“Transforming Grace” by Jerry Bridges

This has to be one of the best books I have read this year.  I read Pursuit of Godliness and I loved that book, but this book was fantastic.  I have been reading “A Praying Life” by Paul Miller and to read both of these books alongside each other has been both encouraging and convicting.  I know this is about Transforming Grace, but I need to say one thing about “A Praying Life.”  Paul Miller shows how our prayer life parallels our walk with Christ.  When we pray our prayers show our dependence on Christ and when we don’t pray it’s because we are taking matters into our own hands.

In the same way when we pray we are showing our dependence on God’s grace and when we don’t pray we are showing our dependence on our works.  In reading this book I have been convicted by how much I really am relying on my works for my sanctification (the process of becoming holy) and not Christ.  This book has shown me how skewed my view of grace is and what true grace is all about.  One of my favorite quotes from the book is “God answered my prayer for only one reason: Jesus Christ had already purchased that answer to prayer two thousand years ago on a Roman cross.  God answered on the basis of His grace alone, not because of my merits or demerits.”

I received this book for free from the vendor for the purpose of reviewing.

“The Practice of Godliness” by Jerry Bridges

This has to be one of my favorite books I’ve read to review.  There are very few pages in this book that has no marks.  Most of the pages have underlined sentences, bracketed paragraphs, or marginal notes.  Bridges has written a book that will convict, encourage and grow the believer from beginning to the end.  Bridges definition for godliness is “Devotion to God that results in a life that is pleasing to Him.”  A visual picture he shows is that of a triangle with “Devotion to God” in the center, “Desire for God” at the top and “Fear of God” and “Love for God” at the bottom corners.  (I’ve tried to Illustrate this to the right.)  One thing that really caught me off guard is that godliness isn’t characteristics.  Before I read this book I would have explained a person that has the “Fruit of the Spirit” as being godly.  While it’s true that a godly person with act like that, that is not what makes them godly. 

This is all I’m going to mention about the book, but I could go on for hours about this book.  For those looking for a great read, pick this up.  If you choose to get this book, get the study guide with it.  The study guide will draw out other things that Bridges doesn’t mention.  Since I mentioned the study guide I’m going to say this was the best study guide for a book I’ve used.  I say this because most authors, when writing the study guide, use the bible to support their ideas.  You use the guide after you finish the reading.  Instead, Bridges uses his ideas to support the Bible.  What I mean is Bridges sends the reader to the Bible and then the reader reads the chapter(s).  This really has been a pleasure to read and would recommend this to anyone no matter their length of relationship to Christ.

I Received this book for free for the purpose of reviewing.

Sacrifices

I recently finished a book called “the naked GOSPEL” by Andrew Farley.  It was a very thought provoking book, but not for the best of reasons.  The thoughts that were coming up were not because I hadn’t thought about Christianity in such terms, but that I don’t think he did a good job in interpreting the Old Testament into the New.  He seemed to suggest that the reason that the Old Covenant didn’t cover the sins of the past, present and future sins of Israel was because there was no such thing as a spotless lamb and that Jesus was the first and only “lamb without blemish.”  He makes this clear when he says “we never read in the Old Testament about a priest finding the perfect lamb.”  While this sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to say this is absolutely not true.  The blood of the lamb did cover the sins of the Hebrew people, but Jesus’ sacrifice covers all our sins (past, present and future) and not only ours (as Christians) but also the sins of those before us that made sacrifices all the way back to Adam and Eve.

“Why is this?” you may be asking.  Well, let me tell you a story.  A long time ago in a galaxy far away… Wait wrong story.  A long time ago at the beginning of time God created the first man, in His image, and called him Adam (literally “mankind”) after Adam named all the animals God saw that Adam was alone and needed someone, so he created Woman and Adam called her Eve (literally “lifegiver”).  While they were in the garden they could eat of any of the trees that God had created except for one.  Well, turns out the end up eating of that one tree and they sinned against God.  When they sinned they sinned an everlasting, eternal God.  100% Holy is God.  100% Eternal is God.  In doing so the sin that Adam (and all of us in this matter) committed was an eternal sin.

Now that I have caught you up to the sin thing because Adam’s sin was 100% eternal and because our sins are eternal sins God requires an eternal sacrifice.  None of the lambs were eternal.  God does require a blood sacrifice for our sins to be atoned for, but since the lambs were mortal and would end up dying their blood could only be temporal.  Yes, God would look on those that had offered sacrifices and they would be righteous it wasn’t because of the blood.  No where in the Old Testament do we read “and he was righteous because of his sacrifices” no where.  Instead, we read in 1 Samuel 22:17 “And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” (Italicization mine)  Yes, the blood is necessary, but God doesn’t want just blood.  He wants obedience.  That’s what the sacrifices were all about.  Thus the “better to obey than the fat of rams.”

So why could they not find a perfect lamb?  They did find lambs without blemish.  They did find lambs to be sacrifices.  If they didn’t God would not have accepted the sacrifice.  Instead, God needed an eternal sacrifice to pay for the sins.  (Enter Jesus into the Picture).  Jesus being God is completely eternal.  He was there before His Father started creating anything.  Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit were enjoying each others perfect company in eternity past and will be for eternity future and now of course.  Jesus’ sacrifice was 100% eternal and 100% holy.  Thus, Jesus’ sacrifice is the only one that could cover the sins and was the only perfect sacrifice.  There was lambs that atoned for the sins, but they were not eternal.

I hope this has made some sense and that you didn’t doze off too much while reading this.  There was a lot that I covered in such a small post.  If there are any questions please email me or comment.

Worship

I was recently approached by someone asking about worship.  They mentioned they have no respect for a speaker because when they “preach” they talked about themselves and the worked that they have accomplished “for the kingdom.”  This, of course, prompted me to think about worship and who is in charge of our “worship experience.”  Is it the speaker, music, ourselves or God?  The term worship is mentioned 181 times in the English Standard Version (ESV) which is the translation I use more often than not.  That’s quite a few times.  There are a few words (more than 10) to mean worship and they show what true worship looks like.  Four in the Hebrew and six in the Greek.  The following is a basic list of the different words for worship.  The first part is the Strong’s number.  “H” is for Hebrew and “G” is for Greek.  The next part is the actual word.  In the parenthesis is a phonetic spelling of the word.  Finally, is the definition of the word.

 

H7812 – שׁחה  (shâchâh[shaw-khaw'])  To Prostrate

H6440 – פּנים (pânı̂ym [paw-neem'])  To Favor/Face

H6087 -  עצב (‛âtsab [aw-tsab'])  To be sorry, vex, displease, grieve

H5457/H5456 – סגד (sâgad [saw-gad'])  To Fall Down/To Prostrate

 

G4352 (G4314 and G2965) – προσκυνέω (proskuneō [pros-koo-neh'-o])  To kiss, like a dog licking Master’s Hand

G4576 – σέβομαι (sebomai [seb'-om-ahee]) To Adore

G1391 – δόξα (doxa [dox'-ah])  Praise, Honor, Glory

G3000 – λατρεύω (latreuō [lat-ryoo'-o])  To Minister, Render Religion Homage

G2151 – εὐσεβέω (eusebeō [yoo-seb-eh'-o]) To be pious towards God, To Respect, Show Piety

G1479 (G2309 and G2356) – ἐθελοθρησκεία (ethelothrēskeia [eth-el-oth-race-ki'-ah])  Arbitrary and Unwarranted Piety

 

Worship in English is “love unquestioningly and uncritically or to excess; venerate as an idol;”

 

With all of that being said, we see that worship is something that we do towards God, but who initiates it?  The four “characters” I am going to address, that I mentioned at the beginning, are the Speaker, Music Leader, Ourselves and God.

Many people place the sole responsibility of worship on the speaker of the time.  Whether it’s the Pastor of their church or a speaker at a conference.  I understand it this way because I constantly hear the phrase “I didn’t really get anything out of the service.”  Yes, the speaker should be speaking truth and teaching that will draw one into worship, but it is not their responsibility to create worship in your heart.  If this were the case in Titus and both Timothy’s we would see this as a qualification as a Pastor/Elder or Teacher. 

The next person in the music person whether it’s the Music Pastor at your church or a “Worship Leader” or music group.  Yet, another group of people would say that these people lead in worship because “The music makes me feel more worshipful!”  But while music may make one feel more worshipful it isn’t necessarily worship.  Yes, one is worshipping, but is it the music person’s responsibility to create an attitude of worship?  I would say no for the same reasons as a pastor.  It is not a qualification for a leader.

Now we are left with two, but I will respond with one answer.  Worship in that which God initiates and man responds.  I am sure most reading this are familiar with Ephesians 5:22ish in which Paul is addressing roles of spouses and paralleling that to Christ and the church.  God ultimately initiated our response by predestining us to Heaven, but even more recent Christ died for the church initiating our response to worship God for His glory and majesty and we should praise him for that. 

No matter what songs are sung, no matter what the speaker talks about we should worship God because of who He is and what He has done.  Yes, the speaker may have done some magnificent things, but he was only able to accomplish those things because of what God is doing through him/her.  I know this is a short blog on a massive subject.  I hope that this has made sense as an overview.

Marriage

This semester I have a class and I have to read a book called “In the World: Read and Writing as a Christian” by John Timmerman. Each chapter has between 4 and 6 essays and at the end has 4 to six discussion questions.  This past chapter was about “Living Ethically” and one of the essays I had to read was called “Why Get Married?”  At the end, as I said earlier I had discussion questions and I am going to post tow of them and give my answer.  Feel free to jump in and tell me what you think of my answers or give me your won answers.

The questions are 1) Smedes says elsewhere in the book that we are “forever being married.”  In what ways is his statement true?  2)How do traditional vows suggest this?

a. In what way is his statement true?
The way this makes sense to me is to think of the Christian walk like an arranged marriage. God the Father elects people before He created the world in forever past creating the betrothal. After that we are drawn to Christ, the husband, by the Holy Spirit. When we come to Christ we think we know a lot about Him, but the longer we know Him the more we see that we knew nothing about Him from the beginning and that we know, what seems like, even less about Him since the day we came to Him.

b. How do traditional marriage vows suggest this?
The traditional wedding vows are “I, (name), take you (name), to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”
Jesus said every one of these the day He died on the cross. He has not broken any of these vows to any person that is a genuine Christian. We, as Christians, break these vows each and every day.
We do not hold on to Christ when it is better because we think it’s too good to need Jesus. When we’re on the worse side of things we think that because we haven’t communicated with Jesus for so long he won’t listen. We think we can handle it on our own and show Jesus, and everyone else, that we can handle our situation alone.
When we’re richer our riches become our God and we don’t tell people that our wealth is from Christ. When we’re poorer we don’t take time and give it to Christ and let Him take care of it. Rather, we spend a lot of time trying to find a job to make money, so that we can then give our time to God.
When we’re in sickness, we may pray to God to get better, but in a lot of cases we don’t. We’re too busy trying to go to doctors get the medicine that will make us better, we try to get more sleep or get more exercise or anything so that we don’t have to spend time with God. When we’re in health we don’t even think about Christ because everything is going great. God is taking care of me, so I might give him honorable mention, but nothing like what he deserves.
We definitely don’t love and cherish Jesus and His sacrifice. We don’t show our love for God to other people. Sure, we say “I love Jesus,” but do our actions to those around us remind others of this? Chances are we don’t. We do not cherish Jesus for who He is.