Tag: sin

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

3 Things To Consider Before That Next Big Sin – Tim Challies
John Owen has a challenge for you. Before that next big sin you are pondering, he wants you to simply consider three things…

4 Things That Happen When You Study Leviticus More Than 10 Years – Jay Sklar (TGC)
In my experience, at least four profound things happen when this book begins to seep into your soul…

Someday It Will Be Worth It – Mark Altrogge (Blazing Center)
You won’t be disappointed. Keep believing in Jesus. Keep hoping in him. Keep clinging to him and abiding in him. Don’t give up, no matter how bad the pain gets. You won’t be put to shame. Keep rejoicing and giving thanks in all things. You can’t imagine your reward and the joys that await you.

Preparing for Sunday Worship – Jason Helopoulis
We believe our engagement in corporate worship is essential, so we should also expect to prepare even as we expect the pastor and musicians to prepare for their participation in the Sunday morning service. How can you prepare for worship?

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day prepared for corporate worship of our great God!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

It has been a busy week with VBS at our church, so I haven’t had a lot of time for blogging.  But it was also a good week, for which we praise God.  Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Satan’s Simple Plan – Kevin DeYoung
He really only wants one thing: he wants to keep you from Christ.  He wants to make you selfish. He wants you to live for your ambition. He wants you to live for your addiction. He wants you live for your ego. He wants you to live for anyone or anything that’s not Jesus.

When Sin Looks Delicious – Tim Challies
Do you ever have those days where you just want to sin? Sin looks delicious while righteousness looks distasteful. Sin looks satisfying and holiness looks frustrating. You wake up in the morning with a desire to do what you know you should not desire to do. Your heart echoes with what God said to Cain: “Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you.” And your desire is for it.  What do you do on a day like that?

Sin is Cosmic Treason – R. C. Sproul (Ligonier)
Not until we take God seriously will we ever take sin seriously. But if we acknowledge the righteous character of God, then we, like the saints of old, will cover our mouths with our hands and repent in dust and ashes before Him.

History Could Happen Again – Nathan Finn (DG)
Knowing how God has worked in the past can help us ask some key questions of ourselves in the present. Are we praying for revival in our own spiritual lives? Are we praying for the salvation of the nations? Are our churches setting aside a specific time for focused — even extraordinary — prayer for a global awakening through the advance of the gospel? Do we long for the Lord to move among us as he moved among those who came before us?

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day celebrating our gracious Savior!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for you to consider this weekend:

So You Want to Sin, Do You? – Tim Challies

10 Ways to Resist the Devil – Tim Challies

12 Ways to Preserve Christian Unity – Tim Challies

Can Life Have Meaning Without God? – James Anderson (Gospel Coalition)

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshiping the Lord with your local church!

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts for your weekend reading:

Forgive Us These Faults – Tim Keller (Gospel Coalition)
Newton lays out a convicting and specific example of the kinds of Christian people who coast on their strengths but do nothing about their weaknesses and so rob themselves and others of joy and God of his glory. These blemishes are often seen by their bearers as mere “foibles.” Newton says they “may not seem to violate any express command of Scripture” and yet, they are “properly sinful” because they are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit that believers are supposed to exhibit. 

Why You Can’t See Your Biggest Flaws – Tim Keller (Gospel Coalition)
Our natural virtues, which come from inborn temperament and family nurture—such as our talents, aptitudes, and strengths—are good things. But each has a “dark side.” People with prophetic gifts—great directness, often good at public speaking or writing—can have problems listening to others and taking advice. People with priestly gifts—sensitivity, often good at listening, giving counsel, showing mercy—often can be too concerned to make people happy. They may be cowardly or overly sensitive themselves to criticism. A generous person may also be undisciplined and irresponsible in financial matters. Thus his generosity is really a facet of his too-impulsive character. 

When Sin Is Grievous and Grace Is Stunning – Tim Keller (Gospel Coalition)
If we are going to grow in grace, we must stay aware of being both sinners and also loved children in Christ. We need a high and due sense of our sin before God and a deep and profound sense of our union with and acceptance in Christ.

8 Ways Satan Convinces You To Question Your Salvation – Tim Challies
Though Satan can never steal the Christian’s crown, though he can never snatch him away from the hand of the Father, he is so envious and malicious that he will leave no stone unturned in robbing the Christian of comfort and peace, in making their life miserable, in giving them reason to live in constant sorrow and mourning, doubt and questioning.

There Really Is A Reason – 12 Benefits Of Afflictions – Mark Altrogge (Blazing Center)
God doesn’t afflict us or allow us to be afflicted for no reason. He has wonderful purposes for all he does in us. God is the great artist who produces the ultimate masterpieces – sons and daughters in the likeness of his Son Jesus Christ. So he makes every stroke of the Master’s brush, every tap of the Sculptor’s chisel count. So in God’s plan, afflictions have great benefit to us, as painful as they are at times. If we keep these benefits in mind when we suffer, they can help us endure joyfully.

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day!

What Sin Is

On By BrianIn PASSION Quotes

Sin is not primarily about breaking rules,
although it results in that;
it is not at bottom about self-centeredness,
although it always is that. 
It is at bottom a refusal to let God be God over life,
to give him the center, the focus, the glory that are his.
– David F. Wells in Turning To God

Preach the Gospel to Yourself

On By BrianIn Miscellaneous1 Comment

How can we grow up in Jesus?  Part of the answer is that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves.  We need to constantly remind ourselves of what God has done for us, of the many blessings of salvation that should change the way we live.  In Romans 12:1 we read, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God….”  These words mark a huge transition in the book.  Everything before these words deals with God’s mercy in giving us a great salvation.  Everything after these words deals with how we should live in response.  It is because of the gospel that we should now live differently.  And so we need to preach the gospel to ourselves.  Let me take just two elements of the gospel to illustrate this point.

Remember the cross so you don’t want to sin.  Part of the God’s mercy is that he became a man and took the judgment we deserved for our sins upon himself on the cross.  Consider all that our Savior endured because of our sins.  The whipping.  The beatings.  The mockings.  The crown of thorns pressed into his head.  The nails piercing his hands and feet.  The agony hanging on the cross.  As we consider what he endured to pay for our sin, how could we have any desire to sin?  When the temptation to sin looks so alluring, place the picture of Jesus hanging on the cross next to the temptation, and the temptation will lose much of its tempting power.  As we consider the cross, it motivates us to live for him.  We remember the cross so we don’t want to sin.

Consider your new life that means you don’t have to sin.  In Romans 6, Paul talks about the reality that we have died to sin and been raised to a new life in Christ.  We are no longer slaves to sin.  And so he tells us in verse 11 to “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  He has already established that we have a new life.  In verse 11 he wants us to consider this reality.  To think about it.  To remember it.  He wants us to preach the gospel to ourselves.  We have a new life.  God has enabled us to say no to sin.  We don’t have to sin anymore.  Too often we hear people say (and we might say ourselves) after sinning, “Well, I just couldn’t help it.”  But if we are true Christians, we have been given a new life.  We can help it.  In the face of temptation, remind yourself that you are no longer a slave to sin, and you don’t want to act like a slave anymore.  You can say no.  We consider our new life to remind us that we don’t have to sin.

Remember the cross so you don’t want to sin.  Consider your new life that means you don’t have to sin.  Preach the gospel to yourself.

Quotes To Ponder

On By BrianIn PASSION Quotes

Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others.
Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved.
– John Piper

Self is the most treacherous enemy, and the most insinuating deceiver in the world.
Of all other vices, it is both the hardest to find out, and the hardest to cure. 
– Richard Baxter

Men have dreamed of finding the fairy pleasure in the dark forest of sin. 
Carnal joys have danced before their eyes as temptingly as the mirage in the desert,
and they have pursued the phantom forms to their misery in this world,
and to their eternal ruin in the next.
– Charles Spurgeon

Quotes To Ponder

On By BrianIn PASSION Quotes

Here are some helpful quotes related to sin for us to reflect on…and respond to:

That every person should grow up and do evil can be no coincidence.
It calls for an explanation.
— John Gerstner

Most sin is born out of spiritual blindness – shown in a vast ugly forgetfulness of God.
– Gary Thomas

That’s what sin does – it intoxicates us with a distorted view of reality.
– Gary Thomas

Salvation in sin is not possible; it is always salvation from sin.
— C. H. Spurgeon

Sin has been pardoned at such a price that we cannot henceforth trifle with it.
— C.H. Spurgeon

One of the best ways to build a zero toleration for sin is to become repulsed by it.
– Gary Thomas 

Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.
– J.C. Ryle

Passion Points

On By BrianIn PASSION Points

Here are some good posts addressing the important issue of sin in our lives:

What Does Jesus Do With Sin? – Jared Wilson
Here are 6 things Jesus does with sin.

Steps to Overcome Temptation – D. A. Carson (via Desiring God)
Carson talks about some simultaneous steps to take for overcoming temptation, including a deepening delight in Jesus.

I Chose To Sin – Tim Challies
If I sin today—when I sin today—it is not because I had to or because anyone forced me to, but only because I chose to.

4 Reasons People Backslide – Tim Challies
Here are four reasons that people backslide.

How to Backslide in 9 Easy Steps – Tim Challies
1. Stop meditating on the gospel. “They draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come.”

Hope you have a great Lord’s Day growing in your delight of our Lord and your hatred for sin as you gather together with your local church family!