Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Prayer Request...

Please pray for my best friend Pastor Brent Wells. He went to the doctor today and found out that his spinal cord, in one area, is not completely straight. He told me that on the MRI it actually looked like one of the greater/less than symbols...<. The doctor had never seen a case so bad and demanded surgery next Tuesday. The doctor was actually surprised that he hadn't already started to lose the ability to walk.

Please pray for Pastor Brent as he is actually excited to be having this surgery, because of the pain and he had been losing feeling in his arm and hand. But of course you know this is an extremely dangerous surgery. He will have some work done on a couple of discs. Pray that God will give he and his wife Amy peace during these next several days. Pray for the doctor to treat him as one of his own family members.

I will keep you updated if there is a more specific way to pray for this family.

Thank you for praying.

Living In Line With The Gospel

“The Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our lives —spiritual, psychological, corporate, social — by living out the ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating and behaving.”
- Timothy Keller, Paul's Letter to the Galatians: Living in Line with the Gospel

Day 3 -- The Cross He Bore

I'm reminded in today's reading that I need to be thankful that God gave us His Word, the Bible! It is here where we can go to understand what He has revealed of Himself and all the events of redemption history. And now we continue to look at redemption history by peaking in and observing this moment of Christ's submission to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.

"Without the inspired record of the Redeemer's agony in Gethsemane, we would have a much less vivid impression of the peculiar intensity of his griefs and the crushing weight of the load that he bore. Gethsemane is not a place for hurried theological tourism: it is where the believer must linger, watch and pray."
"He made himself of no reputation" is what Philippians 2.7 teaches us. But just because we have a bright moment into the humanity of Christ, it does not mean that Christ laid aside His deity even for one second and we must remain steadfast in our defense that Christ did not give up His divine attributes, but merely subjected Himself in position "taking the form of a servant." We must boldly reject the heresy that has pervaded history, saying that Christ emptied Himself of His deity. B.B. Warfield says,

"No Christian heart will be satisfied with a Christ in whom there was no Godhead at all while He was on earth, and in whom there may be no manhood at all now that He has gone to heaven. There is no half-way house between the doctrine that Christ is both God and man."
So we see in His humanity the restraint of Christ. His submission to His Father--the covenant of Grace. As we see the agony in the garden of Christ looking to this 'cup' of wrath from the Father and the Father's deafening silence. The climax of the gospel and the covenant of grace is what we should be thinking of, as well, in this moment in the garden.

"The real truth is that while He came to preach the Gospel, His chief object in coming was that there might be a Gospel to preach."

Day 2 -- The Cross He Bore

Wow! There is so much in this second chapter that I want to discuss. Chapter 2 directly deals with Christ's submission to the Father and His 'cup'. What is it about this 'cup' that causes Christ to be brought to this moment of anguish and intensity? What is about this 'cup' from the Father that causes us to be drawn in to see His humanity?

"The cup placed in Christ's hands by the Father induced a heaviness and dread he had not previously known and His sinless humanity shrank back from the horror of that cup. In the Old Testament the term 'cup' frequently refers to God's punishment of sin."
Here Leahy begins to slowly move us into the realm of the humanity of Christ. It's at this point that I'm confronted with my own weak understanding of His humanity. I fight the fight of faith to believe that 'He is' and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him, but neglect meditating on the biblical expressions of His humanity. I admit that I don't want to see my Redeemer suffering in that moment of agony. He's begging and pleading with the Father to let that cup pass. "Is the cross the 'only' way?"

"How clearly the true humanity of Christ is seen in Gethsemane, more so than in much of our standard dogmatics! For evangelicals are so concerned to defend the deity of Christ, and rightly so, that often they hardly know how to handle his humanity!"
What should amaze us is that in all that Christ endured in Gethsemane He never once wavered in His obedience to His Father. His great desire was to please the Father by fulfilling His will. And this is where we clearly see the prayerful submission to the Father and His cup of wrath to come.

"we see him enduring our hell so that we might be set free to enter his heaven. And so at unspeakable cost he drank 'the cup' to the very last drop. Now he gives to his people the cup of salvation."
Two cups....a cup of death, for a cup of salvation. One day there will be a 'heavenly toast', and we will raise our cup of salvation, provided by sovereign grace!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Praise God For Shelby Forest Baptist Church

Yesterday we had an incredible Lord's Day. Pastor Kelly Seely and Shelby Forest Baptist Church in Millington, Tennessee invited New Life Church to join them in corporate worship by coming together and covenanting with one another in the gospel ministry. We are thanking God for using Shelby Forest as a means of His grace to strengthen and sponsor our new church through prayer and financial support.

In the picture is Pastor Kelly in blue, our family and another family from Shelby Forest on the right.
"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." Philippians 1.3-5

Praise God!

Tears Of Godly Sorrow And The Eye Of Faith

All tears of godly sorrow drop from the eye of faith. Godly sorrow rises and falls--as faith rises and falls.

The more a man is able by faith to look upon a pierced Christ--the more his heart will mourn over all the dishonours which he has done to Christ.

The more deep and wide the wounds are, which faith shows me in the heart and sides of Christ--the more my heart will be wounded for sinning against Christ.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Day 1 -- The Cross He Bore

As I began to read for day 1, I quickly remembered why I purposed in my heart to read this book every year. As I read, I can't help but be drawn into the imagery of the moment, that I actually feel for a second, that I'm there watching everything unfold. Amazing!

I have highlighted some statements that made an impression on my soul:

"All the wisdom of believers', wrote Calvin, is comprehended in the cross of Christ."

"As the cross is central in God's eternal decrees, and in the actual redemption of his people, so it should be central in the thinking and experience of the individual Christian."

"The Gospels....Their purpose is theological, to convey to mankind what God has done in Christ for the salvation of sinners."

"'My soul, he said, is very sorrowful even to death.' This is no ordinary distress. His acquaintance with grief was unparalleled."

"...the death of Christ is different from every other death. He died as the Surety for his people and as their Substitute. Not only must he experience physical death, but also he must taste eternal death--damnation--separation from God!"

"Christ's death is not to be compared with any other....he anticipated the approaching wrath of a holy God."

Leahy goes on to end chapter one with 9 fast moving questions that draw you in even further anticipating the answer to the questions of why did Jesus go from 'a holy peace' feasting with the disciples to 'an awful anguish' suddenly gripping the soul of the Redeemer. What was in that cup? It smelled the stench of hell.

Leahy finishes the chapter with a line that will be forever remembered when we think back on this book and even more significantly the garden of Gethsemane....

"Lord, forgive us for the times we have read about Gethsemane with dry eyes."

The Cross He Bore


Starting today our church is reading through The Cross He Bore by Frederick Leahy. I first became aware of this book about a year ago and purposed to read it every year right before Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. It is an incredible read and its aim is to challenge everyone to meditate on the sufferings of our Redeemer. Edward Donnelly writes in the foreword:

this book has three virtues: it provides solid instruction; gives full play to a disciplined and sanctified imagination; and it recalls the neglected art of meditation. He says further that "in rereading these chapters, I found myself more than once compelled by emotion to stop--and then to worship.

I'm praying that all our people at New Life Church will also be compelled to stop and worship our Redeemer as we journey together one chapter a day for 13 days!