So on Saturday April 24th from 8:00 AM until 8:00 AM on Sunday the 25th, all that would like to participate can come at anytime and spend an hour in prayer.  There is a room next to the Commons Bookstore on the Church grounds.. and you will find at least one person in there at all times over the 24 hours.

I’m encouraged with the response to Sunday’s message.. and I’m anticipating God to respond to His praying people in ways that are going to amaze us!!!

You can find more information on the City, our church’s online network.

Come and pray ..

“The power of prayer has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!’”

- J. Hudson Taylor

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In one of Paul Tripp’s books (co-authored with Tim Lane), How People Change, he identifies seven counterfeit gospels—-”religious” ways we try and “justify” or “save” ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. Do you ever find yourself gravitating to one or two or three on this list?  Which one(s)?

Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”

Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

Benjamin Warfield:

“We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only “when we believe.”

It is just as true after we have believed.

It will continue to be true as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.

It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him.

We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner.

But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said.

It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether.

The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitence indeed, but also of overmastering exultation.

The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it.

It is an attitude of exultant joy.

Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves.

But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.”

The great Lion of Princeton, B.B. Warfield (1851–1921), from his essay, “’Miserable-Sinner Christianity’ in the Hands of the Rationalists,” in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 7, pp. 113-114.

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Do you mortify?  Do you make it your daily work?  Do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.  We must strike it as an enemy until it ceases living.  Sin is laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh.  When sin lets us alone, we may let sin alone.  Sin is active when it seems to be the most quiet, and its waters are calm.  Sin is always acting, conceiving, seducing and tempting.  There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled.  There is no safety but in a constant warfare from sin’s perplexing rebellion.  Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, and disquieting if not continually mortified, it will also bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, and soul-destroying sins (Gal. 9:19-20).  When sin rises to tempt, it always seeks to express itself in the extreme.  Every unclean thought would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression; and every thought of unbelief would be atheism.  It is like the grave that is never satisfied.  Sin’s advance blinds the soul from seeing its drift from God.  The soul becomes indifferent to sin as it continues to grow.  The growth of sin has no boundaries but the utter denial of God and opposition to him.  Sin proceeds higher by degrees; it hardens the heart as it advances.  Mortification withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour.  The best saints in the world are in danger of a fall if found negligent in this important duty.  Negligence of this duty decays the inner man instead of renewing him.  It is our duty to be ‘bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God’ (1 Cor. 7:1), and every day to be growing in grace (1 Pet. 2:2), and seeking to be renewed in the inner nature day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).

John Owen, Works, VI:9-14

J.C. Ryle - Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark p.65-66

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My current stack looks like this:

PASTORAL:
The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne
A Christian’s guide to leadership for the whole church by Derek Prime

DEVOTIONAL:
Voices from the Past: Puritan Writings
Spurgeon’s practical wisdom (Plain advice for plain people)

BIOGRAPHY:
Contending for our all by John Piper (the lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen)
James Henley Thornwell, His life and letters

So I was wondering if anyone else has read a good book or is planning to read something in the coming year that might inspire a few of us to read it as well.

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