“Grieve the Holy Spirit, and you will lose all Christian joy; the light shall be taken from you, and you shall stumble in darkness; those very means of grace which once were such a delight, shall have no music in your ear. Your soul shall be no longer as a watered garden, but as a howling wilderness. Grieve the Spirit of God, and you will lose all power; if you pray, it will be a very weak prayer—you will not prevail with God. When you read the Scriptures, you shall not be able to lift the latch and force your way into the inner mysteries of truth. When you go up to the house of God, there shall be none of that devout exhilaration, that running without weariness, that walking without fainting. You shall feel yourself like Samson when his hair was lost, weak, captive, and blinded. Let the Holy Spirit depart, and assurance is gone, doubts follow, questionings and suspicions are aroused. Grieve the Spirit of God, and usefulness will cease: the ministry shall yield no fruit….” —Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon On Grieving The Holy Spirit
March 9, 2015 — Craig T. OwensNo Plan B
March 9, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
In my family, what starts off as Plan A at the beginning of the day is highly likely to end up as Plan K-13 by the end of the day! We just try to be flexible and roll with the changes.
But we must be careful about giving the characteristic of “flexibility” to God—He doesn’t need to be flexible and modify His plans. He has no Plan B; everything is His Plan A.
Jesus is described as being the sacrificial Lamb from before the dawn of Creation (1 Peter 1:18-20). And in Heaven Jesus is still known as the Lamb that was slain (Revelation 13:8 and 5:5-6). Jesus coming to earth to die on an old rugged Cross was always God’s Plan A. The whole time Jesus Christ was on earth, He knew what was happening.
Here are 5 things Jesus knew. He knew…
- …when His time had come, and that all things were about to be fulfilled through His crucifixion—John 13:1, 3
- …the exact sequence of events leading up to His death on Calvary—Matthew 20:17-19
- …the immutability of the Scriptures—Matthew 26:53-56
- …the infallibility of the Scriptures—Luke 24:25-27
- …that God would be glorified in fulfilling His Plan A—John 12:27-28
With this in mind, here are 5 things we should know. We should know…
- …that all my days were written down before the dawn of Creation—Psalm 139:16
- …God loves me more than I can fathom—Psalm 139:17
- …my life was always intended to be a part of God’s Plan A—Ephesians 2:10
- …no weapon formed against God’s Plan A for me will succeed—Isaiah 54:17
- …that God will be glorified in fulfilling His Plan A in my life—Romans 8:28
The old rugged Cross reminds us that God’s Plan A was always for Christ’s death to make it possible for our lives to make sense!
As Andrew Murray wrote: “God fully relied on His Son to see to it that His honor was respected. And in Jesus we too may bravely enter this covenant without fear that we will not be able to fulfill it. We can rely upon Jesus to see to it that He will bring everything to completion. Jesus has not only discharged our old debt but also undertaken the responsibility for whatever else may be required.”
I’ll be continuing our series on The Old Rugged Cross this Sunday, and I hope you can join me.
Links & Quotes
March 7, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“Puffery in doctrine leads to its dishonor.” —Charles Spurgeon
“In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.” —Dr. James Stewart
“Don’t bother about the idea that God ‘has known for millions of years exactly what you are about to pray.’ That isn’t what it’s like. God is hearing you now, just as simply as a mother hears a child. The difference His timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite. If you must think of His timelessness at all, don’t think of Him having looked forward to this moment for millions of years: think that to Him you are always praying this prayer. But there’s really no need to bring it in. You have gone into the Temple (‘one day in Thy court is better than a thousand’) and found Him, as always, there. That is all you need to bother about.” ―C.S. Lewis
“The itch of self-regard craves the scratch of self-approval. That is, if we are getting our pleasure from feeling self-sufficient, we will not be satisfied without others seeing and applauding our self-sufficiency.” —John Piper
Some godly women on the front lines of the war against the sex industry.
A Byzantine Benediction
March 7, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
A prayer for all of us…
Links & Quotes
March 6, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“When the body is about to be led into a sinful action by some fear or craving, we are to take the sword of the Spirit and kill that fear and that craving. In my experience, that means mainly severing the root of sin’s promise by the power of a superior promise. … Having promises at hand that suit the temptation of the hour is one key to successful warfare against sin…. Be constantly adding to your arsenal of promises. But never lose sight of the chosen few that God has blessed in your life. Do both. Be ever-ready with the old. And every morning look for a new one to take with you through the day.” —John Piper
“At the heart of the Hebrew concept of marriage is the notion of covenant—a legally binding agreement with spiritual and emotional ramification (Proverbs 2:17). God serves as a witness to the marriage covenant, blessing its faithfulness but hating its betrayal (Malachi 2:14-16). The Lord’s intimate involvement renders this legal commitment a spiritual union, ‘so they are no longer two, but one’ (Matthew 19:6). The purpose of marriage as articulated in the Bible is to find true companionship (Genesis 2:18; Proverbs 18: 22), produce godly offspring (Malachi 2:15; 1 Corinthians 7:14) and fulfill God’s calling upon an individual’s life (Genesis 1:28). … Marriage binds husband and wife together into an entity greater than either partner as an individual, and it does so in order to assure continuity of the family lineage.” —Archeological Study Bible
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” —Theodore Roosevelt
Eric Metaxas, in his commentary A Murderous Mother, tells how the environmentalists have gotten off track, and how Christians are really the only one who can help us.
“In our esteem, the joys of earth are little better than husks for swine compared with Jesus the Heavenly Manna. I would rather have one mouthful of Christ’s love, and a sip of His fellowship, than a whole world full of carnal delights. What is the chaff to the wheat? What is the sparkling paste to the true diamond? What is a dream to the glorious reality?” —Charles Spurgeon
I really like this post—Is There A Spiritual Side To Sex?
Abortion, Inc. documents the $500 million Planned Parenthood gets in your tax dollars to keep killing innocent children.
Links & Quotes
March 5, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“That is the religion of ninety-nine English people out of every hundred who know nothing of divine grace—we are to be as good as we can; we are to go to church or to chapel, and do all that we can, and then Jesus Christ died for us, and we shall be saved. Whereas the gospel is, that He did not do anything at all for people who think they can rely on themselves, but gave Himself for lost and ruined ones. He did not come into the world to save self-righteous people; on their own showing, they do not want to be saved.” —Charles Spurgeon
Twitter stands up to ISIS. About time!
Interesting research results from The Barna Group in What Millennials Want When They Visit Church.
“The engagement of God’s power never takes the place of the engagement of our will! The power of God in sanctification never makes us passive! The power of God engages itself beneath or behind and within our will, not in place of our will. … God will never appear with power in your will in any other form than a good resolve that you make and keep.” —John Piper
“Jesus is Amen as to His righteousness. That sacred robe shall remain most fair and glorious when nature shall decay. He is Amen in every single title which He bears; your Husband, never seeking a divorce; your Head, the neck never being dislocated; your Friend, sticking closer than a brother; your Shepherd, with you in death’s dark vale; your Help and your Deliverer; your Castle and your High Tower; the Horn of your Strength, your confidence, your joy, your all in all, and Amen in all.” —Charles Spurgeon
Read this in my Archeological Study Bible and thought this rang true for our generation still today: “This generation was not guilty of the gross idolatry of its forefathers. Rather, these Israelites had embraced a kind of dead orthodoxy, in which they tried to get by with the minimum that their faith required.”
Thursdays With Oswald—Faith And Common Sense
March 5, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
This is a periodic series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Faith And Common Sense
Common sense is not faith and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of Ishmael and Isaac, of the natural and the spiritual, of individuality and personality, of impulse and inspiration. Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into right relationship. …
How am I going to find out what the will of God is? In one way only, by not trying to find out. If you are born again of the Spirit of God, you are the will of God, and your ordinary common sense decisions are God’s will for you unless He gives you an inner check. When He does, call a halt immediately and wait on Him. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you may make out His will, not in your mind, but in practical living. God’s will in my common sense life is not for me to accept conditions and say—“Oh well, it is the will of God,” but to apprehend them for Him, and that means conflict, and it is of God that we conflict. Doing the will of God is an active thing in my common sense life.
From Not Knowing Where [italics in original; bold font added by me]
Have you ever considered that we find the will of God by not trying to find the will of God? I love Chambers’ conclusion that as a Christian you are the will of God, now we just need to be renewed in our spirits to hear His voice and direction for us.
The Old Rugged Cross
March 4, 2015 — Craig T. OwensThe Apostle Paul traveled the known world preaching and teaching. Luke preserves some of his sermons for us in the Book of Acts, and Paul’s letters reveal the depth of and breadth of his Spirit-inspired thoughts. But of all the doctrines which this eminent apostle taught, there was one truth that stood out as the foundation for all others—
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2).
The work that Jesus Christ did on an old rugged Cross is absolutely the most central message of all others. Without the Cross, no other doctrine makes sense.
Sadly, we spend far too little time looking at the Cross.
Join me this Sunday as we take a long look at the Cross and the Lamb of God Who was sacrificed on it. Our series is simply called The Old Rugged Cross.
4 Notes On Haggai
March 4, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
(c) Laura Kranz at The Overview Bible Project (see my note below)
The prophet Haggai wrote one of the shortest books in the Old Testament, and his recorded ministry only spans five months(!) in 520 B.C. But in this short book I find four really cool things—
(1) God uses His people at specific times for specific purposes. All of Haggai’s messages from God have a very precise date stamp on them, so we know exactly when they were delivered. Also, most of his messages say something like, “The word of God came through Haggai to Zerubbabel [or to Joshua, or to the people, or to the priests].” If God used Haggai like this, isn’t it likely that He is using you or I at specific times and for specific purposes?
(2) God invites us to “give careful thought” to His messages. Five times God says, “Give careful thought to your ways” (1:5, 7; 2:15, 18). This phrase literally means to take a strong hold on each thought and examine it intensely. This thought process is always connected to another phrase: “This is what the Lord Almighty says….” In other words, we are to thoughtfully examine our lifestyle with God’s Word being the standard of measurement (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:5).
(3) Obeying God’s Word brings God’s “stirring.” When God says move and we move, His Spirit will energize our spirit, and empower our lives for action. God never calls us to do something without giving us the empowerment to do it.
(4) I need to act courageously. God calls us to “be strong” (three times in 2:4) “and work, for I am with you.” Courageous action after God has stirred us up drives out fear. On the flip side, inactivity because of fear almost always leads to more fear and more inactivity.
Don’t ever let the category “minor prophet” trick you into thinking God doesn’t have a major message to share with you. Just one word from God is more powerful than we can ever imagine!
(The portrait of Haggai in this post was created by Laura Kranz at The Overview Bible Project. She and her husband Jeffrey do some amazing things that will add insight to your Bible study time. Click here to read my review of their book The Illustrated Guide To The Authors Of The Bible. And while you’re on their website, subscribe to some of the cool guides that regularly get emailed out.)
E.M. Bounds On Prayer
March 3, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
An amazing passage from E.M. Bounds’ book The Necessity Of Prayer—
“Here, let it be said, that no two things are more essential to a Spirit-filled life than Bible reading and secret prayer; no two things more helpful to growth in grace; to getting the largest joy out of a Christian life; toward establishing one in the ways of eternal peace. The neglect of these all-important duties, presages leanness of soul, loss of joy, absence of peace, dryness of spirit, decay in all things that pertain to spiritual life. Neglecting these things paves the way for apostasy, and gives the evil one an advantage such as he is not likely to ignore. Reading God’s Word regularly, and praying habitually in the secret place of the Most High puts one where he is absolutely safe from the attacks of the enemy of souls, and guarantees him salvation and final victory, through the overcoming power of the Lamb.” (emphasis added)
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