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 as sons 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.
—The Apostle Paul
Ephesians 1:3-14, ESV
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
—The Apostle Paul
Ephesians 2:4-10, ESV
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
—The Apostle Paul
Philippians 1:27-30, ESV
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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
—Jesus Christ
John 3:16, ESV
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
—Jesus Christ
John 3:18, ESV
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
—The Apostle John
John 3:36, ESV
“But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
—Jesus Christ
John 6:36-40, ESV
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”
—Jesus Christ
John 6:44-47, ESV
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
—Jesus Christ
John 6:65, ESV
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God motivates us to feel and to do what we should by calling to our minds his past performances of love and his future promises of love—some near, some far.
Be sure that you are connected to the way God means to motivate you with the backward look and the distant forward look and the near forward look. For example:
Motivation by the backward look:
Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)
Motivation by the distant forward look:
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. (Matthew 5:12)
Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:13-14)
Motivation by the near forward look:
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
—John Piper
Via: Desiring God Blog
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I noticed that YouTube was down for some reason this morning and the videos I’d linked to recently weren’t available so I thought I’d post the audio version of John Piper’s message on adoption.
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May 1, 2008 · Posted in Piper
We have enough Bibles for every household in America a couple of times over. We have churches galore; religious organizations; educational institutions; religious presses that never stop pouring forth books, Sunday school materials, and religious curricula; and unparalleled financial resources. What don’t we have? All too often we don’t have what the Old Testament people didn’t have. A due and weighty sense of the greatness and holiness of God, a sense that will reach into our lives, wrench them around, lift our vision, fill our hearts, make us courageous for what is right, and over time leave behind its beautiful residue of Christlike character.
—David Wells
The Courage to be Protestant
Via: Ligonier
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Saving faith looks at the horror of sin, and then looks at the holiness of god, and apprehends spiritually that God’s forgiveness is unspeakably glorious.
—John Piper
Future Grace
Via: Desiring God
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Sometimes I’m asked how I explain the disproportion between the size of the universe and the smallness of man created as the crown of God’s creation. The tension is felt in Psalm 8:3-5.
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”
My answer is that the magnitude of the universe is not meant to correlate with the image, but with the Original. The heavens are not designed to declare the glory of man. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalms 19:1). The point of the universe is that God is great and man is infinitely less great.
I did not say man is not great. Psalm 8 says man is great. “A little lower than the heavenly beings.” Now we are ready to see the point of the universe and why Psalm 8 begins and ends, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” It does not begin and end, “O Man, image of God, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”
Man is great. But compared to God’s greatness, “What is man that you are mindful of him?” The universe is designed to remind us of this distance between’s God’s infinite greatness, and man’s finite greatness. Man must reside on tiny planet earth in a seemingly infinite universe. And the universe must look infinite to be a fitting picture of what it cannot be: infinite. Only God is infinite. The universe is declaring that. Pretty well.
—John Piper
Via: Desiring God Blog
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