Moses and Jesus

"The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." --John 1:17

"If you believed Moses, you would believe me." --John 5:46

Evidently there is strong discontinuity between the Mosaic Law and the Christian gospel (John 1) and strong continuity between the Mosaic Law and the Christian gospel (John 5).

What Political Disagreement and Interaction Can Look Like

Thoroughly enjoyed this interaction between a settled Democrat and a settled Republican (one of whom led the other to Christ). Reminds me of the kinds of interactions we've seen between Robert George and Cornel West.

Labour Not to Labour

Spurgeon:

Let me remind you, beloved, that this rest is perfectly consistent with labour. In Hebrews 4:11 the apostle says, “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.” It is an extraordinary injunction, but I think he means, let us labour not to labour.

Our tendency is to try to do something in order to save ourselves; but we must beat that tendency down, and look away from self to Christ. Labour to get away from your own labours; labour to be clean rid of all self-reliance; labour in your prayers never to depend upon your prayers; labour in your repentance never to rest upon you repentance; and labour in your faith not to trust your faith, but to trust alone to Jesus.

When you begin to rest upon your repentance, and forget the Saviour, away with your repentance; and when you begin to pray, and you depend upon your prayers, and forget the Lord Jesus, away with your prayers. When you think you are beginning to grow in grace, and you feel, “Now I am somebody,” away with such spurious growth as that, for you are only being puffed up with pride, and not really growing at all. Labour not to labour; labour to keep down your natural self-righteousness and self-reliance; labour to continue where the publican was, and cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

--Charles Spurgeon,“The Believer’s Present Rest,” June 6, 1873, in Spurgeon’s Expository Encyclopedia, 13:176

HT: Matt Tully

Have You No Sins?

Bunyan:

Truly, you must go to him that can make the eyes that are blind to see, even to our Lord Jesus, by prayer, saying, as the poor blind man did, 'Lord, that I might receive my sight'; and so continue begging with him, till you receive sight, even a sight of Jesus Christ, his death, blood, resurrection, ascension, intercession, and that for thee, even for thee.

Objection: But, alas, I have nothing to carry with me; how then should I go?

Answer: Have you no sins? If you have, carry them, and exchange them for his righteousness. If you do but come to him, he will give you rest. 

--John Bunyan, The Law and Grace Unfolded, in Works, 1:572

The Secret to Community

Every Christian exhortation to greater "community," which those strange creatures extroverts as well as we introverts both crave, should bear in mind the point Tozer made in The Pursuit of God. He said:

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow.

So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

--A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Christian, 1982), 80

 Putting fellowship with one another above fellowship with God destroys both.