I am your hell—and you are my heaven

The mediatorial righteousness of Christ will answer to all the fears, doubts, and objections of your souls.

How shall I look up to God? The answer is—In the righteousness of Christ. How shall I have any communion with a holy God in this world? The answer is—In the righteousness of Christ. How shall I find acceptance with God? The answer is—In the righteousness of Christ. How shall I die? The answer is—In the righteousness of Christ. How shall I stand before the judgment seat? The answer is—In the righteousness of Christ.

Your sure and only way under all temptations, fears, conflicts, doubts, and disputes, is by faith to remember Christ, and the sufferings of Christ, as your mediator and surety, and say, ‘O Christ! you are my sin—in being made sin for me; and you are my curse—in being made a curse for me. Or rather, I am your sin—and you are my righteousness; I am your curse—and you are my blessing; I am your death—and you are my life; I am the wrath of God to you—and you are the love of God to me; I am your hell—and you are my heaven.’

- Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels

HT: First Importance

Danger of Abusing Mercy

If mercy is not a magnet to draw us nearer to God, it will be a millstone to sink us deeper to hell. Nothing so cold as lead, yet nothing more scalding when it is melted. Nothing so sweet as mercy, yet nothing so terrible when it is abused. Sinners never escape when mercy draws up the indictment - Thomas Watson

Rom 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

The Word of God is Living and Active

Missions 2.0

Judas

John Piper points out an incredible thing about the story of Judas:

desiringgod.org

Can nonchristians capture truth about God in their art?

Yesterday, we went to a Derek Webb concert. He mentioned how sometimes music by non-Christians can better capture truth than a lot of music that is labeled "Christian". I thought it was interesting the John Piper wrote a blog today on the same subject. Here is a link:


The Unbelieving Poet Captures a Glimpse of the Truth

He who is faithful in small things...

The child of God must be willing to be a channel through which God's abundant blessings flow. This channel is narrow and shallow at first, yet some of the waters of God's bounty can pass through. If we cheerfully yield ourselves to this purpose, the channel becomes wider and deeper, allowing more of the bounty of God to pass through. We cannot limit the extent to which God may use us as instruments in communicating blessing if we are willing to yeild ourselves to Him and are careful to give Him all the glory.

- George Muller, The Autobiography of George Muller

Don't forget the Gospel!

CJ Mahaney gives us a very important reminder:

http://www.sovgracemin.org/Blog/post/Preaching-and-Sightings-of-Calvary.aspx

ht: Joe Humphries

Searching for forgiveness

Here is a clip of a man on ER searching for answers. We say we want a preacher to make us feel good, but what we need is someone with the courage to tell us the truth. Our guilt must be atoned for. The good news is that atonement is free! Look to Christ for your righteousness!



HT: Justin Taylor

Between Two Worlds: Ampersand

Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken have recorded an album together:

Between Two Worlds: Ampersand

My Substitute

"Man," says the law of God, "have you obeyed my commmands?"

"No," says the sinner saved by grace, "I have disobeyed them, not only in the person of my representative Adam in his first sin, but also in that I myself have sinned in thought, word and deed."

"Well, then, sinner," says the law of God, "have you paid the penalty which I pronounced upon disobedience?"

"No," says the sinner, "I have not paid the penalty myself. But Christ has paid it for me. He was my representative when he died there on the cross. Hence, so far as the penalty is concerned, I am clear."

"Well, then, sinner," says the law of God, " how about the conditions which God has pronounced for the attainment of assured blessedness? Have you stood the test? Have you merited eternal life by perfect obedience during the period of probation?"

"No," says the sinner, "I have not merited eternal life by my own perfect obedience, God knows and my own conscience knows that even after I became a Christian I have sinned in thought, word and deed. But although I have not merited eternal life by any obedience of my own, Christ has merited it for me by his perfect obedience. He was not for himself subject to the law. No obedience was required of him for himself, since he was Lord of all. That obedience, then, which he rendered to the law when he was on earth was rendered by him as my representative. I have no righteousness of my own, but clad in christ's perfect righteousness, imputed to me and received by faith alone, I can glory in the fact that, so far as I am concerned, the probation has been kept and, as God is true, there awaits me the glorious reward which Christ thus earned for me."

--J. Gresham Machen

Sin is a cancer

A bone-marrow transplant can make you wish you were dead. When cancer gets into the marrow, a doctor has to all but kill his patient in order to save him. He destroys the bone marrow with radiation, then replaces it with healthy marrow to get it growing again. If the patient survives, he has a long hard road back from the brink of death. But he is healed.

Seeing God can make you wish you were dead.

When Isaiah saw God on his throne in the temple, the prophet was ruined (Isaiah 1-6). When Job was filled with pride, God loved him and blasted him with his glory from the storm, till Job fell apart: (I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6). When Habakkuk saw a vision of God's power, he felt the sickness in his marrow.

I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my
bones, and my legs trembled. (Habakkuk 3:16)

God's terrible majesty is radiation. It X-rays a soul and shows that it's gorged with sin. The soul sees what God is like in his glory, sees what it is like in its sickness, and buries its face in the dirt. Then the healing starts. God's radiating majesty kills the rotten marrow of sin and replaces it with humility. A heart humbled by God's terrible majesty can begin its recovery and grow strong. Sin can't thrive in a humble heart.

A vision of God like Isaiah's or Job's or Habakkuk's can't be made to order. But if we want to put sin to death in our hearts, we have to swallow the strongest doses of God's terrible majesty we can. We find them in our medications on the Word.

--Kris Lundgaard, the enemy within

God's Justice Satisfied

Rom 3:23-27 is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It teaches us why God had to crucify His Son on our behalf. It tells of how the death of Jesus Christ satisfied the justice of God.

...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. Romans 3:23-27

Here is what Jerry Bridges has to say about it:

A pardon is excusing an offense without exacting a penalty. It may be
granted gratuitously by a president or govenor for no reason at all, and sometimes has been done at the expense of justice. for example, there was a great outcry when the late President Nixon was pardoned because many felt, rightly or wrongly, that justice had been violated by the granting of his pardon.

In God's plan of justification, however, justice is not violated by a gratuitous pardon of the convicted sinner. Rather, justice has been satisfied; the penalty has been fully paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, to justify is to declare that the claims of justice have been fully met.

-- Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace

Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
'midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
for who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
to claim my mansion in the skies,
even then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
whose boundless mercy hath for me
for me a full atonement made,
an everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.

-John Wesley

My Jesus

Thy Righteousness is in Heaven

“One day as I was passing into the field, this sentence fell upon my soul: ‘Thy righteousness is in heaven.’ And with the eyes of my soul I saw Jesus at the Father’s right hand. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is my righteousness!’ So that wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, ‘Where is your righteousness?’ For it is always right before him.
I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ. Now my chains fell off indeed. My temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God.
Now I could look from myself to him and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket when all his gold is safe in a trunk at home. Oh I saw that my gold was indeed in a trunk at home, in Christ my Lord. Now Christ was all: my righteousness, sanctification, redemption.”

- John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Look!

These words from Charles Spurgeon have been been the greatest comfort to me when I am doubting:

Isaiah 45:22“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other!”

But thou sayest sin will not let thee look. I tell thee, sin will be removed the moment thou dost look. “But I dare not; He will condemn me; I fear to look.” He will condemn thee more, if thou dost not look. Fear, then, and look; but do not let thy fearing keep thee from looking. “But He will cast me out.” Try Him. “But I cannot see Him.” I tell you, it is not seeing, but looking. “But my eyes are so fixed on the earth, so earthly, so worldly.” Ah! but, poor soul, He giveth power to look and live. He saith - “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

ht: Of First Importance