My Vision

My vision and passion for the church, for believers is that we would rise up and be more concerned about God's Glory than our comfort.  That we would be more concerned about living out the calling God has placed on our lives than living the life of ease; that we would be more concerned about being set apart and begin different as God intended instead of blending in and being the same as this depraved world around us.  OH, that we would be a people desirous of being different and standing apart FOR God.  OH that people would look at our lives and be so blown away by how different we are that they are attracted to God.  OH I pray...

Stomp

This group does not have anything to do with my spiritual journey.  However, I am sap for great drum acts.  This group is sensational.  Enjoy.

The Goal of My Heart

I recently read this blog post by John Piper and was moved by it.  This has been happening little by little in my life.  I have particularly noticed my sense of the evilness of the devil and my own depraved heart growing.  As this as happened, I have seen God become greater and His sacrifice and gift more dear.  God has begun to help me put my perspective in right proportion.  It is easy to think more highly of myself than I ought when I compare myself with others around me.  However, when I compare myself to God, this is what begins to happen:

Desiring God Blog

Never Let the Gospel Get Smaller Posted: 16 Mar 2009 11:42 PM PDT (Author: John Piper) Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family: Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller. Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time. The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart, grace gets bigger; Christ gets greater; his death gets more wonderful; his resurrection gets more astonishing; the work of the Spirit gets mightier; the power of the gospel gets more pervasive; its global extent gets wider; your own sin gets uglier; the devil gets more evil; the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper; its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger; and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder. So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart. Pray that it won't. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.... For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

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Piper

Better than Hell Deserving Sinners

Better than Hell-deserving sinners! 

(Arthur Pink, "A Legal Spirit" 1942)

Though the Gospel is exactly suited to the dire need of fallen man--yet it is far from being suited to his proud heart! It calls upon him to "Behold the Lamb of God"--but in order to do so--he must look away from himself. That is, he must renounce himself, deny himself, repudiate all "imagined goodness" in himself--and this is something which he is very far from being willing to comply with. The Gospel is a revelation of pure grace, of sovereign mercy, unmerited favor--offering to enrich spiritual paupers, to clothe the spiritually naked, to save Hell-deserving sinners--but that is something the self-righteous and independent heart of fallen man cannot tolerate!

Being completely under the dominion of the Devil--fallen man is puffed up with pride. Instead of humbling himself beneath the mighty hand of God, and confessing his ruined condition--he foolishly imagines that he cannot only do that which will meet with God's approval--but actually make God his Debtor, so that justice requires God to reward him for his excellent performances. He refuses to acknowledge that he is a fallen, depraved, lost sinner, "without strength," and without a spark of spiritual life. He refuses to acknowledge that he is utterly incapable of recovering himself, of bettering himself, of doing anything which can meet with the approval of a holy and sin-hating God. 

Thus, the unsaved are so deceived by their own hearts and so deluded by Satan--that it is impossible to disillusion them--until a miracle of grace is wrought within them!

But even Christians themselves, have the 'root of legality' still left within them, and are to a greater or less degree, infected with a self-righteous spirit to the end of their days! Though a Divine work of grace has been wrought in them, enabling them to see, feel and know they are depraved, polluted and vile creatures--causing them to close with Christ as He is presented to them in the Gospel, and cast themselves upon Him as their only Hope, their Deliverer, their all-sufficient Savior--pride still works within them, and as it does, they are ready to give heed to some of Satan's lies--and imagine that they are now in themselvessomething more, something better than Hell-deserving sinners! 

This 'root of legality' is constantly bringing forth its foul and poisonous fruit, though for the most part--we are quite unaware of its so subtle and secret activities. Whenever we arepleased with ourselves and our religious performances --a legal spirit is at work within us. Whenever we are less conscious of our deep need of Christ--pride is to that extent, possessing our hearts. Whenever we feel that God, in His providences, is dealing severely with us--a self-righteous spirit possesses us, and we are guilty of this sin. This is sure proof that we think more highly of ourselves, than we ought to think.

 ~  ~  ~  ~   

We have published several short and choice articles:

A. Hall, "Distress of Mind" (Outstanding--for any believer
who struggles with depression, or a melancholy temperament.)

Arthur Pink, A Legal Spirit

Arthur Pink, An Evangelical Spirit

Grace Gems (choice ELECTRONIC books, sermons & quotes)

Grace Audio Treasures (choice AUDIO sermons)

Sovereign Grace Treasures (choice PRINTED books)

Shame on you O Silly Heart - Grace Gems

Shame on you--O silly heart!

(Charles Spurgeon)

"What makes you better than anyone else? What do you have--that God hasn't given you? And if all you have is from God--why boast as though you have accomplished something on your own?" 1 Corinthians 4:7

Christian! By nature--you are no better than others! What would you be--without the continual influence of the Spirit? O believer, whatever you are--you have nothing to make you proud. The more you have--the more you are in debt to God--and should you be proud of that which renders you a debtor?

Consider your origin--look back to what you were. "Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins!" Ephesians 2:1. Consider what you would have been--but for divine grace! 

It is only God's grace--which has made you to differ! Great believer--you would have been a great sinner--if God had not made you to differ! O you who are valiant for truth--you would have been as valiant for error--if grace had not laid hold upon you! 

Therefore, do not be proud, though you have a wide domain of grace--for once, you had not a single thing to call your own--except your sin and misery!

Oh! strange infatuation, that you--who have borrowed everything, should think of exalting yourself! How foolish--that you--a poor dependent pensioner upon the bounty of your Savior--are yet proud! Shame on you--O silly heart!

Grace Gems (choice ELECTRONIC books, sermons & quotes)

Grace Audio Treasures (choice AUDIO sermons)

Sovereign Grace Treasures (choice PRINTED books)

Pride of Nazareth

Desiring God Blog

The Pride of Nazareth Posted: 28 Feb 2009 11:18 PM PST (Author: Jon Bloom) Jesus and Nazareth are inseparable. Jesus spent most of his life in Nazareth. The prophets had said, "He shall be called a Nazarene" (Matthew 2:23). History would remember him as Jesus of Nazareth. Even the demons called him that (Luke 4:34). That's why this verse is one of the saddest observations made during Jesus' public ministry: And he did not do many mighty works [in Nazareth], because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:58) It's a great irony that the Pride of Nazareth was rejected by the Nazarenes because of pride. You know who this is? It's Joseph the carpenter's son! We know his family. I mean, they're respectable enough people. But I know for a fact that none of them received formal religious education. Where in the world is Jesus getting this teaching? Does he really think he's somebody great? They were deeply offended. Why? Because he was one of them. So if he thought he was superior to them, he had another thing coming. Familiarity bred the pride of contempt in them. What is frightening in this account is the power of pride to blind and deaden the soul. Just consider the consequence of such pride for the Nazarenes: the merciful power of the Messiah was withheld from them. Pride is to be feared and treated like a cancer. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). We do not want to miss out on any gift of God's grace because we are nurturing pride in our hearts.  "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24)

Public Schools Need Competition

Desiring God Blog

Public Schools Need Competition Posted: 24 Feb 2009 11:59 PM PST (Author: John Piper) J. Gresham Machen saw in 1933 what many are trying to say today about the need for private education. The only way in which a state-controlled school can be kept even relatively healthy is through the absolutely free possibility of competition by private schools and church schools; if it once becomes monopolistic, it is the most effective engine of tyranny and intellectual stagnation that has yet been devised. (J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings, 167)

Grace Gems for March 2

Today's Puritan Audio Devotional:
"There are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire"
 By Arthur Pink (insightful and sobering)

 ~  ~  ~  ~

(Samuel Clark, "The Saint's Bouquet" 1641)

"Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach." Proverbs 22:17

Sin is the spawn of the old Serpent, the source of hell, and the vomit of the Devil.

Sin is more hateful to God than the Devil; for God hates the Devil for sin's sake--and not sin for the Devil's sake.

Sin is like a serpent in our bosoms, which cannot live--but by sucking out our life blood.

The conflict of the godly--is with the defilement of sin. But the conflict of the wicked--is only with the guilt and punishment of sin. The godly hate sin--because it has filth in it to pollute the soul. The ungodly fear sin--because it has fire in it to burn the soul.

The deluge of waters which overflowed all the world, washed away many sinners--but not one sin! The world shall one day be all on fire--yet all that fire, and those flames in hell which follow--shall not purge one sin!

All the evils in the world, serve to give names to sin. 
Sin is called poison--and sinners, serpents. 
Sin is called vomit--and sinners, dogs. 
Sin is called mire--and sinners, sows. 
Sin is called darkness, blindness, shame, nakedness, folly, madness, death and whatever is filthy, vile, infective, or painful.

A glutton may fill his belly--but he can never fill his lust. A covetous man may have his house full of money--but he can never have his heart full of money. An ambitious man may have titles enough to overload his memory--but never to fill his pride.

The Devil's last stratagem is, if he cannot beat us down to sin--to blow us up with pride.

Nothing will make God's children so pure, as to wash themselves every morning in their tears of repentance.

Without sound repentance, sin is not accounted as the greatest evil--nor Christ as the greatest good.

Grace Gems (choice ELECTRONIC books, sermons & quotes)

Grace Audio Treasures (choice AUDIO sermons)

Sovereign Grace Treasures (choice PRINTED books)