An Accidental Meeting

So far the only picture I've gotten from the Together for the Gospel conference with someone I've never met before is the horrible picture above, where I'm squinting at the camera. I'm hoping to get more pictures tomorrow, but I may not be able to if I cannot figure out how to turn the flash off while taking pictures, as flash photography greatly aggravates Dr. Sproul for medical reasons associated with a previous stroke. (Dr. Sproul, from the pulpit, threatened to assist someone in personally meeting Jesus face-to-face when they took a flash photograph of him. He was kidding- sort of.)

Anyway, the more normal-looking gentleman above, who is not squinting at the camera, is pastor, author, and blogger Josh Harris. Pastor Harris sat on the row behind me during the first night of the conference. Before the conference, I saw him speaking with some of the conference speakers and I thought, "I know that guy from somewhere." It wasn't until I saw his name badge, however, that I realized who he was. I then had the privilege of thanking Pastor Harris for impacting my spiritual life, particularly in his book Not Even A Hint (Now titled, Sex is not the Problem- Lust Is.)

If you are a single person struggling with temptations concerning sexual immorality (did that miss any singles out there?), then this book is an invaluable resource.

In our brief meeting, Pastor Harris displayed an incredibly gracious attitude- I could tell by his whole demeanor that he truly considered me to be a brother in Christ even though we had never previously met.

[For a much better picture of me, please visit Purgatorio.]

Bruce Ware on the Importance of Trinitarian Doctrine

In his book, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Relationship, Roles and Relevance, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Professor Bruce A. Ware makes the foundational observation,

God cares that we know who he is and he longs for us to understand him rightly, according to what he has revealed in his Word. (23)

Previous to the quote above, Dr. Ware begins his book by listing 10 reasons why it is important to study and rightly understand the Trinity. Two of these reasons are:

· Worship of the true and living God consciously acknowledges the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (17)

· The triune relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to marvel at the authority-submission structure that exists eternally in the three Persons in the Godhead, each of whom is equally and fully God. (21)

For Scriptural proof of the first point quoted above, Ware cites Ephesians 1:3-14,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)

Of this passage, Ware points out that (among other things) we are predestined by “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” “according to the purpose of his will,” “through Jesus Christ,” and we are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”

In regards to the second point cited, Dr. Ware quotes I Corinthians 11:3,

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. (ESV)

This passage demonstrates that our understanding of the equality yet submission found in a wife’s relationship towards her husband is based upon the pre-existing equality yet submission found in Christ’s relationship towards God. This relationship between Christ and God, I may add, has existed from eternity, as seen in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and in John 17:5, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

My prayer is that everyone reading this blogpost will be stimulated to further study the eternal relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that the truth of God’s Word will vitally impact the way in which You glorify God and serve others in Jesus’ name.

Together for the Gospel: Band of Bloggers

I Timothy 5 -outline

In his Notes on the First Letter of Paul to Timothy, Kevin Gue, who teaches the Thursday night Bible study for Grace Heritage Church, begins by giving some insight into his method of studying through books of the Bible. Gue writes,

I begin always by reading the book several times to get the main themes and structure. I then construct an outline of the entire book, beginning with some brief research on its background. I beg my children [Gue’s book of notes is primarily addressed to his own children] not to skip the discipline of outlining- it is difficult work, but well worth it! God has given me many riches during this simple exercise.

This Thursday night, Kevin Gue is going to be out of town, so he has given me the opportunity to substitute for him in leading the teaching at our Bible study. The subject that I will be teaching and leading discussion on will be I Timothy 5. In preparing to teach this chapter, I am attempting to follow Kevin Gue’s model by first reading through the chapter carefully “to get the main themes and structure” and then constructing an outline of the chapter. The following outline comes from my reading with the aid of Gue’s notes:

I Timothy 5: Instructions for Church Conduct

I. Introduction: The Guiding Principle

A. Appropriate Interaction of the Overseer with the Men of the Church (v. 1)

1. Older men are not to be rebuked, but encouraged as fathers (v. 1a.).

2. Younger men are to be treated as brothers (v. 1b.).

B. Appropriate Interaction of the Overseer with the Women of the Church (v. 2)

1. Older women are to be treated as mothers (v. 2a.).

2. Younger women are to be treated as sisters, in all purity (v. 2b.).

II. Treatment of Widows

A. Care for Widows Primarily the Duty of the Widows’ Households (vv. 3-4, 8, 16)

1. Children or grandchildren of widows should be the first to care for the older widows in their family. (v. 3-4)

a. Caring for the older widows in our families is a way to demonstrate godliness.

b. Caring for the older widows in our families is a way to honor our parents.

c. Caring for the older widows (demonstrating godliness and obeying the Fifth Commandment) is pleasing in the sight of God.

2. Those in the Church who do not provide for their households are worse than unbelievers. (v. 8) [The following are two points on how this statement should be understood, first in light of the whole teaching of I Timothy, and second, in light of I Timothy 5.]

a. Those in the Church who do not provide for their households are worse than unbelievers in that they damage the testimony of the Church. (This is drawn out from previous discussion about I Timothy on the testimony of the Church before an unbelieving world.)

b. Those in the Church who do not provide for their households are worse than unbelievers in that they place an undue burden upon the Church. (v. 16)

B. Duties of Widows Receiving Church Support (vv. 5-7)

1. Widows receiving Church support are expected to dedicate themselves to God is a similar way that wives and mothers are dedicated to their families, serving Him and His Church through “supplications and prayers night and day” (v. 5).

2. Widows who are not going to remarry, and thus serve their families, and who are not truly serving the Church may as well be dead already (v. 6).

3. Elders are commanded to preach duties and warnings such as those above so that the widows will be without reproach (v. 7).

C. Qualifications for Enrollment of Widows for Church Support (vv. 9-10, 14a.)

1. Over 60 years old (v. 9a.).

2. A one-husband wife (v. 9b.). (This would not preclude widows who have previously been widowed and remarried; otherwise this requirement would tend to undermine v. 14a. following.)

3. Having a reputation for good works (v. 10a.), such as:

a. Bringing up children (v. 10b.).

b. Showing hospitality (v. 10c.).

c. Serving the saints (v. 10d.).

d. Caring for the afflicted (v. 10e.).

e. Miscellaneous (v. 10f.).

D. Command Against Enrolling Younger Widows (vv. 11-13, 14b.-15)

1. The negative aspect of the prohibition: Younger widows will NOT fulfill the duties mentioned above (vv. 11-12).

2. The positive aspect of the prohibition: They will become idlers, gossips, and busybodies, giving the adversary occasion for slander, and straying after Satan (vv. 13, 14b.-15).

III. Treatment of Elders

A. Monetary Support of Elders (vv. 17-18)

1. Elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor (v. 17).

2. Further Scriptural proof for this admonition (v. 18): Deut. 25:4 and Lk. 10:7.

B. Dealing With Charges Brought Against an Elder (vv. 19-21)

1. Charges must not be admitted “against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (v. 19).

2. Elders who persist in sin should (as other Church members) be rebuked in front of the whole congregation (v. 20).

3. The rules of Church discipline are to be kept without prejudice or partiality (v. 21).

C. Maintaining the Purity of Church Leadership (vv. 22-25)

1. Purity is maintained through a sensible use of caution

a. Elders should not be hastily ordained (v. 22a.).

b. Existing elders must take care to keep themselves pure in this matter, especially by not hastily giving their approval to a “minister”, thus implicating themselves in any misdeeds that may result (v. 22b.).

c. The desire for purity should not result in elders being placed under extra-biblical demands, which could actually cause them physical harm (v. 23).

2. A principle underlying the command to use caution in waiting before ordaining an elder:

a. The negative aspect of the principle: We must wait to see if there are any disqualifying sins in the potential elder’s life- either obvious sins which precede the potential elder in automatically disqualifying him, or hidden or habitual sins, which could also disqualify the potential elder (v. 24).

b. The positive aspect of this principle: We must wait to see any qualifying marks in the potential elder’s life- some potential elders may be gifted in doing conspicuous good works, while some may have a quiet lifestyle of encouragement and godliness, which would also qualify them as an elder. (v. 25).

The Perils of Pride -by C.J. Mahaney

[The following article recently appeared on the Crosswalk website. As I posted a Crosswalk article by Mahaney just before my series on James 4:6b- "For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble"- I thought that it would be appropriate to post another article on humility by C.J. Mahaney at the end of this series.]

The Perils of Pride
C.J. Mahaney
Sovereign Grace Ministries

Winston Churchill, who perfected the art of the clever put-down, once described a political opponent as “a modest little man who has a good deal to be modest about.” The last part of his remark is an accurate description of me—though I can’t say I’m humble, I certainly have much to be humble about! My general ineptness is well known to all who have even a casual acquaintance with me, and that’s no exaggeration.

If you were to speak to any of my friends, they would confirm how I continually surprise them with fresh discoveries of my inadequacies. I even provide them a certain degree of entertainment, especially when it comes to the hands-on and the mechanical.

Needing Help

A while back, someone informed me that my car’s rear left tire—or was it the rear right?—was low on air. Now, in fact, I had no idea how to put air in a car tire. (Really.) So I turned to a friend—a close friend, I’ll have you know—and asked for his help.

In such a moment, the godly and servant-hearted response from a friend would be to cheerfully answer, “Yes, let me help you.” Instead, my good friend exclaimed, “I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it! You don’t know how to put air in your tire?”

On and on like this he went, until he faced me squarely and added, “You, my friend, are a moron.”

My friend was merely having fun at my expense, but the truth of the matter is that on a previous occasion I had actually tried, on my own, to put air in my car’s tire. As I knelt to place the air hose on the stem—or whatever that little dealy’s called where you attach the hose to the tire— the extremely loud noise that erupted was an intimidating PHHHHT! PHHHHHHT!

Then a loud ringing started: DING DING DING DING! I was suddenly consumed by an intense fear that my tire was only seconds from blowing up. It’s going to explode, I told myself, and you’re going to die. And at your funeral, all your friends —while wiping away tears in the midst of their mourning—will be shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “What an idiot!”

I’m convinced that the sum effect of my attempt that day was only to let out more air than I put in. And as I drove away from the station with a badly underinflated tire, I could almost hear the faint sound of the station attendant’s laughter following me home.

Against All Logic

Now you might assume that in a normal human being, such ineptness couldn’t possibly coexist with any significant measure of pride. Someone as unskilled as I am would, naturally, be humble, right? However, let me assure you beyond doubt that both incompetence and pride are very evident in my life. Let me illustrate with another story.

One day my daughter informed me that our car was making a strange noise, so I went out to investigate. She tried to prepare me, but in no way did I anticipate the violent shrieking that assaulted my ears upon starting the car. I immediately turned off the engine.

In such a moment, wisdom demands one course of action only: Get out of the car, walk back into the house, and call a trustworthy auto-repair service.

That would have been the appropriate and prudent response. Instead, I followed the arrogant male instinct, which requires at bare minimum that the male lift the hood and stare intently at the engine. After all, neighbors might be watching, and we want to at least give the appearance that we have some mechanical knowledge.

But given my personal history, what groundless self-assurance could possibly motivate me to lift the hood to examine my engine? The only thing I actually know how to do is check whether the container for window-washer fluid needs refilling! So I checked that—with great authority. (It was more than half full.)

Then I shut the hood (also with great authority) and, proud fool that I am, got back into the car and turned the ignition once more—as if my having merely stared at the engine was sufficient to repair it; as if the broken parts were now calling to one another, “He’s seen us! Get back together, quick!”

Yet as I turned the key again, the same violent shriek issued forth.

Only at this point did I finally go back in the house to do what I should have done earlier: I telephoned the repair shop to notify them of my car’s condition—fully ready to pass along to them my firm conviction that the problem was not the window-washer fluid container.

Doesn’t pride have a strange way of ignoring reason altogether? The sad fact is that none of us are immune to the logic-defying, blinding effects of pride. Though it shows up in different forms and to differing degrees, it infects us all. The real issue here is not if pride exists in your heart; it’s where pride exists and how pride is being expressed in your life. Scripture shows us that pride is strongly and dangerously rooted in all our lives, far more than most of us care to admit or even think about.

In his essay, “Pride, Humility & God,” John Stott wrote the following: “At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.”

In the previous column, we saw the promise of humility—the gracious support of God. But we must also be aware of the great perils of pride—not just occasionally or under certain circumstances, but at every stage and in every sphere. Throughout our time on this earth, and in every arena of our lives, you and I share a common greatest enemy: pride.

The First Sin

Pride has quite the history, one that precedes Adam and Eve.

Pride, it seems, was the very first sin. Isaiah 14 records the downfall of a king, but not a mere earthly ruler. This king is the embodiment of God-defying arrogance, but the language used here apparently references the rebellion and fall of Satan himself.

In Isaiah 14:13, the motivation behind Satan’s rebellion is exposed: “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high.’” Led by the prideful Lucifer, powerful angelic creatures possessing beauty and glory far beyond our comprehension arrogantly desired recognition and status equal to God Himself. In response, God swiftly and severely judged them.

Pride not only appears to be the earliest sin, but it is at the core of all sin. “Pride,” John Stott writes again, “is more than the first of the seven deadly sins; it is itself the essence of all sin.”

Indeed, from God’s perspective, pride seems to be the most serious sin. From my study, I’m convinced there’s nothing God hates more than this. God righteously hates all sin, of course, but biblical evidence abounds for the conclusion that there’s no sin more offensive to Him than pride.

When His Word reveals those things “that the LORD hates” and “that are an abomination to him,” it’s the proud man’s “haughty eyes” that head up the list (Proverbs 6:16–17).

When the personified wisdom of God speaks out, these clear words are emphasized: “I hate pride and arrogance” (Proverbs 8:13, NIV).

And consider the divine perspective on pride revealed in Proverbs 16:5: “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished.”

Stronger language for sin simply cannot be found in Scripture.

Contending with God

Why does God hate pride so passionately?

Here’s why: Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him.

Charles Bridges once noted how pride lifts up one’s heart against God and “contends for supremacy” with Him. That’s a keenly insightful and biblical definition of pride’s essence: contending for supremacy with God, and lifting up our hearts against Him.

For purposes of personal confession, I began adopting this definition of pride a few years ago after I came to realize that, to some degree, I’d grown unaffected by pride in my life. Though I was still confessing pride, I knew I wasn’t sufficiently convicted of it. So rather than just confessing to God that “I was proud in that situation” and appealing for His forgiveness, I learned to say instead, “Lord, in that moment, with that attitude and that action, I was contending for supremacy with You. That’s what it was all about. Forgive me.”

And rather than confessing to another person, “That statement was prideful on my part; will you please forgive me?” I began saying, “What I just did was contending for supremacy with God,” and only then asking for the person’s forgiveness. This practice increased a weight of conviction in my heart about the seriousness of this sin.

Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride—to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive.

No wonder God opposes pride. No wonder He hates pride. Let that truth sink into your thinking.

God’s Active Opposition to Pride

Now let me ask you: What do you hate?

I’ll tell you what I hate. I’ve got two lists. One is a silly list that begins with foods that I sometimes think must be products of the Fall. I detest meat loaf. I loathe sauerkraut. And I hate cottage cheese. I even hate it when anyone eats cottage cheese in my presence; it ruins my appetite.

I also despise any and all professional sports teams from New York City—that’s simply part of my heritage, being born and raised in the Washington DC area.

But that’s just the beginning, a little sampling of my silly list of things I hate. I also have a serious list of things I hate. I’m sure you have one, too.

I hate abortion.

I hate child abuse.

I hate racism.

What do you hate?

You and I hate nothing to the degree that God hates pride. His hatred for pride is pure, and His hatred is holy.

In his Commentary on the Book of Psalms, John Calvin wrote, “God cannot bear with seeing his glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree, so intolerable to him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those who, by praising themselves, obscure his glory as far as they can.”

And because God cannot bear with this arrogance, He reveals Himself in Scripture as actively opposed to pride.

Actively.

“God opposes the proud, ” says James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5. “Opposes” in this statement is an active, present-tense verb, showing us that God’s opposition to pride is an immediate and constant activity. The proud will not indefinitely escape discipline.

Pride’s Potency

We would do well to note pride’s peculiarly destructive power. In his Advice to Young Converts, Jonathan Edwards called pride “the worst viper that is in the heart” and “the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ.” He ranked pride as the most difficult sin to root out, and “the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts.”

Despite this thorough understanding of its ugliness, Edwards himself constantly battled his own pride (a fact which gives me hope, knowing I’m not alone in this struggle). “What a foolish, silly, miserable, blind, deceived poor worm am I, when pride works,” Edwards once wrote in his diary. In his sermons and in his vast writings he constantly warned against pride, especially spiritual pride, which he viewed as the greatest cause of the premature ending of the Great Awakening, the revival that had brought so much spiritual vitality to the church in Edwards’s day.

Pride also undermines unity and can ultimately divide a church. Show me a church where there’s division, where there’s quarreling, and I’ll show you a church where there’s pride.

Pride also brings down leaders. “Pride ruins pastors and churches more than any other thing,” Mike Renihan writes in his essay “A Pastor’s Pride and Joy” from Tabletalk. “It is more insidious in the church than radon in the home.” When you read about the next public figure to fall, remember Proverbs 16:18—“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” That person’s situation might appear circumstantially complicated, but at root it’s not complicated: Pride goes before a fall.

God’s Merciful Warnings

The warnings from Scripture about pride could not be more serious and sobering. But they’re an expression of God’s mercy, intended for our good.

Don’t you think God is merciful to warn us in this way? He reveals this sin to our hearts and identifies its potential consequences. He is merciful, and He intends to protect us. So throughout His Word, God exposes pride as our greatest enemy.

By unmasking pride—as well as introducing us to humility, our greatest friend—God lays out for us the path to true greatness, a path that we see most clearly in our Savior’s life and death. We’ll begin walking that path together in the next column.

Excerpt from Humility by C.J. Mahaney. Used with permission.

Steps to Humility

For the past couple of weeks, this blog has been dedicated to the exploration of a single phrase of the Bible, namely, James 4:6b-

"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble"

In the post titled “The Definition of Pride”, I hope to have helped anyone reading this blog see, in the light of Scripture, that we must deal with the fact that we all– each and every one of us– have tendencies toward prideful selfishness, which tendencies cause us to exalt ourselves against God, so that we tend to complain against God, and to pass judgment on Him, failing to express gratitude to Him for His daily blessings, and failing to pray to Him as we ought.

In the post titled “God’s Opposition Toward Pride” I hope to have communicated a warning from the Scripture concerning the seriousness of the opposition of God against those who fail to deal with their pride– that if we do not somehow put off our natural pride, we may face the consequences of God refusing to speak to us, ridiculing our plans, ruining our success, removing our status, or, worst of all, possibly hardening our hearts against His Word so that our lives do not change and become pleasing to Him.

And in the post “Humility Found at the Cross of Christ” I hope to have clearly presented the message of the Cross from Scripture– that our pride is only dealt with by God’s grace, which comes through humbling ourselves before the Cross of Christ. We must see ourselves on the Cross– for due to our pride, which has earned the opposition of God, we deserve to have borne His holy wrath against sin. And we must see Christ on the Cross, practicing perfect humility, dying in our place, bearing the opposition of God on our behalf, that the Father may regard us as completely righteous if we place our hope in His Son.

In this post, I would like to explore some practical ways in which we can follow Christ, casting away pride, putting on humility, and receiving more of God’s grace.

In order to make practical application of the statement in James 4:6b–

"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble"

we must continue on to examine James 4:7-10.

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:7-10 NIV)

This passage gives us six actions that we should take in response to the truth that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”.

1. We must submit to God. James 4:7a, “Submit yourselves, then, to God”. We must surrender our plans for our lives to the will of the Father, forsaking all of our ungodly desires and acknowledging our dependence upon Him each day.
2. As we submit to God, we must resist the Devil. James 4:7b, “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” We resist the Devil and cause him to flee through avoiding temptations that are possible to avoid– for example, as the Bible says, “flee from sexual immorality” (cf. I Cor. 6:18) so that we do not, for instance, view movies, men, that we know will tempt us. If there are temptation that we cannot flee, we must stand firm and refuse to compromise to sin. (Since we can’t flee every temptation– for example, if someone on your job is acting rudely toward you and tempting you to sin by becoming bitter or hateful toward them, you can’t necessarily “flee temptation” by walking out of your workplace, but you CAN continue to remember that Your heavenly Father is watching and that He is in control, and you can turn your cares over to Him, standing firm through the temptation.)
3. As we resist the Devil, causing him to flee from us, we also must draw near to God. James 4:8a, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” As Pastor Stith of Grace Heritage Church pointed out when preaching through this passage, we sometimes fail on this point because we do not “feel close” to God. But notice, he said, the order of this statement. In context of our growth in grace, we first obey the command to draw near to God and then He fulfills His promise of drawing near to us. Drawing on the familiar parable of the prodigal son, found in Luke 15:11-32, Pastor Stith said, ‘I see the prodigal son sitting in the pigsty and saying to himself, you know, I just don’t feel that close to my father, so I’ll just wait until I feel close to him before I start on the road back to his house.’ But we know that in the actual story, when the prodigal came to the end of his pride and recognized his need for the father, he immediately set out on the road to the father’s house, and the father ran to meet him, to kiss his face and forgive him. So we must draw near to God through the means He has given us– through the regular fellowship of believers on the Lord’s Day, through the ordinances of the Church, through calling out to Him in humble prayer, and through studying His Word.
4. Drawing near to God, we must cleanse our hands. James 4:8b, “Wash your hands, you sinners.” This phrase speaks of having unblemished, holy works of service before God. As was stated before, this is absolutely impossible in our own strength, but as we draw near to God, He gives us His grace and the gift of true repentance so that we may please Him, even with our imperfect works.
5. Cleansing our hands, we must also purify our hearts. James 4:8c, “and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” We cannot truly serve God, we cannot draw near to Him, or resist the Devil, or even submit to Him if we remain double-minded. In order to grow in God’s grace, we must have a single-minded passion for His glory– we must desire Him above all things, so that our love for God shapes all of our decisions.
6. Finally, in purifying our hearts, we must mourn over the sin in our lives. James 4:9, “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” We cannot fight against sin– we cannot cast away our pride and our lusts– if we are still content in our pride and entertained by our lusts. We must strive with all of our might to develop holy attitudes so that we see our sin as God sees it– as something that is vile, detestable, and responsible for the death of His Son.

Friend, I implore you now– anyone reading this post– search your heart– if you have never acknowledged your sinfulness before God, if you have never called out for His mercy and submitted your will to Him– do so right now. Do not delay out of pride and risk having your heart hardened against God’s grace when He is so near to you at this moment. You can call out to Him right where You are, offering your own heart up to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I plead with you, too. Do not become complacent in God’s grace, but be diligent to search out any areas of pride in your hearts. Meditate on James 4:7-10 and put these verses into practice, submitting to God and drawing near to Him, resisting the Devil, washing your hands and purifying your hearts, mourning over Your sin.

Above all else, I hope that we will all make a regular practice of looking to the Cross and allowing the message of the Cross, the message of perfect humility, to transform our lives. And I would like to close this series of posts with the words of the Apostle Paul from Philippians 2:5-11:

Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death--even to death on a cross. For this reason God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow-- of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth-- and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 HCSB)