Distinct & Countercultural In Our Repentance -Dever
In a fallen world, so many things that come easy are not right; and so many things that are right, don’t come easy. So let’s pray for one another. Pray for our church, that we will be a community strong enough and loving enough that we can help each other be countercultural in these matters. No, we will not save ourselves by being distinct and countercultural. But I will tell you this: in today’s world, we will not be saved without being distinct and countercultural.
God’s people are marked out from others by our repentance; we have turned away from our sins. When you are confronted over your sin, do you hold on to your sin even more tightly and resent the person who confronts you? That is the sign of a person going to hell. The heart won by the grace of Christ has turned loose such defensiveness and pride and has said, “Yes, I’m a sinner. I need help. Step into my life.” God’s people are marked by that kind of repentance.
Mark Dever
Message of the Old Testament
p. 411
Come To God's Word Like It Was the Last Work I May Ever Hear
It may be the last time that God will ever speak to us in his Word; it may be the last sermon that we shall ever hear; we may go from the place of hearing to the place of judging. If people would think thus when they come into the house of God, “Perhaps this will be the last time that God will counsel us about our souls, the last time that ever we shall see our minister’s face,” with what devotion would they come!
Thomas Watson
Heaven Taken by Storm: Showing the Holy Violence a Christian Is to Put Forth in the Pursuit After Glory
pp. 17-18
Cited by Mark Dever
Promises Made: The Message of the Old Testament
p. 410
Keywords: watson
What Am I Most Aware Of?
When we live more aware of what we need to do than of what Christ has already done, we're drifting [from grace to self-effort].
Dave Harvey
When Sinners Say "I Do"
p. 146
Belief In a Sovereign God Shows Itself In a Commitment to Prayer
Belief in a sovereign God shows itself in a commitment to prayer
Mark Dever
Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made
"Ezra"
p. 397
Keywords: prayer
Incomprehensibility Means We Will Never Run Out of Things to Delight In
Consider heaven, an eternity with God, where our access to Him has been fully opened and where we no longer have the curse of sin tainting our ability and desire to delight in Him:
Thus, we may know something about God's love, power, wisdom, and so forth. But we can never know his love completely or exhaustively. We can never know his power exhaustively. We can never know his wisdom exhaustively, and so forth. In order to know any single thing about God exhaustively we would have to know it as he himself knows it. That is, we would have to know it in its relationship to everything else about God and in its relationship to everything else about creation throughout all eternity! We can only exclaim with David, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it" (Ps. 139:6).
This doctrine of God's incomprehensibility has much positive application for our own lives. It means that we will never be able to know "too much" about God, for we will never run out of things to learn about him, and we will thus never tire in delighting in the discovery of more and more of his excellence and of the greatness of his works.
Wayne Grudem
Systematic Theology (Libronix)
p. 149
Keywords: epistemology,grudem
