"For You" by Octavius Winslow

Folks sorry so long for a post...let this wonderful quote stir your LOVE FOR CHRIST! -Take care, Matthew

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FOR YOU! by Octavius Winslow

Is Jesus precious to your heart? Is He the object of your supreme admiration and delight? Does He have your warmest affection? Do you love Jesus? You must light your torch of affection for Christ, at the altar of Calvary. You must go there, and learn and believe what the love of Jesus is to you—the vastness of that love; the self sacrifice of that love; how that love of Christ labored and wept, bled, suffered, and died for you! Can you stand before this love; this love so precious, so great, so enduring, so self-consuming, so changeless; and know that for you was this offering—for you this cross—for you this agony—for you this scorn and insult—for you this death; and feel no sensibility, no emotion, no love to Jesus? Impossible!

Do not be cast down, then, in vain regrets that your love to Christ is so frigid, so fickle, so dubious. Go and muse upon the reality and the greatness of the Savior's love to you, and if love can inspire love, while you muse, the fire will burn, and your soul shall be all in flame with love to God!

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Stand & Wonder At The Reality Of Being Called A Son!

Mr. Kettler - a very, very dear brother and small group leader here in our church sent this to me and what a great encouragement it was to my soul! Thank you sir, for always directing me to "stand and wonder" at the Cross of Christ! There are too many times I "stand and wonder" at the wrong things where there is no hope! Thank you for directing me to see through the grace of God, how my Father sees me in The Son. You are a dear friend my brother and this piece really ministered to my heart! I will take this with me on vacation as a daily exhortation of how good our Savior is! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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Oh stand and wonder!
(Thomas Brooks, "The Crown and Glory of Christianity")

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us—that we should be called the sons of God." 1 John 3:1

It is an infinite condescension in God, to honor us with the title of sons, and therefore we should never think of it, nor ever speak of it—but with much admiration. O sirs! what matter of admiration is this—that the great and glorious God, who has many millions of glorious angels attending Him—that He should . . .

• look upon all holy people as His sons,
• and love them as His sons,
• and delight in them as His sons,
• and clothe them as His sons,
• and feed them as His sons,
• and protect them as His sons,
• and stand by them as His sons,
• and lay up for them as His sons,
• and lay out Himself for them as His sons; that those who have not deserved . . .
• a smile from God,
• a good word from God,
• a bit of bread from God,
• or a good look from God,
• should be made the sons of God!
  

What manner of love is this—that those who have . . .

• so highly provoked God,
• walked so cross and contrary to God,
• were so exceeding unlike God,
• preferred every lust, and every toy and vanity before God,
• fought many years under Satan's banner against God,
• refused all the offers of mercy that have been made by God, —that those who have deserved to be reprobated by God, damned by God, and to be thrown to hell by God—that these should be made the sons of God!
  

Oh stand and wonder! Oh stand and admire the freeness of His grace, and at the riches of His grace!

C.J., Discernment, Giving Correction & The Emergent Church

As you will note at the top of my blog page here it says, "random musings & reflections," and the title of this blog entry might appear to be random, but there are many connections I want you to make with the above stated title. I wanted to direct you to a particular blog entry by C.J. Mahaney on these particular topics, and more than the content (of which is extremely valuable and I believe personally very necessary to address), I want you to see how C.J. communicates doctrinal discernment and the necessity of bringing correction to particular voices in our culture. Here in, is both a bold proclaimation of the truth of the gospel without wavering while a humble pursuit of the mortification of the sin of self-righteousness in his own heart accompanied with a loving desire for see those who walk in doctrinal error to come to the truth and be restored by it.

Again, I cannot say it enough, I am so very, very grateful to God for this man and his humble, bold, biblical discernment that he brings to pastors such as myself. His blog subtitle has the phrase, "from the cheapseats," well then, from mine it is from the "much cheaper seats" - out in the parking lot per say. Here are some specific connections I want you to see, (I am sure there are more, because I am not that discerning - but here is what my thick melon absorbed)...

1. The purposefulness of how C.J. leads. He is specific and very intentional. This speaks to me in how to lead, not only as a pastor, but as a husband and father in how I speak and spend my time with my family. That we are not just transfering information, but in how it is done communicates volumes and without being intentional this way - many opportunities are lost, or not used as well as they could be.

2. The need for doctrinal discernment and specifically how C.J. does this. He communicates clearly how such doctrinal error effects and breaks ranks with "gospel" preaching and doctrine.

3. He is humble in how he directs us to other men and their study and how God has used them. Many "bloggers" might spend much time pontificating ideas that came from other men's studies, but C.J. as a man who is in active pursuit of humility not only gives credit to whom credit is due, but introduces us to another friend, Mr. Greg Gilbert, (click here for his article on Rob Bell's Nooma material).

4. He is humble and gracious in his obversations of those who fall into doctrinal error, such as Rob Bell, while exhorting us to uphold this man lovingly in prayer that he might come to a place of truly embracing the gospel and supremacy.

5. He promotes a biblically healthy self-suspecion of our own motives while critiquing others. Look at this quote from his blog:

"Whenever it’s necessary to critique erroneous content, I find it helpful to
remind myself of the mercy of God. Any insight I have learned has been learned
from others, and ultimately, this discernment has been graciously revealed by
God. In no way does my critique indicate intellectual or moral superiority on my
part. We must critique erroneous content, but our critique must be humble and
not self-righteous.If we accurately perceive God’s mercy, this will become an
occasion of thanking God for his mercy in our lives rather than an opportunity
for self-righteous communication." -C.J. Mahaney

6. Note how he is specific in the training of pastors on how we are to think. While directing us in content on a particular error he is training us how to think about these things, not just what to think about it. This is equipping leadership.

7. His critque is informed by the gospel, thus it has not only the passion of protecting the gospel, but he reveals the hope that there is for us when we fall into error that only comes from the gospel.

From the much cheaper seats - read, enjoy, be informed, and may we be increasingly changed,

Matthew

"In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life" by Sinclair Ferguson

Dear Friends,

I want to introduce to you a great book, it is brand new by Dr. Ferguson, entitled, "In Christ Alone." It is an outstanding book that is VERY readable while deep in content as he helps the reader see the beauty and loveliness of Christ's person and work. I would highly recommend this to the families of our church as we are just now finishing our series "Believe and Behold: A Journey Through The Gospel Of John." The first several chapters deal specifically with John's Gospel and I know you will find it very helpful reading, especially as we start our new series, "Living & Loving Jesus: A Study of 1 John." This book is made up of 50 short chapters, which would make it great to for family reading and devotions focusing our attention on the sufficiency and glory of Jesus' person and work and how we live in light of Him. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK! This is book money well spent!

The Cross Eclipses Everything!

Hey folks,
I just received this great quote from Mr. Kettler by Mr. Octavius Winslow, and it is outstanding. Read it slowly...

"It is the cross which eclipses, in the view of the true believer, the glory and attraction of every other object. What is the weapon by which faith combats with and overcomes the world? What but the cross of Jesus! Just as the natural eye, gazing for a while upon the sun, is blinded for the moment, by its overpowering effulgence, to all other objects—so to the believer, concentrating his mind upon the glory of the crucified Savior, studying closely the wonders of grace and love and truth meeting in the, cross—the world with all its attraction fades into the full darkness of an eclipse. Are not Christ and His cross infinitely better than the world and its love? "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." -Octavius Winslow