The Steps of Biblical Sanctification

You probably hear a lot about God’s sanctifying work in your life through His Word. But what does that process look like? How do you know if the living truth of Scripture is actually at work in your life? How do you know that God’s Word has actually taken root in your life?

To help you understand your own spiritual growth and how God’s Word works in your life, I want to highlight the key steps in the process of sanctification with three simple words.

The first is cognition. God’s pattern for spiritual growth starts with understanding what the Bible says and what it means. The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture—if you don’t know what it means, you don’t have the truth. So the process of spiritual growth starts with understanding what the Bible says.

Many years ago as a child, the importance of knowing and understanding God’s Word was impressed upon me. I began to read my Bible repetitiously—day after day, over and over. The further I went, the more connections I was able to draw from book to book. After a few years, I was overwhelmed with the understanding that the Bible is its own interpreter. And you can see that conviction borne out in my teaching to this day.

True sanctification begins with renewing your mind. You must know the truth, plain and simple. There’s no premium on ignorance in sanctification. You’re not going to get there through some emotional or mystical experience. Spiritual growth won’t happen by osmosis—it requires the discipline of constantly putting God’s truth in your mind.

Don’t confuse childlike faith with childish thinking. There are no shortcuts in sanctification—a lack of biblical knowledge will always retard your spiritual growth. Apart from the truth of Scripture, there simply is no mechanism to restrain your sinful flesh. Legalism can’t do it. Pragmatism can’t either. The same goes for mysticism and sacramentalism. The only certain method for true spiritual growth starts with absorbing God’s eternal truth.  Continue at John MacArthur

Getting John 1:12 Right: Should You Invite Jesus Into Your Heart?

Author: Jim Elliff from an article found here: 

Is it useful to critique any person’s or ministry’s method of evangelism? For one thing, there are not enough people calling on others to follow Christ. Should I attempt to cripple their efforts in the slightest way, even for the few who might listen to me? I hope I will not. I would rather think that I’m improving our evangelism. And it does need improving. 

The apparent results of the method of evangelistic appeal built upon the verse in question (John 1:12, along with Rev. 3:20) surely cannot be argued with. I think I could say with ease that almost all the evangelistic results coming out of America are rooted in a method that emerges from the problematic view of John 1:12 which I will unfold. One campus organization whose workers almost always use this verse, with what I believe is an errant understanding of it, claims that tens of thousands are won to Christ each year through their multiple worldwide ministries. I’ve known many involved in this ministry, and can attest to the sincerity of these workers, and their willingness to be bold for Christ. Surely the majority of evangelistic workers cannot be wrong. Surely pastors who have taught this particular view cannot be in error. At least from the ad hominem side of the argument, I’m going to look pretty silly if I’m opposing such faithful people and am in error myself. So, I’ll tread gently. I’m talking to friends who care as strongly as I do about good evangelism.    Continue at John Samson

What Every Pastor Must Hear and Confess

If your ministry relationships will be healthy in God's sight, you must commit to intentionally planting good seeds into the soil of those relationships. This will take understanding, commitment, discipline, and perseverance. Galatians 5:13ff is very helpful here. Paul delineates this relational lifestyle this way: "Serve one another in love" (Genesis 5:13). Then he says something startling: "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" If you had written the words, "The entire law is summed up in a single command," what would you have written next? I would have written, "Love God above all else." But, shockingly, that is not what Paul writes. Instead he says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." How does love of neighbor summarize all that God calls us to? The answer is both simple and profound. Those who love God above all else will love their neighbor as they love themselves.

This is a diagnostic insight into ministry relationships that every pastor needs to hear. The problem in our ministry relationships is not first that we don't love one another enough; no, the problem is that we don't love God enough, and because we don't love God enough, we don't love one another as we should. Could it be that we are so busy loving ourselves and making sure that others "love" us in the way that we want to be loved, that we have little time and energy left to love them as we should? Could it be that we are so busy working to co-opt the other into the service of our wants, needs, and feelings that we are too distracted to notice all the opportunities to love that every day gives us, and too busy making sure that we are loved to do anything about these opportunities even if we noticed them? Why does this happen? It happens because we have replaced love of God and rest in his care with love of self and the anxiety of "neediness."  Continue at Paul Tripp

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Children in Worship–Let’s Bring it Back

I remember sitting as a small child in church sucking on wintergreen mints and drawing battle scenes on the offering envelopes (my mother would always give me a tap of correction when the explosions were a little too loud with my scribbling pencil). And though I might have been preoccupied with my wintergreen mints and airplanes dropping bombs on tanks, I was picking things up. Was it easy for my single mother to corral a feisty little boy and his sister in the pew? No, it is a testimony to her patience and grace! But it was good for my soul. 

As the church, let’s be open to the idea of inviting our children into worship again. Let’s be patient, deliberate, and wise, but let’s encourage families to have their children in worship as soon as they are able. Not all families or children will be ready to do this as each family functions under different circumstances. So having said this, let’s not go overboard. I think every church should have a well-equipped nursery at least for children under the age of five years old and even beyond if they deem it appropriate. In addition, we must be sensitive to visiting families and those that just aren’t convinced that children belong in corporate worship. So we must be patient and understanding, but it is something we should be aimed at before our children are driving cars! Even if our children cannot understand all that is happening, struggle to sit still, and even are bored at times during the service they are still benefiting from being in the midst of this divine meeting between God and His people (Mark 10:13-16). And at the very least they will come to appreciate the power of wintergreen mints.

Today, I want to offer a few reasons on why we should encourage the children of the church to attend our corporate worship services. Tomorrow, I will pass along some helpful hints for parenting in the pew.  Continue at Jason Helopoulos

Understanding Romans 10:17

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17

 

As most of my readers know, I did not always embrace the Reformed faith. For the first 20 years of my Christian walk I was fairly convinced of synergistic theology, though I would recoil at the idea of labeling it as such. In my mind, I just believed the Bible, or so I thought.

I was recently having a discussion with a gentleman through e-mail and he was lamenting the fact that I no longer believed as he does (he is a synergist). He said my problem was that I gave false teaching a chance to wreak havoc in my soul by exposing myself to it – by listening to it. He then wrote “Faith comes by hearing” If you keep hearing something you start to believe it.” He thinks of Reformed theology as falsehood, and so using this verse (Romans 10:17), was seeking to show the source of my error, namely that I should never have listened to reformed theology.

Leaving the discussion about Reformed theology aside, is what he wrote correct? Does hearing something mean that you will believe it. I would suggest not, and go further to say that his view of Scripture is incredibly low to say such a thing. The obvious implication of his words is the concept that we believe anything we hear. But is that true? I have heard many things in life that I do not believe. Some people in England believe Manchester United are the greatest soccer team in the land, when it is clear that this title belongs to Liverpool alone. I could hear someone talk of the Manchester team in such glowing terms all day and all night for a week, and never believe the bald faced satanic lie. I jest, of course (slightly anyway – after all the Manchester team are called “The Red Devils”) – but the point is still a valid one. We do not believe everything we hear – even something we hear repeatedly. It is God Himself who gives the gift of saving faith (Ephesians 2:8,9) – it is not the product of our natural humanity, however many times a person hears the Gospel preached.  Continue at John Samson