Result of the Fall: Relational Abyss

Paul Tripp:

"What seemed once unthinkably wrong and out of character for the world that God had made now became a daily experience. Words like falsehood, enemy, danger, sin, destruction, war, murder, sickness, fear, and hatred became regular parts of the fallen-world vocabulary. For the first time, the harmony between people was broken. Shame, fear, guilt, blame, greed, envy, conflict, and hurt made relationships a minefield they were never intended to be. People looked at other people as obstacles to getting what they wanted or as dangers to be avoided. Even families were unable to coexist in any kind of lasting and peaceful union. Violence became a common response to problems that had never before existed. Conflict existed in the human community as an experience more regular than peace. Marriage became a battle for control, and children's rebellion became a more natural response than willing submission. Things became more valuable than people, and they willingly competed with others in order to acquire more. The human community was more divided by love for self than united by love of neighbor. The words of people, meant to express truth and love, became weapons of anger and instruments of deceit. In an instant, the sweet music of human harmony had become the mournful dirge of human war."

"You No Longer Have to Spend the Rest of Your Life Chasing Your Tail"

Scripture, Culture, and the Human Heart

To illustrate, connect, and apply

So much to be said here. Thanks to my buddy Jeremiah Lepasana for finding this.

Wonderful Reminders

John Newton:

"My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things--

That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior."

Forever Forgiven

From Sam Storms' meditations on Colossians, The Hope of Glory...#20, p.72...

"God has taken your sin and placed it out of sight behind his back. All he sees now when he sees you is the blessed righteousness of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the love of forgiveness.

Still not good enough? Still not convinced? Still afraid that your sins will do you in? Then pay close attention to the word of the prophet Micah...He has something important to say about the kind of God we have:

 "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Mic. 7:18-19).

How much more graphic do you demand God to be before you enter into the joy of his forgiving love? All vestige of condemning guilt is gone. Again, "just as God said he put our sins behind his back, so here he says he will hurl them into the depths of the sea. They will not 'fall overboard' ; God will hurl them into the depths. he wants them to be lost forever, because he has fully dealt with them in his Son, Jesus Christ."

Praise Jesus for Romans 8

Just Then I Saw a Man Dressed in White

HT: Thabiti Anyabwile

Galatians 2:11-16

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I id not receive it from any man, nor was I thought it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me..."


No explanation needed.

Freedom

Tullian Tchividjian:

The gospel frees us from this pressure to perform, this slavish demand to “become.” The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ “we already are.” If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on.

Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin.

What Tullian Tchividjian Learned In Jonah

"I learned that God’s capacity to clean things up is infinitely greater than our human capacity to mess things up"

Good Things To Ultimate

"Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity apart from him. . . . Most people think of sin primarily as “breaking divine rules,” but Kierkegaard knows that the very first of the Ten Commandments is to “have no other gods before me.” So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God." -Tim Keller, The Reason For God

Idol assessment: What are your emotions driven by? What is/are the primary controller/s of your mood or overall disposition?

Valley of Vision - "The Spirit's Work"

Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love.
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, 'It is finished'.
Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of
     atonement achieved,
     expiation completed,
     satisfaction made,
     guilt done away,
     my debt paid,
     my sins forgiven,
     my person redeemed,
     my soul saved,
     hell vanquished,
     heaven opened,
     eternity made mine.
O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.
Write them upon my heart.


.........I agree with the puritan

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.