The Old 1000th!! (and a lovely bit of Horton on law and gospel)

As always on these occasions, appreciation to Dickie Mint for getting me to get a blog (and half a dozen other tech things that apparently I would die if I did not have).  From July 2006 to September 2015 (9 years!?!) I have posted 1000 times.  A repository of wisdom and stuff (mostly by people who aren't me).  And here's a bit more:

But the law can do only what the law can do. The law can only tell us what God requires and thereby explode our sin and misery, and when we find our righteousness in the gospel, the law can tell us what a life of gratitude looks like. The law has that important function to fulfill. But the law never becomes the gospel. The law is always an imperative, a command. The gospel is always an indicative, an announcement of a state of affairs, telling us what God has done. We should not look to the law — either God’s or a task list we have made up for ourselves — for our identity. I use the example of a sailboat. The law can tell us where we are and if we are in trouble. But only the gospel is the wind in our sails.

Perman, Matthew Aaron; Perman, Matthew Aaron (2014-03-04). What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (p. 121). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Michael Horton: Good News

“The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. . . . But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises.”

Perman, Matthew Aaron; Perman, Matthew Aaron (2014-03-04). What's Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done (p. 107). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Orwell: let the meaning choose the word

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around.

Politics and the English Language

Orwell: Questions to ask when writing

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.

Politics and the English Language,  George Orwell.

Tozer: preacher, praying

To pray successfully is the first lesson the preacher must learn if he is to preach fruitfully; yet prayer is the hardest thing he will ever be called upon to do and, being human, it is the one act he will be tempted to do less frequently than any other. He must set his heart to conquer by prayer, and that will mean that he must first conquer his own flesh, for it is the flesh that hinders prayer always.

....


No man should stand before an audience who has not first stood before God. Many hours of communion should precede one hour in the pulpit. The prayer chamber should be more familiar than the public platform. Prayer should be continuous, preaching but intermittent.

AWTozer (quoted Moody e-letter 31/8/2015)

Keller: hardship and loving God for Himself

...but as the relationship progresses, you begin to love the person for himself alone, and then when some of the assets go away, you don't mind.  We call that growth in love and character.  Now, what if you grew in your love for God like that? What if you could grow in your love for Him, so that he became increasingly satisfying in himself to you?  That would mean that circumstances wouldn't rattle you as much, since you had God and His love enriching and nourishing you reagrdless of the circumstances of life.

How can we get there - how can you move from loving God in a mercenary way toward loving God himself?  I'm afraid the primary way is to have hardship come into your life. Suffering helps yu assess yourself and see the mercenary nature of your love for God.

Walking with God... p274

Keller: Newton on trust in trials

When you cannot see your way, be satisfied that he is your leader.  When your spirit is overwhelmed within you, he knows your path: he will not leave you to sink.   He has appointed seasons of refreshment, and you shall find that he does not forget you.  Above all, keep close to the throne of grace.  If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near him, we may be sure we will get none by keeping away from him.

John Newton, quoted Walking with God... p267

Miller: grace runs downhill

...humility get s much grace because grace runs downhill!

Servant Leader..., p65

Keller: don't mistrust God's ways or assume doom

We must never assume that we know enough to mistrust God's ways or be bitter against what He has allowed.  We must also never think we have really ruined our lives, or have ruined God's good purposes for us. [Joseph's brothers] surely must have felt, at one point, that they had permanently ruined their standing with God and their father's life and their family.  But God worked through it.  This is no inducement to sin.  The pain and misery that resulted in their lives from this action were very great.  Yet God used it redemptively.  You cannot destroy His good purpose for us.  He is too great and will weave even great sins into a fabric that makes us into something useful and valuable.

Walking with God...., p264

Prime & Begg: pray right now

We have found it helpful never to discuss any subject of moment or consequence with another Christian without then praying about it together.  This may mean praying wherever we are - in our study, in the hallway, or by the church pew.

...we would there and then [on a Sunday] say at the conclusion, "Let's commit the matter to God"...A member of the church fellowship may raise an issue or, more difficult, a criticism, which cannot be properly discussed there and then.  As  a future date is fixed to talk it through we would seize that present opportunity to say, "We'll pray now, and ask for God's help for when we discuss it more fully."

On Being a Pastor, p81

Keller: Sibbes - if Christ not break me...

"...if Christ be so merciful as not to break me, I will not break myself by despair."

Keller, quoting Richard Sibbes, Walking with God..., p245

Miller: faith and love and power

Let me urge upon you the importance of cultivating faith if you are to be able to walk in love and spiritual power.  Without faith it is impossible to please God, but those who believe are given more grace than they can handle.  Believing is to expect God to be with you and change you and change others.  Therefore expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.  When the work is dull or routine and people are slipping away, go forth with new boldness and preach Christ until you are filled with faith yourselves and God works faith in others.

...Servant Leader..., p62

Sherlock Holmes on nobiity in humility

"Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. But you will know all about it soon enough. How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of nature! Are you well up in your Jean Paul?"
"Fairly so. I worked back to him through Carlyle."
"That was like following the brook to the parent lake. He makes one curious but profound remark. It is that the chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues, you see, a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself a proof of nobility. There is much food for thought in Richter. You have not a pistol, have you?"

"The Sign of Four", Arthur Conan-Doyle.