Thursday, December 25th, 2008
Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
May the Lord Jesus Christ reign in your life.
Tags: christmas, lord jesus christ
Posted in meditations | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Redemptive history can be broken down into four major divisions of time. Creation/Fall/Redemption/Consummation.
In the creation, we know that God made everything very good. Last week, we learned in Gen 3, that our first parents were tempted and fell by eating of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam tried to gain understanding apart from God’s truth.
This fall is a major event in biblical history because it plunges humanity into a state of sin and misery. Man is separated from God because God is a holy God and cannot tolerate sin. Through the fall, man loses his original righteousness and his whole nature is corrupted which is commonly called “original sin.”
Another term we use is “total depravity” that describes the condition of man. It means that in our sinful condition nothing we do is good. The prophet Isaiah said “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Because our whole nature is corrupted by sin and because we are separated from God, even the “good” we do is tainted.
No matter how bleak things looked in Gen 3, there is hope. In God’s mercy and grace, he did not leave man in sin and misery. As stated earlier, biblical history does not end at the fall. There is redemption. This is where we see God’s grace. This is where we see God become man in order to save us.
This is where we see salvation that has come through Christ. The reason of the fall of Adam that God came to this world in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, in order to save his people.
Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, Section 2
But this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
Tags: condition of man, fall of adam, redemptive history, westminster confession of faith
Posted in confession | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Read this article from reformation21.org. It encourages people, especially so-called “reformed” christians to not only seek personal reformation but also move that towards mercy ministry.
However it is not my intention in the scope of this article to present the Biblical case for mercy ministry, but to bring our attention the fact that God constantly commanded His people to be in this work even when others are neglecting it. So this should tell us that there will be a tendency of risk for both the individual believer and for a local church to become ineffective in this God honoring work. In particularly I have become increasingly convicted that this work should be fervently done by the young Reformed Christian. Why do I say this? Because by definition most young reformed Christian have spent the majority of their energy and time on understanding the Scriptures, (which of course is of the utmost importance, as well as being able of effectively defend and communicate Gospel truth): but since the “lion’s share” of our time goes rightly to these spiritual disciplines, we can some times become deficient in other spiritual exercises such as mercy ministry.
God is not only transforming your heart, he prepared you to do good works with that new heart.
Thanks be to God!
Tags: christian, discipline, mercy ministry, motivation, reformed christians
Posted in meditations | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
The scope of God’s providence reaches all creatures, it touches everyone, believer, unbeliever, good, evil but God’s providence is worked out in a special way for the church.
Exodus 19:5-8 – God says the whole earth is mine, and he says to the church you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We learn that God is everywhere, but God’s heart is to be with the church. God owns the whole universe but God owns the church as his own people, his treasured possession. God is everywhere but God desires to be with his people…
In Ephesians 1:23, Paul says the fullness of him who fills all in all… God is everywhere, he fills everything… but God is here with his church in a special way. God is with his church in a different way than with the world.
Two powerful truths we can learn from today’s confession.
1. God controls all things, he owns all things, he is everywhere
2. God cares for his church in a special way;
The church, anyone who is in Christ, is his treasured possession. We learn that God enters into a special relationship with man. This relationship is such that “God is our God and we are his people.” It is within this covenant relationship that God cares for his people the church.
We will look at that more in the following weeks. But for today, remember that God has planned in a special way to care for his people. If you are in Christ, you are in a covenant relationship with the God of the universe who cares for you and loves you. God loves his children even to the point where He has placed them in a particular local church to uniquely form each congregation.
WCF 5.7. As, in general, the providence of God reaches to all creatures, so, in a very special way, it cares for his church and disposes all things for its good.
Posted in confession, reformed theology | No Comments »