Luke 22:42

"Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." -The Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 22:42

What did it cost? Jesus Christ, obedient even unto death, in His love for us, did what we could not do. Having perfectly fulfilled the Law, He laid down His life for our sin, that we may be imputed His righteousness as He bore our sin and suffered our wrath. Having done this, for we who are in Christ Jesus it may be said:

"There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." -Romans 8:1

And I...in all my transgression, having been so fully F O R G I V E N because Christ suffered and died in my place...I am S T A G G E R E D and brought to my knees! Unable to fathom the love of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God, that at the cross would fall upon me.

I am staggered.

Save me, O God. I am yours. Save this family, for we are Yours. O God, there is none greater and able than You.

Sermon Jam: "He Drank It" by C.J. Mahaney

Psalm 51

Psalm 51

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise...

-Psalm 51, ESV

Limited Atonement

It is the sticking point when discussing Calvinism. It is the point folks get so hung up on, and so distressed over, but the Atonement is truly limited. I think the argument is not so much over it being limited, but rather over who limits it; us or God. For if the Atonement were unlimited, then it would have to be universalism. And if that is the case...well then we all owe Rob Bell a big fat apology.

"Atonement" has been the center of my study and a few discussions this week. We know that Christ died for the sins of the World, Christ died as a ransom for many, that ALL are commanded to come to repentance and faith, and that NO ONE may come to repentance and faith unless the Father who sent the Son through the work of the Holy Spirit draws us to Himself (regeneration/transformati​on/etc.).

Yet when we talk of Atonement (the act of making right or peace with God, or biblically rendered Christ's act which made right and peace with God the Church), the struggle becomes for whom and how.

Some argue passionately that the Atonement is for ALL mankind. If this were true, then universalism is true and all roads do in fact lead to God. Yet we know by the Word of God that universalism is not true. So while Jesus died for the sins of the world, He did not do so as to save ALL people.

Some argue passionately that the Atonement is for ALL who accept the gift. It is limited by us. It makes Christ a potential Savior, and the Atonement is applicable to only those who choose to believe. This would seem to indicated, then, that Christ died for all sin EXCEPT unbelief. And apparently that sin is made right by us through our act of belief. If this were true then not all of the righteousness which we bring before God is as filthy rags; there is something we could bring that is acceptable. The Bible contradicts this therefore it cannot be true.

Some, and I am of this party, say instead that the Atonement is for ALL for whom God intended it. Truly Christ is a complete and sufficient Savior completing the work of Salvation at the Cross. Christ died for the sins of the world, but also true, He died as a ransom for many. We cannot have faith unless it is given to us by God as a gift (Eph. 2), and we are unable to even approach Christ unless we are drawn by God (John 6). And we know this to be very true because Scripture is clear not only in this, but also in proclaiming that our wills are enslaved; enslaved either to sin and death or to God.

So before God shatters our chains and calls us by name out of death, our wills are tuned, ensared, and enslaved to our hearts which are incredibly deceitful and desperately sick. In this state we, like all unbelieving, not only do we love our sin, but also HATE God. We are uninterested in repenting and submitting to Christ.

And if, as Scripture proclaims, we have turned away and none seek God, then God seeks us. He calls those whom He has foreknown from the foundation of the world having predestined us to be conformed into the image of His Son.

So then if the Atonement is limited, and it is, then it is either we or God who limits the Atonement. Scripture not only indicates, but proclaims that Salvation is based upon God's will and not our own. Therefore it must be God who limits the Atonement, and truly He has completely and sufficiently completed what He has intended from the foundation of the world.

Marching On

War. It plays its ugly little death march in my head while I close my eyes, grit my teeth, and pray that the Lord might spare me this one day; that He’d give these voices laryngitis, so I might know quiet. But in place of quiet He grants me the strength to walk through the violence and stand firm against the cold onslaught I am known to unleash upon myself.

On Limited Atonement

Look, the atonement is limited. It is limited in its efficacy. It is limited in its efficiency. It is limited in its application. It is limited obviously. The only question is, who limits it? And the only right answer is that God limits it and that He limited it in this sense, that it was an actual payment in full of all the sins of all the people who would ever believe. And the people who would ever believe would believe because of His mighty work on their hearts based upon His sovereign eternal purpose.
-John MacArthur

Discernment

"With the wolves you cannot be too severe. With the weak sheep you cannot be too gentle.”
- Martin Luther.

"I See a Darkness" - Johnny Cash

Zombies or Brilliant Picture of the Gospel?

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
~Matthew 27:51-53

I have been known to tease about there being zombies in the Bible. The above text is my proof text when playfully defending my position on zombies and the role they played in spreading the Gospel (I call them my "Zombies for Jesus"). However, when looking at this passage with a bit more serious thought and contemplation I believe that we see an amazing picture of the Gospel.

Many times we read in Scripture that before the grace and mercy of God was poured out upon us, we were dead in sin. And like the bodies in those tombs, we were utterly helpless and unable to do anything until the power of God fell upon us.

If you were to walk into a graveyard and command the dead which lie in their graves to rise up and flee their confines, nothing would happen. They are unable and incapable to do whatever it is you command them to do. Likewise the Bible reminds us that we were once like those bodies; dead. Unable, we could not repent. We could not turn away from our sin. We could not do that which all have been commanded to do by God.

Prior to the work of God in us, we were nothing more than slaves to sin and death; following in passionate pursuit the desires of a corrupt and deceitful heart. But God, being rich in mercy, has made us alive through Christ.

Those believing, He has called specifically and intentionally out of death and into life. By the power of God upon us, we have errupted out of our tombs. We have been brought from death to life. Transformed from slaves of sin and death to fellow heirs with Christ; living and alive in Christ. And like those saints who came up out of their tombs to appear to many, we now stand before all men as witnesses to the Gospel which raised us from the dead, echoing with God that all men must repent, believe, and be saved.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
-Ephesians 2:1-10

How Amazing this Grace...

For there the question is not how we may become righteous but how, being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous.
~John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

A Proper Introduction: Confession

I try to convince myself that I have it together; that I got this life figured out. I'm afraid that if I can't fool myself, then no one else will believe me either. I forget that they don't believe me. They see clearly the broken man that I am.

I have enough scar tissue to trace out a road map leading from the hell I came from to the amazing grace that saved this wretched man that I am. And though rescued, there are still nights when the old wounds ache and I must put my feet to the floor and run to the Father's arms. It is in those painful hours that I am most grateful for God's continued forgiveness, and the heart He has given me to continue in repentance.

In the most honest assessment of myself, I am a goofy twenty-eight year old husband and father. I am not the perfect anything; I don't come close to perfection in any aspect of my life. What I have here is a serious work in progress with many parts left unfinished. I often want to be what I am not, and grasp what I can't have.

When I open the Scriptures, I don't see you. I see myself, and myself falling so far short that how dare I puff up with any sort of pride. I've come a long way, but I have so much further to go in rightly reflecting Christ. The progress I have made, that's not my work nor my doing, but the work of the Spirit in me. Where I screw up and fail...yeah that's all me. And I am good at screwing up.

You can find me most days meditating on the Scriptures and clinging to the Gospel. It is not because I think that I am somehow holier than you. On the contrary, I know the wreckage I am apart from Christ. I know the Old Man is always lurking near; and I hate that man.

If you offer me moralistic deism or religion, I will turn away your idols. I've already been down that road, and it almost killed me. I have many rough edges still to be smoothed over by the hand of my Savior. He's working on me. Maybe not in the way you'd like, but His work is far better than yours.