It is Christ

[T]he Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: He tells us that we are nothing, but that "Christ is all in all." Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument--it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ....

      We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus."

       Keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to Him; when thou liest down at night look to Him.

-Spurgeon

The Sum of the Christian Life

"It is exceedingly difficult to get into another habit of thinking in which we clearly separate faith and [works of] love…. Even though we are in faith … the heart is always ready to boast of itself before God and say: "After all, I have preached so long and lived so well and done so much, surely he will take this into account."  But it cannot be done.  With men you may boast … But when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home and remember to appeal from justice to grace.  [But] let anyone try this and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter it is for a man, who all his life has been mired in his work righteousness, to pull himself out of it and with all his heart rise up through faith in the one Mediator. 

            I myself have been preaching and cultivating it (grace) for almost twenty years and still I feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something, so that he will have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness.  Still I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace; yet [I know that] this is what I should and must do"

-Martin Luther

Excellent Fullness

Edwards:

I have sometimes had a sense of the excellent fullness of Christ, and his meekness and suitableness as a Savior; whereby he has appeared to me, far above all, the chief of ten thousands. His blood and atonement have appeared sweet, and his righteousness sweet; which was always accompanied with ardency of spirit; and inward strugglings and breathings, and groanings that cannot be uttered, to be emptied of myself, and swallowed up in Christ.

Jonathan Edwards, Personal Narrative in the Letters and Personal Writings, WJE Online, vol. 16

Will Not Let Us Go

George Whitefield:

"Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, except a consideration of the freeness, eternity, and unchangeableness of God's love to me.

I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by Jesus Christ....

May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. There is nothing like it, to support us under present and all the various future trials. But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands."

HT: Dane Ortlund

The Majesty of God

"Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God.”

Calvin, Institutes. I.I.III

Luther on Romans 3:21-26

"Here therefore is the sermon of sermons and the wisdom of heaven; in order that we may believe that our righteousness and salvation and comfort come to us from outside; in order that we may believe that, though in us dwells naught but sin an unrighteousness and folly, we are, nevertheless, acceptable before God, righteous and holy and wise"

Religion vs. Gospel

Beauty in Pursuit

From an anthropocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of man's unending pursuit of beauty. Now whatever one considers beautiful is the object, the goal, the practical fulfillment of the individual's conceptual notion of beauty. This repetitive pattern unswervingly climaxes with dissatisfaction. As descendants of Adam, we have the pestering propensity to satiate our demanding desire with anything and everything worldly.

Our problem is we don't dig deep enough. Our shallow surmisings fall drastically short of the Agent required to fulfill them. The objects we beautify are all but permanent and satisfactory. Nature, as we have recently seen, isn't always stagnant or yearning to be beheld. Love? I think we can all agree on this one. Love is not all you need. Success? hmmm... fill in the blank. The list goes on.

The familiar Lewis quote rings true...

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world"

So it seems as if we've been drinking out of sin-tainted stagnant waters, and expecting that algae bacteria ridden cesspool to provide life and fulfillment--when what we really need is the pure, enlivening, sustaining, invigorating, living water from the source. What if the Beauty--the true Beauty--the source of absolute fulfillment and Provider of soul-satisfying rest...pursued us?

From a theocentric standpoint, all of life is entirely comprised of enjoying God's relentless pursuit of rebels who insist on slurping from sediment-saturated streams. This is accomplished through Jesus--The author, very essence, and true satisfier of our deepest longings for beauty. Jesus wakes us from our deadness--lifts our head from the muddied waters--sometimes a tap on the shoulder, sometimes by the nape of the neck, and lovingly whisks us to the Father, the source of living water.

Psalm 42- "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

The Gift of Gifts

Valley of Vision... read it. It's gospel defibrillation.

O SOURCE OF ALL GOOD
What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
    thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
    my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
    his self-emptying incomprehensible,
    his infinity of love beyond the heart's grasp.
Herein is wonder of wonders:
   he came below to raise me above,
   was born like me that I might become like him.
Herein is love;
   when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
      to raise me to himself
Herein is wisdom;
   when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
      and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
   as man to die my death,
          to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
          to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds,
   and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
   and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
   my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
   my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
   to look with them upon my Redeemer's face,
   and in him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart
   embrace him with undying faith,
   exulting that he is mine and I am his.
In him thou hast given me so much that heaven can give no more.

Repenting Of Our Good Works

Repenting Of Our Good Works

Keller. Prod God. Gospel. Yes.

Bavinck on Justification/Sanctification

"We must proceed from the idea that Christ is our holiness in the same sense in which he is our righteousness. He is a complete and all-sufficient savior. He does not rest until, after pronouncing his acquittal in our conscience, he has also imparted his full holiness and glory to us."