What is Grace?

What is Grace? by John MacArthur, Grace to You Many years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined a term that has come to characterize much of evangelical Christianity-it's the term "cheap grace." Cheap grace is in reality a self-imparted grace, a pseudo-grace, and in the end the consequences of living by it are very, very costly. Cheap grace is not at all a reference to God's grace; it's a contemptible counterfeit. It's a grace that is "cheap" in value, not cost. It is a bargain-basement, damaged-goods, washed-out, moth-eaten, second-hand grace. It is a man-made grace reminiscent of the indulgences Rome was peddling in Martin Luther's day. Cheap? The cost is actually far more than the buyer could possibly realize, though the "grace" is absolutely worthless. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor and Nazi resister. He was hanged in 1945 by SS guards, but not before his writings had left their mark. Bonhoeffer's theological perspective was neo-orthodox, and evangelicalism rightly rejects much of his teaching. But Bonhoeffer spoke powerfully against the secularization of the church. He correctly analyzed the dangers of the church's frivolous attitude toward grace. After we discard the neo-orthodox teachings, we do well to pay heed to Bonhoeffer's diatribe against cheap grace: Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure the remission of sins. The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part in that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. "All for sin could not atone." The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners "even in the best life" as Luther said. Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world's standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin (The Cost of Discipleship [New York: Collier, 1959], 45-46). Cheap grace has not lost its worldly appeal since Bonhoeffer wrote those words. If anything, the tendency to cheapen grace has eaten its way into the heart of evangelical Christianity. While verbally extolling the wonders of grace, it exchanges the real item for a facsimile. This bait-and-switch tactic has confounded many sincere Christians. Many professing Christians today utterly ignore the biblical truth that grace "instruct[s] us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age" (Titus 2:12). Instead, they live as if grace were a supernatural "Get Out of Jail FREE" ticket-a no-strings-attached, open-ended package of amnesty, beneficence, indulgence, forbearance, charity, leniency, immunity, approval, tolerance, and self-awarded privilege divorced from any moral demands. Sadly, the rank-and-file Christian is further cemented in an unbiblical view of grace by what comes out of some seminaries. There are scholars who actually legitimize the error as a correct understanding of grace. They call their teaching "grace theology" and their movement "The Grace Movement." Article continued Have you ever blown it big-time - and in a significant way? What did you do? Did you confess it right away? Or did you cover it up for a while and let the guilt and shame of your circumstance eat you up inside? So how do you get beyond the big mistakes - how do you recover? "How to Live Grace-filled Lives" Chip Ingram, LIVING ON THE EDGE There has always been the question as to the possibility of a person stepping over a line-that is, sinking so low in sin that the grace of God cannot reach him. I do believe that if you persist in rejecting God's grace and mercy, the day will come when you will step over that line. This does not mean the grace of God cannot reach you, but it does mean that there will be nothing in you that the grace of God can lay hold of. "Grace and Mercy" Dr. J. Vernon McGee, THRU THE BIBLE Today we gather as Christ's church, but the church that met as Christ's church nearly 2,000 years ago in New Testament times was a much simpler, informal gathering. "Grace-energized Living: The Titus Two Model" John Barnett, DISCOVER THE BOOK You may think there's nothing exciting about you or your job, but God takes ordinary people and He gives them extraordinary power to do extraordinary things for His glory! Learn how to turn your ordinary job into an extraordinary one with God's grace. "God's Grace in the Workplace" Dr. Adrian Rogers, LOVE WORTH FINDING May the Lord richly bless you! The Oneplace.com Team http://www.oneplace.com Listen for Life!

The Remedy for Paralyzed Sinners & Fallen Saints

John Piper

God did his most deadly work to destroy hopelessness and futility and provincial cowardice. He gave up his Son to torture and death. A perfect life, a perfect death, and the decisive work was done.

But there are millions who are numb to hope because of the God-belittling things they have done and how ugly they have become. They don't lift lofty arguments against God's Truth; they shrug and feel irretrievably outside. They don't defy God consciously; they default to cake and television. Except for the periodic rush of sex and sport and cinema, life yawns. There is no passion for significance. For many, no passion at all.

There is a Christian version of this paralysis. The decision has been made to trust Christ. The shoot of hope and joy has sprung up. The long battle against sin has begun. But the defeats are many, and the plant begins to wither. One sees only clouds and gathering darkness. The problem is not perplexing doctrine or evolutionary assaults or threats of persecution. The problem is falling down too many times. Gradually the fatal feeling creeps in: the fight is futile; it isn't worth it.

Along with this hopelessness and futility, especially since 9/11, provincial cowardice captures many Christian minds. They fear that it may sound conceited to call every people group in the world to trust Christ or perish. It seems too global. Too sweeping. Too universal. To say it takes their breath away. And, worse, it brings down the wrath of the tolerant. What could be more arrogant than to think that the infinite variety of need in all the cultural groups of the world could be met by a single Savior!

It is astonishing that the biblical gospel of justification by faith alone answers these three human failures: the hopelessness of unbelievers, the feeling of futility from falling down, and the fear of making global claims for Christ.

To the numb and listless sinner, feeling beyond all hope of godliness, the Bible says, "To the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:5). God justifies the "ungodly." This truth is meant to break the back of hopelessness.

The connection between the sinner and the Savior is trust, not improvement of behavior. That comes later. It's this order that gives hope. "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28). The basis of this wild and wonderful hope (the ungodly justified) is "Christ for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Romans 10:4, literal translation). Through faith alone God counts the ungodly as righteous because of Christ. "For our sake [God] made to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Let all who are paralyzed by the weight of sin and the powerlessness to change turn in here.

To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God's failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness. "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light" (Micah 7:8-9). This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God's indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt.

For the squeamish fellow afraid of making global claims for Christ, the biblical teaching on justification explodes his little world. It says: the deepest problem to be solved is the same for every human being, because every human is a descendant of Adam. And the problem to be solved is that "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners." "One trespass led to condemnation for all men." The only solution to this universal condemnation is a "second Adam" who provides "the free gift of righteousness" to all who hear the gospel and believe (Romans 5:17-19). Therefore Christ, the second Adam, the giver of righteousness, is the only global Savior.

Embrace as your treasure the gift of justification. There is no part of your life where it is not immeasurably precious.

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.

Wordled again :)

Eighth Pastoral Letter

from MEMOIRS OF MCCHEYNE

Warnings to the Unsaved—Causes Why So Many Among Us are Unsaved.

Edinburgh, March 20, 1839.

TO all of you my dear flock, who are dearly beloved and I longed for, my joy and crown, your pastor wishes grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

In my last letter I showed you that, in all human probability, there are many of you to whom I have preached the gospel of salvation, to whom I shall never preach it again face to face. I cannot be blind to the many dangers that accompany foreign travel—the diseases and accidents to which we shall be exposed; but if, through your prayers, I be given to you again, how many blanks shall I find in my flock! How many dear children of God gone to be “where the weary are at rest,” where the imperfect “are made perfect!” How many of you that have stood out against all the invitations of Christ, and all the warnings of God, shall I find departed, to give in your account before the throne! It is to these last I wish now to speak.

For two years I have testified to you the gospel of the grace of God. I came to you in “weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling;” and if the case of the children of God and of backsliding souls has often lain heavy at my heart, I can truly say that your dreadful condition—“settled like wine upon her lees,” when you are about to be “turned upside down, as a man turneth a dish and wipeth it”—has been a continued anxiety to me; and sometimes, when I have had glimpses of the reality of eternal things, it has been an insupportable agony to my spirit. I know well that this is a jest to you, that you care not whether ministers go or stay; and if you get a short sermon on the Sabbath day that will soothe and not prick your conscience, that is all you care for. Still, it may be the Lord who opened Manasseh’s heart will open yours, while I go over solemnly, in the sight of God, what appear to be the chief reasons that, after my two years’ ministry among you, there are still so many unconverted, perishing souls.

One cause is to be sought in your minister. In Malachi 2:6 you will find a sweet description of a faithful and successful minister: “The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” This is what we should have done; but the furnace brings out the dross, and afflictions discover defects unknown before. Oh, that I could say with Paul: “That I have been with you at all seasons serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears!” Ye are witnesses, and God also, “how holily, and justly, and unblameably, we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” I am indeed amazed that the ministry of such a worm as I am should ever have been blessed among you at all; and I do this day bewail before God every sin in my heart and life that has kept back the light from your poor dark souls. Oh, you that can pray, pray that I may come back a holy minister—a shepherd not to lead the flock by the voice only, but to walk before them in the way of life.

Looking back over my pulpit work, alas! I see innumerable deficiencies. I always prayed that I might “not keep back anything that was profitable,” that I might not shun to declare the whole counsel of God, “that I might decrease, and Christ increase.” Still, alas! alas! how dimly I have seen and set before you “the truth as it is in Jesus!” How coldly have I pleaded with you to “save yourselves from this untoward generation!” How many things I have known among you “besides Christ and Him crucified!” How often have I preached myself, and not the Savior How little I have “expounded to you in all the scriptures the things concerning Jesus!”

One error more has been in my private labors among you How much fruitless intercourse have I had with you! I have not been like a shepherd crying after the lost sheep, nor like a physician among dying men, nor like a servant bidding you to the marriage, nor like one plucking brands from the burning! How often have I gone to your houses to try and win your souls, and you have put me off with a little worldly talk and the words of salvation have died upon my lips! I dared not tell you, you were perishing, I dared not to show you plainly of the Savior! How often I have sat at some of your tables and my heart yearned for your souls, yet a false shame kept me silent! How often I have gone home crying bitterly, “Free me from blood–guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation!”

I turn now to the causes in you, dear children of God. You also have hindered in great measure God’s work in the parish. First, by your want of holiness. “Ye are the light of the world.” I have often told you that a work of revival in any place almost always begins with the children of God. God pours water first on “him that is thirsty,” and then on the dry ground. But how little has “the word of the Lord sounded out from you!” I do not mean that you should have been loud talkers about religious things. “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, and the talk of the lips leadeth to penury.” But you should have been “living epistles, known and read of all men.”

You know that a lighted lamp is a very small thing, and it burns calmly and without noise; yet “it giveth light to all that are within the house.” So, if you had day by day the blood of Christ upon your conscience, walking a forgiven and adopted child of God, having a calm peace in your bosom and a heavenly hope in your eye, having the Holy Spirit filling you with a sweet, tender, chaste, compassionate, forgiving love to all the world—oh! had you shone thus for two years back, how many of your friends and neighbors that are going down to hell might have been saying this day, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God!” Think, my beloved friends, that every act of unholiness, of conformity to the world, of selfishness, of whispering and backbiting, is hindering the work of God in the parish and ruining souls eternally.

And what shall I say to those of you who, instead of emitting the sweet winning light of holiness, have given out only rays of darkness? “I have this against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

Second, you have hindered God’s work by your want of prayer. When God gives grace to souls, it is in answer to the prayers of His children. You will see this on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2); Ezekiel 37:9 shows, that in answer to the prayer of a single child of God, God will give grace to a whole valley full of dry and prayerless bones. Where God puts it into the heart of His children to pray, it is certain that He is going to pour down His Spirit in abundance. Now, where have been your prayers, O children of God? The salvation of those around you depends on your asking, and yet “hitherto ye have asked nothing in Christ’s name.” Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest. Alas! you have given God much rest—you have allowed His hand to remain unplucked out of His bosom.

It is said of John Welsh, minister of Ayr, that he used always to sleep with a plaid upon his bed, that he might wrap it around him when he arose in the night to pray. He used to spend whole nights in wrestling with God for Zion, and for the purity of the Church of Scotland; and he wondered how Christians could lie all night in bed without rising to pray. Oh! we have few Welshes now; therefore our church is so dim, and our land a barren wilderness. Dear Christians, I often think it strange that ever we should be in heaven, and so many in hell through our soul–destroying carelessness. The good Lord pardon the past, and stir you up for the future. I learn that you are more stirred up to pray since I left, both in secret and unitedly. God grant it be so. Continue in it, dear children. Do not let it slip again. Plead and wrestle with God, showing Him that the cause is His own, and that it is all for His own glory to arise and have mercy upon Zion.

Last of all, think of the causes in yourselves, O unconverted souls! Be sure of this, that you will only have yourselves to blame if ye awake in hell. You will not be able to plead God’s secret decrees, nor the sins of your minister, nor the carelessness of your godly neighbors—you will be speechless. If you die, it is because you will die; and if you will die, then you must die.

Think, first, on your carelessness about ordinances. They are the channels through which God pours His Spirit. The Bible, prayer, the house of God—these are the golden pipes through which the golden oil is poured. How many of you utterly neglect the Bible! You know not the blessedness of the man spoken of in the First Psalm. How many of you restrain prayer before God! How many of you have dead, useless prayers, learned by rote! And oh, how you despise the house of God! Alas, that church shall rise against you in judgment. It was a door of the ark brought near to you. Two years and more, its gates have been wide open to you, and yet how you have slighted it! Already I seem to hear your loud wailing when you mourn at the last, and say, “How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers!”

Think, second, how you have been mockers. It has been too common for you to make a mock of eternal things and of godly people. When there have been anxious souls seeking the way to be saved, and they could not conceal their tears, you have called them hypocrites! When some have got a new heart and have changed their way of life, you have spoken scoffingly of them, and tried to bring them into contempt. Alas! poor soul, look within. You have hardened your hearts into an adamant stone. Look at Proverbs 17:5: “He that mocketh the poor reproacheth his maker.” And again (Isaiah 28:22): “Now, therefore, be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong.”

To sum up all. The great cause that I leave you hardened s that you “despise the Son of God.” You see no beauty in Him that you should desire Him. You lightly esteem the Rock of your salvation. You have not had a soul–piercing look at a pierced Savior! You have not seen the infinite load of sins that weighed down His blessed head. You have not seen how open His arms are to receive, how often He would have gathered you. You have not heard that sweet word whispered of the Spirit, “Behold me, behold me,” which, when a man once hears, he leaves all and follows. You have trampled under foot the blood of the Son of God. Farewell, dear, dear souls. God knows that my whole heart prays that you may be saved.

Perhaps there are some of you that never would bend under my ministry, that will melt like wax before the fire under the word of the dear young minister who is to speak to you in my absence. May the Lord give him hundreds for my tens! I will often pray for you, and sometimes write to you, when I am far away. If I reach Immanuel’s land, I will say, “The Lord bless you out of Zion.” And if you will not turn, remember I take God for a record that I am pure from the blood of you all.

Dear children of God, I now cast you on Him who cast you on me when I was ordained over you. He said to me, “Feed my sheep. . . feed my lambs. . . feed my sheep.” Now, when He sends me away, I would humbly return His own words to Him, saying, “O Shepherd of Israel, feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” Little children, love one another. Keep yourselves from idols. Bear me ever on your hearts. Pray that when I have preached to others, I may not be a castaway. Pray that I may save some.

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

My next, if God will, may be from England.

Christian logic

I have probably already mentioned that resource, but let me give it to whosoever ;) wishes to know again:

http://www.christianlogic.com/

Thorough, detailed, yet very approachable and easy to follow texts and descriptions. Very, very useful, in this day and age, when professing Christians so often reject the mind and choose feelings...
Heart is deceitful...