I believe in the bodily, real resurrection of Jesus Christ, a shade under 2000 years ago in Palestine. I believe that the God-Man has conquered death and has done so as the representative leader and mediator for all people who want to be part of His new humanity.
How should that make me feel?
Read moreWhich God Do You Choose?
Great quote from Jonathan Edwards this morning. A healthy test for how our hearts are towards God is to whom do we cling when we are in bad straits:
A man's choice determines his state. He who chooses God for his portion and prefers him above all other things, is a godly man because he chooses and worships him as God. To respect him as God is to respect him above all other things. If any man respects him as God, his God he is.
.......Enquire, therefore, how it is with you, whether you prefer God above all other things. It may be sometimes be difficult for people to determine this to their satisfaction. Ungodly people may be deluded with false affections; godly people in dull frames may be at a loss about it.
When you have occasion to manifest by your practice which you prefer - when you must cling to one or the other, and must forsake other things or forsake God - is it your manner, practically speaking, to prefer God above all other things, even to those earthly things to which your hearts are most wedded?
Good Bible Handling Really Matters; Hebrews 1
The 11th of Jonathan Edwards' famous resolutions says:
Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don't hinder.
To paraphrase: Bible understanding really matters. And good Bible handling really matters. Matters to the extent of spending time on bits I don't understand, staring at them, wrestling with them, finding out why the writers write what they do, the way they do. If I just pass over the difficult stuff it shows I don't really want God in the way God reveals himself.
Read moreMore Edwards
Is there anyone out there who isn't into Jonathan Edwards yet? If not, why not? Is it because his writing tends to come in very big books with very small print (and very long 18th Century sentences)? Find some ways round that. Read aloud, read with others, read small chunks and discuss. But read! You will struggle to find Christian writing that is more thoughful, more full of God, more dynamic for your spiritual life and more relevant and up to date with the needs of believers and the church today.
Here is Edwards on the importance of worshipping and adoring God:
The internal acts and principles of the worship of God, or the worship of the heart, in love and fear, trust in God, and resignation to him, etc, are the most essential and important of all duties of religion whatsoever; for therein consists the esence of all religion.
But of this inward religion there are two sorts of external manifestations or expressions. To one sort belong outward acts of worship...
To the other sort belong expressions of our love to God, by obeying his moral commands, self-denial, righteousness, meekness, and Christian love, in our behaviour among men. The latter are of vastly the greatest importance in the Christian life; God makes little account of the former in comparison of them [emphasis mine]
Jonathan Edwards, Thoughts on the Revival, Section 3
Animating Devotion - Jonathan Edwards on Revival and Small Groups
It was thrilling to re-read Edwards this morning on how important he thought small groups (or praying companies as he calls them) could be in animating individual devotion to God and thereby aiding the Great Revival.
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