Feast for the Soul

A Light in Dark Places

September 25, 2009 · Posted in Depression, Hope, Life

Two things follow: First, in as far as we are able, we must learn to control our feelings. There are various kinds of depression, to be sure, and some are the result of complex physical and psychological disorders. But there are times when we are spiritually depressed for no good reason. There are times when the best thing to do with our feelings is to challenge them: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Ps. 42:11).

Far too often we spend our days in misery and gloom, all because we are not taking what we know to be true about God and His control over our lives seriously. We must pray and ask God for strength to overcome our depressive, melancholy states. There is such a thing as a will that will not bend to God’s. We can become hardened, refusing to see the good hand of God. It is a cancer that will destroy us.

Second, no matter what our circumstances may be, we must seek for the interpretation that forces us to rejoice. We are to “rejoice in our sufferings” too (Rom. 5:3). I think of the story of Horatio Spafford, a businessman in Chicago in 1873 who lost his entire business in the Chicago fires. Sending his wife and four daughters across to England on the SS. Ville de Havre, he was to learn that the vessel struck another (the Lochearn) in the mid-Atlantic with the loss of 261 lives including his four daughters. Mrs. Spafford, who had been rescued, sent him a cable that read: “Survived alone.” Boarding the next available ship to meet her, Horatio was to be told by the captain of the vessel of the very spot where his daughters had drowned. It was then that he wrote these lines:

When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll, Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

That is the way God wants us to live. We have no right to expect that our lives are going to be free from trouble. But in every circumstance, if we are the Lord’s people, we are assured of God’s care and providence. He is working out every detail. There are no mistakes with Him (Rom. 8:32ff.). Every moment of our existence is cause enough for joy: the good and the bad together should integrate to form a hallelujah symphony to the praise of Almighty God.

—Derek Thomas
Tabletalk Magazine

Via: Ligonier Ministries Blog

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

Coming Soon: Dr. Sproul on Romans

September 25, 2009 · Posted in Commentary, Romans, Sproul

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

Free Indeed

September 24, 2009 · Posted in Salvation

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

Thy Righteousness is in Heaven

September 24, 2009 · Posted in Imputation, Salvation

One day as I was passing into the field, this sentence fell upon my soul: ‘Thy righteousness is in heaven.’ And with the eyes of my soul I saw Jesus at the Father’s right hand. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is my righteousness!’ So that wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, ‘Where is your righteousness?’ For it is always right before him.

I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ. Now my chains fell off indeed. My temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God.

Now I could look from myself to him and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket when all his gold is safe in a trunk at home. Oh I saw that my gold was indeed in a trunk at home, in Christ my Lord. Now Christ was all: my righteousness, sanctification, redemption.

—John Bunyan
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Via: Of First Importance

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

What Is The Church?

September 24, 2009 · Posted in Church

The Greek, New Testament word translated , “church” is ekklesia (from which English words such as “ecclesiastical” come). It is a compound term composed of ek = “out of” and kaleo = “to call.” That means the church is a body of “called out persons.”

But what does that mean?

The word goes back to the Greek city states which were composed of three sorts of persons: citizens; freedmen; slaves. The slaves and freedmen made up the bulk of the population. These cities were little democracies each having its own constitutions, rules, etc. They were true democracies, rather than representative bodies. That means that every citizen could vote on every issue that arose. When a city meeting was called for, the citizens gathered, heard speeches, and then dropped a stone into a pitcher indicating their votes (black stones = “no”; white stones = “yes”). Only citizens could vote.

Whenever a vote was imminent, the “herald” would go about the city shouting the fact that a vote was to be taken. In that way, out of the mass of people in the city, the citizens were called out and from the general populace to gather and cast their vote.

So, the picture of the herald, going forth to call out from the world those who would believe the Gospel lays behind the idea of the church as composed of the “called out ones” who are called out to transact God’s business. As people believe the Gospel preached by Christ’s heralds (preachers), they become part of those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), the church.

Have you heard the call to faith in Jesus Christ? Are you a citizen of heaven?

—Jay Adams
Institute for Nouthetic Studies Blog

The original article can be found here.

Via: Tim Phillips

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

Ten Million and Counting

September 18, 2009 · Posted in MacArthur, Video

Last November, Grace to You started providing free downloads of Dr. MacArthur’s sermons. It only took ten months to reach the ten millionth download. Soli Deo Gloria!

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

Give Me Jesus

September 18, 2009 · Posted in Jesus, Video

Via: Tullian Tchividjian

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL

We Have More For Us than Against Us

September 17, 2009 · Posted in Jesus, Salvation

The victory lies not with us, but with Christ, who has taken on him both to conquer for us and to conquer in us. The victory lies neither in our own strength to get it, nor in our enemies’ strength to defeat it. If it lay with us, we might justly fear. But Christ will maintain his own government in us and take our part against our corruptions. They are his enemies as well as ours.

Let us therefore be ‘strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might’ (Ephesians 6:10). Let us not look so much at who our enemies are as at who our judge and captain is, nor at what they threaten, but at what he promises. We have more for us than against us. What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?

—Richard Sibbes
The Bruised Reed

Via: Of First Importance

Resources: Printable Version | Short URL