• Wisdom is Not a What but a Who: An Introduction to the Wisdom of Christ
• Drowning Narcissus: Humility and the Wisdom of Christ
• You May Already Be A Sluggard: Work and the Wisdom of Christ
• The Art of Auto-Crucifixion: Self-Control and the Wisdom of Christ

I’ve commented on the series in a past post here.  You can listen to the lessons on Moore to the Point, a blog name which I am a bit jealous of for obvious reasons.

The take away ought to be more than, “wow, I need to read my Bible that much!”  It’s not that simple.  If Bible reading is a mere devotional activity that’s ritualistic and a matter of religious routine then we’re not getting the point.  Reading Scripture is about knowing God through His Word.  And knowing God is study and learning and education (being led out of our ignorance) and these things involve repetition and regularly returning to the basic sources of knowledge, and for knowing God that means the Bible.

And please–this post is not intended to initiate guilt but rather to raise your desire.  There is a big difference and we need to root out the guilt, and raise our desire.  Guilt is legalistic but desire is gracious.  Guilt wears off but desire will push you on with joy.  Pursue God and He will give you grace to pursue Him more.

You can read more about Feinberg here.

May God put in my heart such love for Scripture and may he raise up an entire generation–a new generation–of God-filled, grace-embracing, holy-living, Bible readers and lovers.

Quote:

“All squabbles over doubtful things simply show that we think that God’s standards for fellowship are too low, and that we have a better grasp of what constitutes personal holiness than He does. And the “doubtful things” are not determined by some supposed ambiguity in Scripture. Many doubtful things have a clear resolution in Scripture — which is not the same thing as a clear resolution in the heads of the saints. Courtesy and love are not relativism.”

Read the whole thing at BLOG and MABLOG.

No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.

-Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910), Scottish preacher

HT: Sovereign Grace Blog

From Psalm 131 (look it up), Powlison discusses the noise that disorients our souls; the static that keeps us clouded up, confused, and leaves us with noisy, chaotic souls.  As the Bible so often does, Psalm 131 up-ends our expectations for the causes of a noisy soul and points to pride and haughtiness as chief reasons for an unquiet heart and mind.

Powlison says this about pride:

“Our restless disorientation seems so natural, so desirable.  But it’s noisy.  The noise tips us off to what’s going on.  The static of anxiety, irritation, despondency, or ambition makes sense from the logic of a proud heart.  If you are not proud, then quitness and composure make sense.”

“It also goes with the territory that we are opinionated, routinely judging, and belittling others: haughty eyes.  Pride is not just about ME.  It’s also about you.  I must look down on you in some way.  Our absorption in judgmental opinions runs very deep.  Pride says, “I’m right in myself.”  Haughty eyes say, “I’m right compared to you.”  Have you noticed that even people who feel lousy about themselves are judgmental toward others?  When you feel inferior to others, you don’t respect them or treat them with mercy.  Instead, you envy, hate, grumble, and criticize.  Even self-belittling tendencies-”low self-esteem,” self-pity, self-hatred, timidity, fears of failure and rejection-fundamentally express pride failing, pride intimidated, and pride despairing.  Such pride, even when much battered, still finds someone else to look down on.”

- Seeing With New Eyes, p. 79

John Piper:“I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their short-comings. And I see so little war! ‘Murmur, murmur, murmur… Why am I this way?’ MAKE WAR!”

Ed Welch: “There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. There is something about war that sharpens the senses. You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little or no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.”

Very true.  How many of us take the sin within us so personally and confront it with truth and passion and commitment to our Lord?

HT: Miscellanies

I’ve often heard and used expressions that have as of late got me to thinking. The two that come to mind are: “you only live once” and “this is as good as it gets!” There are more and these are may have valid uses in the right contexts, for it’s true we do only live once before Christ’s coming. And sometimes I have uttered on a beautiful sunny day when I feel all is right with the world: “ah, this is great! This is a good as it gets!” And that maybe true on this side of “the sunny banks of sweet deliverance” (as Anthony Mangun says).

However for the born-again believer these must be turned on their head. The cliche “you only live once” is really only true for the unbeliever. The unbeliever lives once and dies forever. The believer dies once but then lives forever.

The cliche “this is as good as it gets” is really wrong-headed as well. For the unbeliever this is as good as it gets, and the worst day on earth will be far better than hell. But for the believer, the best day on earth will never compare to what’s coming. No, for the believer it’s always: the best is yet to come. And that’s a word for all of us, and that’s hope. That’s what caged Christians facing beasts in a Roman coliseum held to and that’s what every suffering saint of God can find hope in. This is not positive thinking, it’s faith in God that He’s building a city–a Kingdom–that’s coming and will right all wrongs and conquer all evil. And even there I believe we will live in hope and see greater things forever.

I’ve always liked the ending of C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, the final book in the Chronicles of Narnia, and it’s fitting here:

“…the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before”.

This is not a rant and I’m not claiming these as signs of the times, no they have been constant dangers to all Christians since Christ ascended. The question is: do I live and talk in such a way that points to a reality beyond me? That reality is God and His Kingdom that is soon coming in it’s fullness. Am I walking and working in such a way that displays a real belief that treasure and reward in that great reality are greater than anything in this life?

Here are seven:

1. Words without actions.
2. Busyness without purpose.
3. Calendars without sabbath.
4. Relationships without nourishment.
5. Personality without accountability.
6. Giftedness without humility.
7. A biblical theology without personal integrity.

Amen.

Here is the blockquote, which begins some around minute 30-31 of the mp3 of Session 3:

“…that’s the case with every single one of us. All of us. What we are to do, is to so gain dominion over the curse in our own lives, that we are actually in the face of our employers, surprising our employers with our excellence. That’s what ought to be happening. There ought to be a sense of awe, especially in the face of unbelieving employers, to say, “how in the world can that guy stack tires like that without having to be watched all the time?” “How in the world can that woman fill prescriptions with that kind of excellence without having to be watched and supervised all of the time?” Because you are showing and signaling that you have dominion. Not a pharaoh-like dominion, but showing that you have stewardship over what has been given to you. That is blessed in Scripture. You are having the kind of foresight: “look to the ant,” Proverbs says, because she stores up for the winter. You are seeing strategically and long-term. You may say, “well, its easy for me to see strategically and long-term when I’m the boss, when I’m the one who has ultimate accountability of what takes place.”

Yeah, but what you are called to is to have that kind of long-term foresight no matter where you are in the structure of the church, the company, or wherever you are, because you are imaging God, you are walking in the way of wisdom.

The Scripture also says that says that there is an open-handedness. Work is not simply about carrying out tasks. Its not simply about planning for the future, its not simply about living. But look in chapter 27-28: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it; do not say to your neighbor, ‘go and come again tomorrow and I will give it,’ when you have it with you.” It says here that there is a fruit of our labor that is an open-handedness, a giving of what we have…

The plumb-line is the way of wisdom; the measuring rod is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is very, very easy to see spirituality as something that is disconnected from work. If you tell somebody you’re going to do something, you had better do it…with excellence. You had better do it before they want it done , better do it better than they want it done. Not because you’re trying to impress that person, we’re not eye-pleasers, Paul says, but because you are doing it as unto Christ.

If you are in a situation where you are overwhelmed about something at your job you need to be as concerned about that, about getting dominion over that, as you would be about a sin that is present in your life, what you would consider a sin. Rather, gouge out your eye, cut off your hand than fail, than be overwhelmed. Scripture is telling us that spirituality has everything to do with our callings.

So that we are working, carrying out the tasks we’ve been given, pointing to that ultimate adventure, that ultimate working in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus, in which we are co-heirs and co-laborers with Him. You’re not in a retreat, you’re in an internship for the Eschaton. And the book of Proverbs is saying to us through the Holy Spirit will you image Jesus through work?”

Download and listen to the whole series at Moore to the Point. By the way, if you’re wondering where the title Walking the Line comes from, think of these lyrics and you may figure it out: “I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time.”