Whose Approval Do You Crave?

When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. (Matthew 6:16)

Perhaps Jesus’s words about prayer and fasting are more relevant than ever. Not that the human heart has changed. Quite the opposite — the heart has been, and always will be, apart from God, “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

No, the condition of man’s heart hasn’t changed; there are just new ways, with every new app and social medium, for man’s desire for praise to express itself in public. No longer is the reach of our actions simply relegated to the street corner. Instead, in today’s world, the simplest of YouTube videos can make you famous.

Seeking Approval in All the Wrong Places

Seeking approval, and the personal satisfaction that results, is not what Jesus condemns; it is seeking it in the wrong source. John Piper writes....   Continue at Joseph Scheumann

Keep the Presence of God

On vacation, I kept a copy of Jonathan Edwards’ sermons on my bedside table as a way of going to sleep with a God-centered mind. One of those sermons was called “Keeping the Presence of God.” It was preached on a colony-wide fast day in April 1742. The second wave of the First Great Awakening had crested in the vicinity, and Edwards was seeing both the good and bad fallout of revival. He saw spiritual dangers lurking everywhere. In the next year, as he preached his famous series on the religious affections, he would become the most careful analyst and student of human hearts that had been wakened in the revival. What he saw in those hearts was mixed.

 So in this sermon, “Keeping the Presence of God,” his aim was to stir up awakened Christians to be vigilant that their exuberance not become pride. He exhorted them to give themselves to watchfulness and prayer so as to remain broken, humble, and happy in the good work of God in their lives.

Oh, how different is the path of Christian maturity pointed out by Edwards f rom the path most Christians walk today. There is a kind of cavalier attitude toward our security today. There is little trembling, little vigilance, earnestness, caution, and watchfulness over our souls. There is a kind of casual, slack, careless attitude toward the possibilit y that we might make shipwreck of our faith and fail to lay hold on eternal life. We have the notion that security is a kind of mechanical, automatic thing. We prayed once to receive Jesus. We are safe and there is no place for “working out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). That is not what Edwards saw in the Bible.   Keep Reading  >>>

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