The Joy of Not Sinning

I think it is a question every Christian would all like to ask God, given the opportunity. It is an honest question. A humble one, I hope. If you have the ability to immediately destroy and remove all of a Christian’s sin the very moment he puts his faith in Jesus Christ, why don’t you? Why didn’t you?

There is always a good bit of debate in the Christian world about exactly how God sanctifies us and how human effort relates to divine work. Whatever we believe about sanctification, we know it is a lifelong battle and we know it is a difficult one. The difficulty is related to the extent of our depravity, the fact that the effects of sin extend to our every part, to our minds, our hearts, our wills, even our bodies. We could give every moment of every day to the battle against sin and still die as deeply sinful people. Every Christian will die much more holy than he was when he first put his faith in Jesus Christ, but a lot less holy than he would like and probably a lot less holy than he would have imagined.  Continue at Tim Challies

Fall of the IFB Empire

This morning was a sad moment to find out about the news coming out of First Baptist Church of Hammond, IN, but even sadder to say, it did not take me by surprise. I attended that church when I was attending their college for one year back in the 1990's. Jack Schaap was the most admired man next to Dr. Hyles himself.  I heard him at many youth conferences challenging young people to give their lives to serve Christ in the ministry. Again, the world I grew up in during my adolescence has been resurrected from the past as I witness the demise of the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. The fruit of the IFB movement continually proves to be rotten. For those of my IFB friends that are sure to mourn this terrible news, I am afraid that they will simply chalk it up to an isolated incident that was simply his choice and that he just got tempted in a rare moment of weakness. I will be first to acknowledge, that when I first heard this news, my first reaction was to go to prayer and beg God to protect me from ever sinning in this way and disgracing His name.

 I am the first to fear and tremble when I contemplate this warning in Scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 

What needs to be taken heed as well is what we think we're standing on! The IFB movement is a very ill part of the Body of Christ and those who are committed to it need to wake up and understand that there are deep rooted problems that make stories like this one and the 20/20 piece last year a regular occurrence.  Continue at Reforming Baptist


See Also:

Jack Schaap’s Fall and the Future of the IFB Movement

Jesus and Addiction: Is He Really Enough?

Growing up in the church is probably exactly like growing up in a five-story mansion on the side of a snow-laden mountain overlooking a rainbow valley where you daily see flocks of unicorns grazing: it’s a beautiful thing, but you run the risk of over-exposure.  For a while you appreciate it, then one day you wake up finding yourself unable to be moved by what’s before you.  Even though my official “rebellion years” ended when I got to college, since then I’ve continued to run the risk of being overly exposed (and therefore hardened) by the beautiful truths that are constantly before me.  Thanks be to God though, because I’m slowly relearning the beautiful truths behind Bible verses and Christian jargon that for a long time had been cold to my soul.  In that relearning process though, I’ve found myself particularly cautious about Christian phrases that get thrown around as often as the plot to Zookeeper.  This entry is about one such phrase:

“Christ is Enough”

This phrase (or the trinitarianly-appropriate equivalent “God is enough”) was my banner for a long time through college.  Chris Tomlin’s ”More than Enough” was my theme song.  I started reading books like John Piper’s Desiring God and Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God to fuel my growing conviction that finding everything I needed in Jesus would increase my joy and destroy my sin addictions.  It wasn’t quite that simple though. Keep Reading...

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