe in the manger is far more than an object for sentimental sighs. He is the Son of God who must be accepted as ruler or confronted as rival.

--John G. Stackhouse, Jr. A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him--the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD--and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.

Isaiah 11:1-4

Sunday Reflections

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.

--G.K. Chesterton, Generally Speaking Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of you dawn.

Isaiah 60:1-3

Sunday Reflections

Christmas, the Story of God becoming the Man, Jesus, is the only hope we have of returning back to God. We must lean into the truth of God's love displayed in Jesus' coming. Our fall into depravity and alienation was because our confidence in the kindness and love of God was shaken. We doubted and doubt the love of God. Our recovery must begin with the belief of His love; "this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins (I Jn. 4:10)."

--Dr. Tom Wood, How the Gospel Story Makes Sense "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be their peace.

Micah 5:2-5