Thanks For Reading

I think as bloggers we tend to get discouraged quite a bit because we so easily convince ourselves that no one is actually reading our stuff. It’s been that way for me.

I started the foolish galatian in hopes that I could help others struggling with legalism fight the good fight our savoring our Saviour through his good gospel and it’s nice to know others have been encouraged.

I’d like to post a comment someone made to my last post. It’s a real blessing!

All I can say is Amen and Amen!! Matthew, I thank God for people like you who have grace focused messages and have taken the time to create blogs like yours. I’m an extremely new grace baby, with a former heavy-duty legalistic background. What scares me is how insidious this disease is. Just when I think I finally have a decent grip on what God’s grace is to me and how I am to live that out in my day-to-day life, I realize two days later after an incident that I’d slipped into my old way of thinking… it happened in the blink of an eye… and this despite me watching out for it! Legalism, performance-based approval, etc., in religion and family was how I was raised, so I will probably always have a tendency to automatically lean in that direction. However, I have faith that with God’s grace, in time it will become easier to catch myself falling into these old fear-based behavior patterns. Sincere Christian people who spread the message you posted above scare the be-jingles outta me… mainly because I still feel so vulnerable to the enemy’s lies…. especially when being delivered my well-meaning, Christ believing Christians. Thanks again!

The Root Of Obedience?

This devotional was delivered to my inbox this morning from Grace Gems.

I love this ministry and all that they do, but when I got this this morning, I wanted to spit nails. The part that I take particular issue with is in bold at the end:

Many people set a great deal more stress on religious rituals, than upon practical obedience. They will be faithful in attendance upon church services, devout and reverent in worship–and yet in their daily life, they will disregard the plain commandments of God! They fill the week with selfishness, pride, bitterness, and evil-speaking, and then go to church on Sunday, with great show of devotion, to engage in the worship of God!

But what God desires before our worship can be acceptable, is that we obey what He commands us. He bids us to love one another, to be unselfish, patient, kind, honest, pure, true; and unless we obey these commands, our religious rituals, no matter how conspicuous, how costly, how seemingly devout and reverent, are not acceptable to God!

There are many other phases of the truth. It is exact obedience which God desires, and not something else of our own substituted. When he tells a mother to care for her child, He is not satisfied if she neglects that duty to attend church. When God wants a man to help a poor family in some obscure street, He is not satisfied if instead of that lowly service, the man does some brilliant thing that seems to bring ten times as much honor to the Lord.

The supreme thing in Christian life–is to obey God; without obedience nothing else counts. The obedience must also be exact, just what God commands, not something else.

“If you love Me–you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15

With all do respect, this is absolutely wrong wrong wrong and I have no beef in saying so.

If you tell believers this, you are setting them up to be ensnared in a superficilal “by the numbers” religion that only further plunges them into self made, self righteous, and ultimately condemning legalism which only tells them when they sin, God is going to meet them with a club and whallop them for disobeying.

That’s a lie out of the pit of he’ll and it smells like smoke.

The supreme cause in the Christian life is to love God through His Son’s good gospel. The fight of our lives is not to just obey for the sake of fear of being pummeled when we screw up;  the fight is to believe the gospel on a moment by moment basis and to then obey Him as a direct result out of that love and thankfulness for what He has provided on the cross.

Sorry y’all, that really burned my britches.

Come Hungry

We should come to hear the Word, like baby birds in the nest–
when the mother-bird comes with the worm, they are all
stretching their necks to see which one shall get the food,
for they are all hungry and want it.

And so should hearers be ready to get hold of the Word,
not wanting that we should force it down their throats, but
waiting there, opening their mouths wide that they may be filled,
receiving the Word in the love of it, taking in the Word as the
thirsty earth drinks in the rain of heaven.

Charles Spurgeon

“Saved”

Somehow, this appears strangely familiar. I wonder if the woman thought her free will was being assaulted when he reached down to save her?

Bible Reading

Remember that it is not hasty reading,
but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths,
that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.

It is not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers
honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the
sweet.

It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will
prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.

Thomas Brooks

Seeking The Lost

I’d like to invite you to watch the following videos and ponder this….who is doing the “acting” in these videos? What of the free will of those being saved?

The imagery in these videos when viewed in light of our God’s most gracious mercy, is stunning. Consider yourself as the helpless one lost at sea or whose boat has become shipwrecked on the rocks.

Our God is gracious. He seeks us when we are not only lost, but dead.

gery in these

Fly To the Word of God

Fly to the Word of God then, in every sorrow! You will know more of the mind and heart of God than you, perhaps, ever learned in all the schools before. Draw, then, O child of sorrow, your consolation from God’s Word. Oh, clasp this precious Word of comfort to your sorrowful heart, and exclaim, “It is mine! The Jesus of whom it speaks is mine, the salvation it reveals is mine, the promises it contains are mine, the heaven it unveils is mine, and all the consolation, comfort, and sympathy which wells up from these hidden springs, is MINE.”

Octavius Winslow

How A Calvinist Should Relate to an Arminian

Hard Work of Heart Work

“Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and careless spirit, will cost no great difficulties; but to set yourself before the Lord, and to tie up your loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon him: this will cost you something. To attain ease and dexterity of language in prayer and to be able to put your meaning into appropriate and fitting expressions is easy; but to get your heart broken for sin while you are actually confessing it; melted with free grace even while you are blessing God for it; to be really ashamed and humbled through the awareness of God’s infinite holiness, and to keep your heart in this state not only in, but after these duties, will surely cost you some groans and travailing pain of soul.”

JOHN FLAVEL

Advice On Reading

Richard Baxter

“Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and, next to them, those solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the scriptures, and next, credible histories, especially of the Church . . . but take heed of false teachers who would corrupt your understandings.”

1. As there is a more excellent appearance of the Spirit of God in the holy scripture, than in any other book whatever, so it has more power and fitness to convey the Spirit, and make us spiritual, by imprinting itself upon our hearts. As there is more of God in it, so it will acquaint us more with God, and bring us nearer Him, and make the reader more reverent, serious and divine. Let scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it. The endeavours of the devil and papists to keep it from you, doth shew that it is most necessary and desirable to you.

2. The writings of divines are nothing else but a preaching of the gospel to the eye, as the voice preaches it to the ear. Vocal preaching has the pre-eminence in moving the affections, and being diversified according to the state of the congregation which attend it: this way the milk comes warmest from the breast. But books have the advantage in many other respects: you may read an able preacher when you have but a average one to hear. Every congregation cannot hear the most judicious or powerful preachers: but every single person may read the books of the most powerful and judicious; preachers may be silenced or banished, when books may be at hand: books may be kept at a smaller charge than preachers: we may choose books which treat of that, very subject which we desire to hear of; but we cannot choose what subject the preacher shall treat of. Books we may have at hand every day. and hour; when we can have sermons but seldom, and at set times. If sermons be forgotten, they are gone; but a book we may read over and over, till we remember it: and if we forget it, may again peruse it at our pleasure, or at our leisure. So that good books are a very great mercy to the world: the Holy Ghost chose the way of writing, to preserve His doctrine and laws to the ‘Church, as knowing how easy and sure a way it is of keeping it safe to all generations, in comparison of mere verbal traditions.

3. You have need of a judicious teacher at hand, to direct you what books to use or to refuse: for among good books there are some very good that are sound and lively; and some good, but mediocre, and weak and somewhat dull; and some are very good in part, but have mixtures of error, or else of incautious, injudicious expressions, fitter to puzzle than edify the weak.

 

Baxter’s Guide To The Value Of A Book

While reading ask oneself:

1. Could I spend this time no better?

2. Are there better books that would edify me more?

3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life?

4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God, kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come?

 

Useful Directions For Reading and Searching the Scriptures

Thomas Boston

1. Follow a regular plan in reading of them, that you may be acquainted with the whole; and make this reading a part of your private devotions. Not that you should confine yourselves only to a set plan, so as never to read by choice, but ordinarily this tends most to edification. Some parts of the Bible are more difficult, some may seem very barren for an ordinary reader; but if you would look on it all as God’s word, not to be scorned, and read it with faith and reverence, no doubt you would find advantage.

2. Set a special mark, however you find convenient, on those passages you read, which you find most suitable to your case, condition, or temptations; or such as you have found to move your hearts more than other passages. And it will be profitable often to review these.

3. Compare one Scripture with another, the more obscure with that which is more plain, 2 Pet. 1:20. This is an excellent means to find out the sense of the Scriptures; and to this good use serve the marginal notes on Bibles. And keep Christ in your eye, for to him the scriptures of the Old Testament look (in its genealogies, types, and sacrifices), as well as those of the New.

4. Read with a holy attention, arising from the consideration of the majesty of God, and the reverence due to him. This must be done with attention, first, to the words; second, to the sense; and, third, to the divine authority of the Scripture, and the obligation it lays on the conscience for obedience, 1 Thess. 2:13, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.”

5. Let your main purpose in reading the Scriptures be practice, and not bare knowledge, James 1:22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Read that you may learn and do, and that without any limitation or distinction, but that whatever you see God requires, you may study to practice.

6. Beg of God and look to him for his Spirit. For it is the Spirit that inspired it, that it must be savingly understood by, 1 Cor 2:11, “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” And therefore before you read, it is highly reasonable you beg a blessing on what you are to read.

7. Beware of a worldly, fleshly mind: for fleshly sins blind the mind from the things of God; and the worldly heart cannot favour them. In an eclipse of the moon, the earth comes between the sun and the moon, and so keeps the light of the sun from it. So the world, in the heart, coming between you and the light of the word, keeps its divine light from you.

8. Labour to be disciplined toward godliness, and to observe your spiritual circumstances. For a disciplined attitude helps mightily to understand the scriptures. Such a Christian will find his circumstances in the word, and the word will give light to his circumstances, and his circumstances light into the word.

9. Whatever you learn from the word, labour to put it into practice. For to him that has, shall be given. No wonder those people get little insight into the Bible, who make no effort to practice what they know. But while the stream runs into a holy life, the fountain will be the freer.

A Legalists Great Remedy…Do Nothing

Great post from David Mathis at the Desiring God blog. When questioned about how to be productive, he responds:

I would actually say: realize that you don’t have to be productive. By this I mean: your significance does not come from your productivity. It comes from Christ, who obeyed God perfectly on our behalf such that our significance and standing before God comes from him, not anything we do. Then, on that basis, we pursue good works (which is what productivity is) and do so eagerly, as it says in Titus 2:14.

Can I get an “Amen”?

The Legalists Clothing

Sin makes you do stupid stuff.

When Adam and Eve first sinned in the garden, the first course of action they took was to cover themselves with the work of their own hands. Their eyes were opened…they could see their sin and they tried to hide it.

I think about them a lot. I try to place myself there in the garden after the fall to try and get a sense on what it was like to suddenly be thrown from perfect communion with God. It must have been painful…and pain for them was a new sensation.

I think about them in relation to my own communion with my God. I think I’ve learned something along the way.

Just as my fore parents took it upon themselves to attempt to cover their sin, I think my own legalism is the exact same situation.

When He opened my eyes to my sin for the very first time, it was very painful. It’s hard to accept that all the things the world has taught you about self esteem and self worth is essentialy wrong. The knee jerk reaction is to cover yourself.

For me, I covered myself with my own self righteousness instead of the righteousness of the Lamb.

I’d stick my bible reading, prayer, evangelism, and knowledge over my nakedness to justify myself just as Adam covered himself with the work of his own hands.

I couldn’t have had it more wrong.

God alone has provided the skin of the animal to Adam by which he was to be covered. He has done the same for me.

My clothing is the blood of the Lamb and I see now that it’s going to be a life long fight to stop trying to cover myself.

Like I said, sin makes you do stupid things… even attempting to justify yourself.

It’s actually a fight to do nothing. To lay down arms, surrender, and do absolutely nothing at all but stand there and wear the garment that’s been provided.

Bible reading

Love this picture

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Matthew Blair

My Decree

I was recently inspired by a friend’s blog post to draft a decree of sorts summarizing my life as a christian. I used most of his text, but threw in some of my own. Enjoy!

I am a pilgrim here and my name is Christian.

I belong to the fellowship of the One who is holy and just. I am a sinner saved by grace abundant. I am totally depraved in nature and was once bound to just damnation in hell. Yet, by His steadfast love and tender mercy, was spared and given a new name and destination. My past is dead and my curse is lifted. I am now a new creature, thirsting for Him who was once my sworn enemy.

By His bidding, I have become a part of the chosen and regenerated body that now lives in union with Him both here and in heaven above (Col. 3:3). I thread the narrow way; the way that leads to suffering and eternal life. This way is the way of the cross. This life is not my own (1 Cor. 6:20). I have been purchased from the marketplace of sin and death at a high price. The life I now live is Christ!

This place is not my home. This world is now dead to me and I to it. My desire is my Father’s desire. My vision is my Father’s vision. My food is my Father’s will. By Him who works in me, I will persevere to the end.

I have His Spirit who continually works within me, transforming my life for the glory of the One who sent Him. I am not ashamed of what He has begun in me or called me to be. Though the world may see me as foolish and mad, I know that my salvation will one day shame the wise of this age.

In my pilgrimage through this wilderness, I take with me three things of need. I have the compass of His Spirit within to guide me and comfort me along the way, I have the staff of His good gospel to steady my feet when the ground gives way and the wolf accuses and condemns me, and I carry the book of His testimony to light my path and give me hope until my journeys end.

My life has become that of constant paradox…always dying, yet always living; striving yet always resting; empty and always full; broken and yet always complete; sorrowful yet always rejoicing; having nothing yet possessing everything. (2 Cor. 6:9-10)

I bear His Name and His Mark on my forehead and no force in heaven or hell can tear me from His hand. I now walk with the One who saved me. I wear Him as my clothing, take Him as my food, and flee to Him for refuge from the world, my own corruptions, and Satan. And though my heart is ignorant, sinful, and stubborn, by His Spirit I am continually transformed and renewed from one degree of glory to the next until I will finally become that which He has determined me to be from before the foundations of space and time.

I tread the path of those saints who have come before me. I take encouragement from their testimony and lives and count myself most blessed to be numbered among them.

“All for His glory” has become my song.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

This is my decree.