Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

-Book of Common Prayer

If you ever find your way to the Desiring God resource page, I recommend that you click on the poetry tab.  Each year, John Piper writes and reads a poem for his congregation as a gift for each week of Advent.  The poem usually focuses on a Biblical character around which Dr. Piper creates a story of what he thinks would have taken place.  The portion that I have posted below comes from the poem, Peter, Ananias, and Sapphira.  It takes place after both Ananias and Sapphira are dead and buried.  As Peter sits beside the graves, he knows that his sin of denying Christ was far worse than the sin that brought such a harsh judgement upon Ananias and Sapphira.  Peter asks, “Why did I not drop dead?”  The following is God’s reply:

And then the Lord replied, “It’s true,
My friend, your sin was worse, and you
Deserved the countenance of wrath
Far more than these two here. Your path
Led straight to hell, and if I would
Have let you go, no power could
Have kept you from the flames. I did
Not owe you this, nor is it hid
From open sight that you, my friend,
Are saved by grace, and in the end
Are chosen unconstrained by good
Or evil deeds that would or could
Be made the root of my decrees.
In heaven and on earth I please
The counsel of my wisdom first.
For centuries my name has burst
The chains laid on my will by man,
When he presumes to shape my plan
Around his self-defining will-
A futile thing, for I fulfill
The purposes I formed before
The world was made. Do not make war
Against my freedom, Peter. All
That I have ever done to call
And carry you is free. Receive
This gift and tremble as you grieve
Beside these graves. If it were not
For grace, this would have been your lot.
They fell before your feet depraved,
That you might know how you were saved.”

Then, speechless, Peter rose and set
His face to follow Christ, and let
Each breath and trace of faith display
The way that sovereign grace holds sway.

And now as we light candle two,
May Christ illumine me and you,
To see that we deserve no good
From him, and sovereign justice would
Be served, if all of us fell dead
At Jesus’ feet. But if, instead,
We live and stand before his throne,
Let thanks be given for grace alone.
And let the one who doubts say this:
“It is my everlasting bliss
To know that God elects not by
Our works, but his decree, and I
Dare not use my iniquity
To prove that he rejected me.
O precious promise, sweet command:
Trust Christ alone, and you will stand.”

Listen to John Piper read the whole poem here.

“Only the Spirit, working through the gospel, has [the] kind of power to bring about a new creation in the midst of the old.  Gradually, we discover that the world outside is more interesting than the inner world of narcissistic preoccupation.  It is a liberation that we never expected, much less achieved for ourselves.  It’s a gift.  It is the marriage supper that is promised in the gospel and of which the Spirit gives us a foretaste in this present age.  While our consumer culture offers instant gratification in drive-thru spiritualities, the gospel seats us at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the Triune God serves us with his heavenly gifts.”

From christianaudio.com:

This month is a special free offer, something we’ve never done before! Yes, TWO FREE audiobooks, all in preparation for the Easter celebration of the cross and resurrection.

“When Christ calls a man, he bid him come and die.” This sentence from The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the beginning of his teachings on what it means to truly follow Christ. He also speaks to cheap grace in that it’s the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; baptism without church discipline; communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

His short life was full of obedience and radical testimony to God’s calling on his life, even up to the day he was martyred in a German prison camp on April 9, 1945. The book focuses much on the Sermon on the Mount with its call to discipleship, and on the grace of God and the sacrifice it demands. A true Christian classic!

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper gives 50 purposes for the death of Jesus. Why did Jesus come to die, and how do those reasons and purposes challenge us in our thinking of God and right relationship with Him?

Blessings!
christianaudio
Listen Enjoy Think Grow

The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, read by Paul Michael

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die
by John Piper, read by Robertson Dean

I believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ because it disarms the law and frees me from the fear of judgment. This judgment would use as evidence against me not only the deliberate sins and conscious moral failures of which I feel most painfully aware, but also the compulsive patterns and imprisoning proclivities the origin of which I scarcely know except they feel like flesh of my flesh. I have often felt judgment not as the condemnation of things about me I can help, but condemnation of my very self and character. Judgment makes me believe that “I,” to the extent that I am able to think of myself as a unity, have no definite, rightful place in the world. Because of judgment, I feel in the position of having to earn this rightful place. I have always worried that the governing truth about my life may be the dark finality of grievous solitude. Do I have a right to exist? The law has judged not only what I do, but who I am. For this reason law is my chief adversary in life.

The Fifth Sunday of Lent:

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly

wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to

love what you command and desire what you promise; that,

among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts

may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with

you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer

Rock of Ages, when the day seems long
From this labor and this heartache I have come
The skies will wear out, but You remain the same
Rock of Ages, I praise Your name.

Rock of Ages, my great hope secure
Your promise holds just like an anchor to my soul
Bind your children with cords of love and grace
Rock of Ages, we give You praise

Sandra McCracken

Download a sampler of Sandra’s most recent album for free here.

R. Scott Clark had a great post about the pietistic law of  “quiet time” on his blog.  Growing up in a fundamentalist church/school, I heard a lot of the same stuff.  It was refreshing to read this paragraph:

In Reformed spirituality the private devotional life of the Christian flows from the public Word, the public means of grace, i.e., the preaching of the Holy Gospel and the administration of the Holy sacraments (HC 65). The private devotional life is not a law, it is a grace. It is not a metaphorical whip with which to prod Christians to godliness, it is the natural outgrowth of union with Christ. It’s important but it’s secondary to the public preaching of the Word.

Justin Taylor inteviews Adrain Warnock about his new book Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything:

Justin Taylor Interview: Adrian Warnock from Crossway on Vimeo.

Chapter 5: Of Providence

5: The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled;^[114] and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.^[115]

^{HT:  Daily Westminster}

Reformedaudio.org has made available J. Gresham Machen’s well known Christianity and Liberalism in the form of 7 mp3 recordings.  Find it  here.

Washed My Hands In Muddy Water

I was born in Macon Georgia
They kept my daddy over in Macon jail
He told me if you keep your hands clean
You won’t hear them bloodhounds on your trail 

Well I fell in with bad companions
Robbed a man, oh up in Tennessee
They caught me way up in Nashville
They locked me up and threw away the key

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn’t come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream

Well I asked the judge now when’s my time up
He said son, oh you know we won’t forget
If you try just to keep your hands clean
We might just make a good man of you yet

Oh I couldn’t wait to get my time up
I broke out, broke out of Nashville jail
I just crossed the state-line of Georgia
Well I can hear those bloodhounds on my trail

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn’t come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream

Mark Galli, Senior Managing Editor at Chrisitanity Today, has written a great article on transformation.  Read it here.  

The Conclusion:

. . . It’s at this point, that we’ve come to the crisis point, the point of crucifixion. We know we’re as good as dead. Condemned to a life of self-centeredness. And thus condemned to a life without God. It is only when all hope is lost, of course, that grace rears its beautiful head. Grace only emerges at the point of utter hopelessness. If there is any taint of will, any notion that there is something I can do to resolve the crisis—be penitent, pray, do good—then we’re no longer talking about grace, but some sort of deal with God.  So the crisis point is not a single point that occurs at the moment when one becomes a Christian. The crisis point is life itself. And thus life itself is a grace point.

HT:  Mockingbird Blog