We are two weeks into our series called Aliens and Strangers, in which we are looking at the book of 1 Peter on how Christians are to live as citizens of Heaven. I have greatly appreciated John Piper’s teaching called “Look At The Book,” where the Scripture is front-and-center.
Pastor Piper has just begun a series on 1 Peter as well. Here is his introduction to this book—
If you are in the Cedar Springs area and don’t have a home church, I would love for you to visit us this Sunday morning. If you cannot make it in person, please tune-in via Periscope (search for @craigtowens) at 10:30am.
“Is it not said in Scripture, ‘If any man sin, we have an Advocate’? Why is Christ an advocate today? Only because we want an advocate every day. Does He not constantly intercede yonder before the eternal throne? Why does He do that? Because we want daily intercession. And it is because we are constantly sinning that He is constantly an advocate, constantly an intercessor.” —Charles Spurgeon
“The only right a Christian has is the right to give up his rights.” —Oswald Chambers
“Unbelief hinders Christ from working those works which show the glory. It seems a strange saying, and one which we could not have ventured to utter had it not been written down for us by inspired men. That a child’s hand held up against the sun should hinder it from shining; that a weathered leaf thrown into a stream should stay its flowing or dry up its source; that the breath of man, breathed up against the sky, should quench the light of its myriad stars—these things would not really be so marvelous as that man’s unbelief should prevent God’s power from being sent forth, and the Son of God from doing those things which would reveal the glory of the Father. Yet we find the strange truth thus recorded. The evangelist Matthew thus writes, ‘He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief’ (13:58); and Mark uses still stronger language, ‘He could there do no mighty work, saving that He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and heal them; and He marveled because of their unbelief ‘(6:5, 6).” —Horatius Bonar
Jon Bloom writes, “If we want to really know what’s going on in the world, we cannot depend on CNN or FoxNews. We will keep our eyes on the global church. She is at the center of history,” in his post entitled America’s one enduring legacy in history.
“It has pleased God to give each one of us the same amount of time each day, week, month, and year. Time is a gift of God, and He expects us to use it wisely, in ways that overcome the foolishness of living apart from God and glorify Him in all the details of our lives (Psalm 90:12; Ephesians 5:15-17; 1 Corinthians 10:31). … The challenge of the spiritual life is to claim all our time and construct all our activities in order to pursue what we desire as the life of following Jesus. Anything that doesn’t contribute to that objective distracts from it. … What do the time and activities of your life reveal about what you desire in life and what you’re depending on to give your life purpose and joy?” —T.M. Moore
If you haven’t checked out The Bible Project videos lately, please visit their YouTube channel. They have some really cool stuff that give you an overview of a book of the Bible, and some of the major themes in the Bible. Each video is only 5-7 minutes long, but there is a ton of good insight packed into that time.
“If God did not love us unconditionally, He would not penetrate our unattractive lives, bring us to faith, unite us to Christ, give us His Spirit, and make us progressively like Jesus.” —John Piper
“The Word of God is an expansive Word; ever widening its dimensions; growing upon us; never old, ever new; in which we make continual discoveries; the same tree, but ever putting forth new branches and leaves; the same river, but ever swelling and widening; losing none of its old water, yet ever receiving accessions.” —Horatius Bonar
“Are our ears ever open? Are we eager listeners? As ready to hear as God is to speak? Oh, how much we lose of happy wisdom, simply from not listening!” —Horatius Bonar
“It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding band more than he loved his bride. But that is what this passage [Romans 1:22-23] says has happened. Human beings have fallen in love with the echo of God’s excellency in creation and lost the ability to hear the incomparable, original shout of love [Psalm 19:1-2].” —John Piper
Charles Spurgeon was a Calvinist, which means he held to the doctrine of predestination, but read how he pulled together both predestination and freewill. “It is a wonderful thing how God effects His purpose while still the creature is free. They who think that predestination and the fulfillment of the divine purpose is contrary to the free-agency of man, know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm. It would be no miracle for God to effect His own purpose, if He were dealing with stocks and stones, with granite and with trees; but this is the miracle of miracles, that the creatures are free, absolutely free, and yet the divine purpose stands. Herein is wisdom. This is a deep unsearchable. Man walks without a fetter, yet treads in the very steps which God ordained him to tread in, as certainly as though manacles had bound him to the spot. Man chooses his own seat, selects his own position, guided by his will he chooses sin, or guided by divine grace he chooses the right, and yet in his choice, God sits as Sovereign on the throne; not disturbing, but still over-ruling, and proving Himself to be able to deal as well with free creatures as with creatures without freedom, as well able to effect His purpose when He has endowed men with thought, and reason, and judgment, as when He had only to deal with the solid rocks and the imbedded sea.” —Charles Spurgeon
“What we long to see and know is a Person Whose power is unlimited, Whose kindness is tender, and Whose purpose is single and unflinching. Novelists and poets and movie-makers and TV writers now and then create a shadow of this Person. But they can no more fill our longing to worship than this month’s National Geographic can satisfy my longing for the Grand Canyon. We must have the real thing. We must see the Original of all power and kindness and purposefulness. We must see and worship the risen Christ.” —John Piper
“Brethren, we have no right to thrust a brother into the ministry until he has first given evidence of his own conversion, and has also given proof not only of being a good average worker but something more. If he cannot labor in the church before he pretends to be a minister, he is good for nothing. If he cannot perform all the duties of membership with zeal and energy, and if he is not evidently a consecrated man whilst he is a private Christian, certainly you do not feel the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit to bid him enter the ministry. No man has a right to aspire to come into that office until he has shown that he is really devoted to Christ by having served Him as others have done.” —Charles Spurgeon
“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. To be entertained is a passive state, it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence and appreciation.” —Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Remember it is God, and not man, that must have the glory. It is not much speaking, but much faith, that is needed.” —Robert Murray McCheyne
“That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.” —Charles Spurgeon
Mark Atteberry asks a good question: “Aren’t we out-of-touch, narrow-minded, sexually-repressed Christians supposed to be the only ones who are bothered by rampant sexuality? Why, then, are these such big stories Jared Fogle, Ashley Madison, Larry Flynt], worthy of reporting on national newscasts?” Check out his post A Big Day For Sexual Sin.
Reminder:There is no such thing as free pornography. “The simple truth is that porn always costs us dearly, and it is never a victimless crime. Peer-reviewed research suggests that porn is highly addictive, negatively affects our behavior, and functionally operates as a destructive drug.”
“Believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is much more than accepting a fact. It means being confident that God is for you, that He has closed ranks with you, that He is transforming your life, and that He will save you for eternal joy.” —John Piper
“There is only one basic reason why we disobey the commands of Jesus: it’s because we don’t have confidence that obeying will bring more blessing than disobeying. We do not hope fully in God’s promise.” —John Piper
“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed.” —C.S. Lewis
Cedar Springs has annual worship service for all of the churches in the area to come together. We call it UNITED. Check out this post on loving as Christians.
“Hitler was successful not because of the righteousness of his cause, but because of the way it was packaged and sold to the public. Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry are successful for very similar reasons.” Read more about Planned Parenthood’s Big Lie.
“The Kingdom of God, as Jesus envisioned it, was not simply for then and there. Jesus announced a Kingdom that had come. His preaching and teaching lead us to understand that the Kingdom is very much a ‘here and now’ reality [Matthew 4:17], that which is to be sought above, within, and through everything else in our lives.” —T.M. Moore
“Sexual sin is a symptom, not the disease. People give way to sexual sin because they don’t have the fullness of joy and gladness in Christ. Their spirits are not steadfast and firm and established. They waver. They are enticed, and they give way because God does not have the place in our feelings and thoughts that He should. David knew this about himself. It’s true about us too. David is showing us, by the way he prays [Psalm 51:8, 12], what the real need is for those who sin sexually—joy in God.” —John Piper
“For the day may come when false prophets shall arise, and delude the people, and by this shall we be able to discover them; if they claim anything beyond what Christ has revealed, put them aside, for they are false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Spirit only teaches us that which Christ has taught beforehand either by Himself or by the inspired apostles.” —Charles Spurgeon
“From many modern sermons would you know that there was a Holy Spirit? If it were not for the benediction or the doxology you might go in and out of many churches and meeting-houses by the year together, and scarcely know that there was such a Person as that blessed, blessed Giver of all good, the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we hear a little about His influences, as if the Holy Spirit were not as truly a Person as even Jesus Christ Himself, Who in flesh and blood trod this earth. Oh, dear friends, I fear the first danger, that of running wild with whimsies and fancies about inner lights and new revelations; but I equally dread this last, this going forth to work with the sword, forgetting that it is the sword of the Spirit, and only mighty as the Holy Spirit makes it mighty ‘to the pulling down of strongholds.’” —Charles Spurgeon
By the way, don’t buy into the lie that if Planned Parenthood is defunded women won’t have access to healthcare. First of all, PP makes way too much money from abortions already. Second, there are 20 comprehensive healthcare centers for every one PP office, so the options are plentiful.
[VIDEO] Jesus in the New Testament is the same as Jehovah in the Old Testament—
If you would like a written form of the charts he shares in this video, click here.
“May the Lord increase your hunger and your thirst to see the face of God. And may He grant your desire through the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God.” —John Piper
Chuck Colson said, “It seems that everywhere—from Tennessee to Tokyo—religion is being permeated by a consumerist mentality.” Read more (or take a listen to Chuck’s broadcast) on Gimmie That Hot-Tub Religion.
My friend and mentor, Tom Kaastra, has an amazing new website called The Basics of Life—Help for your spiritual journey. Do yourself a favor, check out the site, and then subscribe so you can receive his wisdom each time he publishes something new.
From Planned Parenthood’s own annual report, prenatal services—which have decreased—amount to 18,684 services. Out of the total 10,590,433 services then, pre-natal care accounts for less than 1 percent. For pregnant women who come to Planned Parenthood, 94 percent of them have an abortion. (h/t Live Action)
David Wilkerson says there is a command from Jesus that far too many Christians ignore: “The King has told us to bind up the devil and cast him out of the banqueting hall. In short, we’re to rise up and take serious action against satan’s attacks on Christ’s Body.” Read more here.
“We are not just connected to Jesus, our Head. We are also joined to each other. The fact is, we can’t be connected to Him without also being joined to our brothers and sisters in Christ.” Read more from David Wilkerson in his post Partakers Of The Bread.
“Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.” —Sam Ewing
“Grace is an active, present, transformative, obedience-enabling power.” —John Piper
We are two weeks into our series called Aliens and Strangers, in which we are looking at the book of 1 Peter on how Christians are to live as citizens of Heaven. I have greatly appreciated John Piper’s teaching called “Look At The Book,” where the Scripture is front-and-center.
Craig T. Owens 