I knew I should not have waited until today to publish this post . . . because NOW I can’t remember how it got started . . . or at least “where”.
I know it got started from some time alone in my basement study. Having just gotten new shelves and seeing the “organization” come to fruition, it is much more enjoyable to sit downstairs and ponder, thumb through, and investigate the books that have come my way over the years.
The subject I happened to begin to ponder was FAITH. Now I don’t really doubt the faith that God has put in me, but I do at times, like John the Baptist, wonder about the “reality” of it all. I don’t ever think that any other religion or “faith” is the RIGHT way, but my little unfaithful-at-times “pea brain” thinks that “what if NONE of it is right??”. (Lord, help thou mine unbelief!)
AND THAT is when it is good for me, and maybe you, to sit down with the Word of God and some good books. THIS POST is the result of that exercise … I hope you enjoy and are enlightened as much as I was in doing it.
I want to think that this “enlightenment” started as I was reading a WONDERFUL book I found in my “re-organization” called “The New Life” by Andrew Murray. It looks like it was published in the 1880’s, or thereabouts. It is a book to help NEW Christians come to grips with their new walk; their new FAITH. (It seems to be helping this old one as well!)
It is laid out in 52 chapters, so a good weekly devotional. I was reading chapter FOUR on faith . .. “Young disciples in Christ, the new, the eternal life that is in you is a life of faith. And do you not see how simple and how blessed that life of faith is? I go every day to the Word and hear there what God has said that He has done and will do. I take time to lodge in my heart the Word in which God says that, and I hold I fast, entirely assured that what God has promised, He is able to perform. And then in a childlike spirit I await the fulfillment of all the glorious promises of His Word.” (That’s it!... the point where I got started!)
Then he has in the right margin these scriptures I list for your consideration: Galatians 2:20; Galatians 3:2, 5; Galatians 5:5-6; Hebrews 10:35; 1 Peter 1:8.
From there I began to look at these scriptures and then turn around and start GRABBING books . . . like “Redemption Accomplished and Applied” by John Murray; Hebrews Commentaries by F.F. Bruce and John MacArthur; “The Epistle to the Romans” by John Murray, and “How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian?” by Donald Whitney. (Probably some others I can’t recall after a night of sleep!)
HERE are some GLEANINGS from those readings …
Murray’s “Redemption Accomplished and Applied” had me thinking and reading in two areas: The Need for the Atonement … and … Glorification.
Now you need to understand that a lot of these books I had to read for Seminary (RPTS) or just picked up and read along the way, SO subsequently, there are some UNDERLINES in them, and that is what I tend to look for when referencing books like these.
“Why did God become man? Why, having become man, did He die? Why, having died, did He die the accursed death of the cross? This is the question of the necessity of the atonement.”
I thought a little bit about this … the atonement was necessary for me to have FAITH at all! It assured me that faith is ALL of Christ and a gift of God (review scriptures above plus I suggest Ephesians 2:1-10, esp. 8-10).
Then I found another couple of “underlines” that helped me:
“In a word, the necessity of the atonement is inherent in and essential to justification.”
“We can hardly escape the relevance of Paul’s word: ‘For is a law had been given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been by the law’ (Gal. 3:21). What Paul is insisting upon is that if justification could have been secured by any other method than that of faith in Christ, by that method it would have been.”
HOW ABOUT WE BREAK HERE . . . MORE LATER . . .
Time to get READY for CHURCH!!!!
‘Cult’ program in NYC schools
30 minutes ago
