Thought For the Week

Dear Friends, If you are like me, you may have had a bad experience in the past with churches that stressed “holiness.” Not because churches shouldn’t, but because the focus was placed on outward conformity to externalisms, or a prescribed set of moralism’s that sucked the atmosphere of grace out of the church. In fact, the more effort-based versions of “holiness” are stressed, the more grace disappears – and the vacuum left in its wake is filled with even more rigid standards of morality and law-based duties – driving all who truly struggle with sin into hiding or pretending. And of all the books I have ever read on holiness (or godliness) none (in my opinion) hold a candle to “God’s Way of Holiness” by the Scottish minister Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). A book I have given to numerous people to read. If you were one who was turned off, or wounded, by a form of holiness based on what Bonar calls, “constrained externalism” or self-effort, I offer you this selection as a taste of w...

Dear Friends, Every once in a while, you come across an individual who can say a lot in a very little space. I don’t possess that ability, but Thomas Wilcox (1621-1687) did. Below are some of his profound insights on the Gospel found in the only tract he wrote, originally entitled, “A Choice Drop of Honey from the Rock Christ.” And don’t think that because it’s about the Gospel, you can just brush it aside because you already know it. Jerry Bridges (one of my profs at seminary and a prolific author who passed in 2016) once played us a recording in class of the responses given by best-selling Christian authors at a Bookseller’s Conference in response to the question, “What is the Gospel?” The responses were lacking at best and a couple of them made us wonder if could even be Christian at all. So, read these excerpts from his tract and see if you get what he means and if you agree. (I have updated the language where possible.) Enjoy. “When you believe and come to Christ, you...

Dear Friends, As we have entered the time of the church year traditionally called “Lent” (from the Old English word “lencten” referring to the season of Spring) there is always the common idea floating around that, “I should probably give up something for Lent.” The question is “Why?” Why give something up or practice self-denial? And the only good answer is: God in Scripture calls his people to do so, it actually benefits us, is intended to benefit others, and brings glory to God. We find this idea stated explicitly in Isaiah 58:6-9. There God says to his people who are fasting simply to deprive themselves of something (to prove their earnestness?) or in an attempt to be, “heard on high” (trying to manipulate God into answering our often self-focused prayers?) “This is the real reason he wants His people to fast: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is i...

Dear Friends, Today I share some “thoughts” on growing in godliness, a process which the Bible calls sanctification. It can essentially be understood as the restoration of the divine image that was so distorted by the fall of humankind into sin. The process which is meant to progressively make us more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus. Enjoy. SANCTIFICATION / GROWTH IN GODLINESS “Just as my assurance of salvation rests in the fact that God cannot change, my hope of sanctification rests in the fact that I can.” Jen Wilkin “Sanctification is the “salvaging” aspect of salvation whereby God takes us – like a car that has been nearly totaled in an accident – and starts cutting off the sharp jagged edges, pulling out the dents, straightening out the frame, replacing various broken parts, applying and sanding the body filler, and then primes and paints it.” “How long does it take to become a Christian? A moment — and a lifetime.” Louis Cassels “God is mor...