Overcome By Grace

I’ve been reading through Psalm 119 over the past few weeks. A couple verses that have been stuck on my mind a lot and have been drawing me back again and again are these: Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes. Psalm 119:67, 71 So often I become complacent. I’ve found that when life is easy and going smoothly, I forget God’s Word so easily. “I don’t need God right now. I’ve got this handled.” How foolish. It is at that moment that I most need God. It is at that moment that sin is at the door, ready to come in and wreak havoc. I’ve already lost the battle against sin before it even happens. And yet complacency occurs again and again. So God, in His kindness, afflicts me. It is not an affliction that is fueled by His wrath. I’ve heard it well said before that if you face no temptations and trials in your life, be fearful. It very well may be that you are not Christ’s...

One of my favorite songs of all time is Rich Mullins’, Awesome God. My favorite lyric of that song is this line: Judgment and wrath He poured out on the Sodom  Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross I hope that you have not Too quickly forgotten that Our God is an awesome God Up to that point in the song Rich has been explaining why our God is awesome. From the moment of creation, to the time of the Fall, and to the cross, Rich shows us why our God is an awesome God. All summed up in this culminating statement, “Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross”. Many times when I hear this line, I have been brought to tears. I look to God’s holiness and see my sinfulness. I see His wrath on Sodom for their sin, then I see His mercy and grace at the Cross. That judgment and wrath that He poured out on Sodom... I deserved that. But He gave  me  grace. See this passage from 1 Corinthians: Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit th...

“Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy.” ⎯ R.C. Sproul Our God is holy, holy, holy. It is a threefold emphasis. An emphasis we do well to consider. So what does it mean that God is holy, holy, holy?  That is a question I have been mulling around in my head and trying to understand after I asked it of a good friend. It’s an easy question to pass by and say, “Well, scripture says He is…” But if you think about it and delve into scripture for answers, you may have your mind blown at the awesome thought of how He is holy and what that means to us, His creatures.  In addition to showing what it means that God is holy, I also want to tie God’s innate holiness into the incarnation of the Son. Because, through His Son, we are able to approach the holy God and we are able to have union with the Holy....

One week later the Hope of the earth has risen. Grace and mercy has come upon us. The Glory of the LORD has risen from the grave and sin and death are defeated. One week later we remember what has happened. No longer is He on the cross. No longer is He in the grave. The Hope of the world has risen.  One week later the rejoicing continues. God’s mercy is never ending and new each morning. The King of all is with us now and death does not separate us from Him.  One week later the Father’s wrath is appeased and we have been propitiated. Not by our work, but by the work of the only One who could ever obtain grace from the Father—His perfect Son.  One week later we look back and see what we could not see before. God’s perfect plan is revealed to us. We see that He was to be bruised for us, wounded for His children, sacrificed to bring a once alienated people to the Father.  One week later we are now made alive by His resurrection. In Him we’ve been raised to new life....

When I look around the world I’m constantly shocked at the evil that is abounding in every place. I look within and see my own thoughts and the sin that I have and I’ m ashamed. It can be so heartbreaking to just think of all the evil that is being unleashed all over the world. But at the same time I thought of all this, I was reminded that God sees even more than I. He sees every thought, He knows every evil intention and action. Nothing is hidden from Him (Proverbs 15:3). Thinking of the latest shooting where people lost their lives and persons carried out horrendous actions, a missing girl whose parents were murdered, a little girl that is caught between abusive family members. It can be so overwhelming. But God sees all this. I can’t do anything. But I can call out to my Father in heaven who sees the evil and the good. He doesn’t sit idly by. His anger is aroused against the evil that is being perpetrated in the world (Romans 1:18). All of it. He is able to see...

It’s about time for another blog post. As summer arrives and work increases (not to mention the NBA playoffs), I haven’t had as much time to keep up my reading. But I’m excited to share with you the review of Praying the Bible by Donald S. Whitney . This book changed the way I pray. Mr. Whitney says that if we are bored with praying, the problem isn’t us, it’s our method (page 12). We tend to pray “the same old things about the same old things”, and that’s the way my prayer life had been before I read this book. If we are true, born again and Spirit-filled saints and we find prayer boring—the problem is how we’re going about praying to the God of the universe. We need a better method. If you’re like me, you most likely pray the same old phrases…over and over and over again. Mr. Whitney shows us a better way in his book. So what is the solution? Whitney says, “ W hen you pray, pray a passage of Scripture, particularly a psalm” (p. 27) .   It’s so simple, but...