Friday, January 05, 2007
the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
The life I now live in the flesh…We all live have and live by our world views…
Mum’s schizophrenia.. her world view was described on tv, having on and seeing through the wrong set of glasses.
Her glasses were that she was obsessed with paranoid understandings of her world.
Her world was a fearsome place with people seeking to murder her at every turn.
Most people know that most people in the world could care less about the other people in the world.
If someone tries to hurt me in some way, my first thought is, “oh they just don’t know who I am. I am the most cuddly person they will ever meet. I have the greatest personality, and the warmest smile, and the most dazzling looks and the greatest.. hey Mohamed Ali, move over.. I am the greatest!! Oops my wife and kids are here.. They know me … sigh! And so does Tal” hmmm.. so do you all! Well at least I do know that no one lays awake at night thinking of new a\ways to torment me. (At least I hope not.. if you do please tell me so I can get an avo out on you.)
God calls for our thinking and our world view to be changed.
“. . . Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” - Matthew 22:37
Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .- Romans 12:1-2
We think in fragments We think in images. We think in sounds.
“I think a lot of people are losing their religion. Definitely. Even me, I know that when I grew up, I used to go to church every Sunday, and now it’s become holidays. But I think as long as you have your own thing, whether it’s meditation—anything that centers you in life is good. Do I pray? Yeah, I do.”- Actress Kirsten Dunst, Rolling Stone, May 23, 2002, p. 69. “First I was ‘angry’, then ‘spiritual’. Now I don't know what I am.”-Alanis Morissette from Rolling Stone’s daily e-mail April 29, 2002.
What is a Worldview? “A worldview is first of all an explanation and interpretation of the world, and second, an application of this view to life.”
Your behaviour and values are built on your world view.
Our world view affects the way we see life and the way we see everything about life, and how we respond to life.
FACT: The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 was because Sioux Indians believed they were given shirts that would stop US Cavalry bullets. The Boxers in China had a similar faulty faith.
There is another name for “world-view”. It’s the word “faith”.
Everybody lives by some faith, whatever it may be.
It affects the cultural forms around us in our society.
God Theism Christian faith
Christianity is Christ. . .Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it; there is practically nothing left. Christ is the center of Christianity, all else is circumference. John Stott
We Christians live by the Christian faith. What does it mean to say that we Christians live by faith?
Making sense of the world.. by faith.
I live by faith…
Unfeigned faith
Unwavering faith
This solves the problems of Significance
The Son Of God who Loved me
The death of Christ is not only the demonstration of God’s love (John 3:16), it is also the supreme expression of Christ’s own love for all who receive it as their treasure. The early witnesses who suffered most for being Christians were captured by this fact: Christ “loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). They took the self-giving act of Christ’s sacrifice very personally. They said, “He loved me. He gave himself for me.”
Surely this is the way we should understand the sufferings and death of Christ. They have to do with me. They are about Christ’s love for me personally. It is my sin that cuts me off from God, not sin in general. It is my hard-heartedness and spiritual numbness that demean the worth of Christ. I am lost and perishing. When it comes to salvation, I have forfeited all claim on justice. All I can do is plead for mercy.
Then I see Christ suffering and dying. For whom? It says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
And I ask, Am I among the “many”? Can I be one of his “friends”? May I belong to the “church”? And I hear the answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). “Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
My heart is swayed, and I embrace the beauty and bounty of Christ as my treasure. And there flows into my heart this great reality – the love of Christ for me. So I say with those early witnesses, “He loved me and gave himself for me.”
And what do I mean? I mean that he paid the highest price possible to give me the greatest gift possible. And what is that? It is the gift he prayed for at the end of his life: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24). In his suffering and death “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We have seen enough to capture us for his cause. But the best is yet to come. He died to secure this for us. That is the love of Christ. John Piper.
This solves the problems of Security
The Son of God who Gave Himself for me
We cannot relate to God with confidence unless we know he accepts us as we are, with all of our sins. (Reflect on Romans 8:1- "...there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.") Also, Christians who don't know their security in Christ remain superficial in their awareness of their sinfulness or defensive about it—they can't bear this light because their acceptance before God is still practically based on their righteousness. (GO BACK TO THE RIGHT-HAND COLUMN OF ATONEMENT WORDS CHART. These terms all elaborate on our security in Christ.)
(Richard Lovelace) "'I am accepted' - accepted as though my life displayed the spiritual perfection of the Messiah himself - ought to be the automatic response of our hearts whenever we wake, like the compass needle that always points north. This is a response which is always relevant to our current spiritual condition. We never make such progress in sanctification that we can depend on it for (God's) acceptance. And our continuing record of sin and failure never expands beyond the limits of the love of Christ, who has covered our debts for all time, past, present, and future . . . Most Protestants have therefore concluded that assurance of salvation is necessary for healthy spirituality. Christians need to know that they have a secure status as adopted sons and daughters of God in order to behave naturally in his presence. For us to be phasing in and out of sonship according to our behavior, constantly testing our experiences to make sure we are in a 'state of grace,' short-circuits the reality of grace." (Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life, pp. 142,143.)
Jesus died for sinners, in their stead, bearing their punishment, so that He could secure their salvation. Toplady put it well:"Complete atonement Thou hast made And to the utmost farthing paid Whate'er Thy people owed. How then can wrath on me take place,If sheltered in Thy righteousness And sprinkled with Thy blood?"
"Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (v. 18). It is God Himself who can thus purge the leper from all his uncleanness, and justify the ungodly from all his guilt. And He does it, not at the expense of righteousness, but in a perfectly righteous way."'Tis in the Cross of Christ we see How God can save, yet righteous be;'Tis in the Cross of Christ we trace His righteousness and wondrous grace.The sinner who believes is free, Can say, the Saviour died for me;Can point to the atoning blood And say, That made my peace with God."
So it is Isaiah who, above all other prophetic writers, sets forth the work of the Cross. He looks on by the eye of faith to Calvary, and there he sees the Holy Sufferer dying for sins not His own. He exclaims, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:5,6).Have you ever thoughtfully considered these remarkable statements? If not, I beg you to ponder over them now: It was Jesus that the Spirit of God brought before the mind of Isaiah. He would have you gaze upon Him, too. Take each clause separately and weigh its wondrous meaning:"He was wounded for our transgressions." Make it personal! Put yourself and your own sins in there. Read it as though it said, "He was wounded for my transgressions." Do not get lost in the crowd. If there had never been another sinner in all the world, Jesus would have gone to the cross for you! Oh, believe it and enter into peace!"He was bruised for our iniquities." Make it personal! Think what your ungodliness and your self-will cost Him. He took the blows that should have fallen upon you. He stepped in between you and God, as the rod of justice was about to fall. It bruised Him in your stead. Again, I plead, make it personal! Cry out in faith, "He was bruised for my iniquities."Now go farther: "The chastisement of our peace was upon him." All that was necessary to make peace with God, He endured. "He made peace through the blood of his cross." Change the "our" to "my." "He made my peace.""He bore on the tree The sentence for me,And now both the surety And sinner are free."Now note the last clause of this glorious verse, "With his stripes we are healed." Do you see it? Can you set to your seal that God is true, and cry exultingly, "Yes, I a poor sinner, I a lost, ruined soul, I who so richly deserved judgment, I am healed by His stripes"?" It is not that God ignores our sins, or indulgently over-looks them; but on the cross all have been settled for. In Isaiah 53:6, He has balanced the books of the world. There were two debit entries:"All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way."But there is one credit item that squares the account:"the Lord hath laid on him (that is, on Jesus at the cross) the iniquity of us all."
The first debit entry takes into account our participation in the fall of the race. Sheep follow the leader. One goes through a hole in the fence and all follow after. So Adam sinned and we are all implicated in his guilt. "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."But the second entry takes into account our individual wilfulness. Each one has chosen to sin in his own way, so we are not only sinners by nature, but we are also transgressors by practice. In other words, we are lost - utterly lost. But "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). By His sacrificial death on the cross, He has paid to outraged justice that which meets every charge against the sinner.
"Payment He will not twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety's hand, And then again at mine."
There is an apparently authentic story told of the great Queen Victoria, so long ruler of Britain's vast empire. When she occupied her castle at Balmoral, Scotland, she was in the habit of calling, in a friendly way, upon certain cottagers living in the neighborhood. One aged Highland woman, who felt greatly honored by these visits and who knew the Lord, was anxious about the soul of the queen. As the season came to a close one year, her Majesty was making her last visit to the humble home of this dear child of God. After the good-byes were said, the old cottager timidly inquired, "May I ask your gracious Majesty a question?""Yes," replied the queen, ''as many as you like.""Will your Majesty meet me in heaven?"Instantly the royal visitor replied, "I will, through the all-availing blood of Jesus."
Will you be in heaven?
This solves the problem of Sanctification
We cannot relate to others appropriately unless we prioritize God's acceptance of us.
God's acceptance and forgiveness of us is the dynamic that motivates us to accept and forgive others. Unless we are secure in Christ, we will tend to take our security from others' acceptance of us—which leads to a host of relational dysfunctions.
I live by faith…
The Taking of Christ
John 1:11 He came to His own,and His own people did not receive Him. 12 But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood,or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man,but of God.
AB Simpson wrote the hymn
I clasp the hand of Love divine,
I claim the gracious promise mine,
Add to His my countersign;
I take, He undertakes.
I take Thee, blessèd Lord,
I give myself to Thee;
And Thou, according to Thy Word,
Dost undertake for me.
The Yielding to Christ
The Resting In Christ
Do you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you?
The life I now live in the flesh…We all live have and live by our world views…
Mum’s schizophrenia.. her world view was described on tv, having on and seeing through the wrong set of glasses.
Her glasses were that she was obsessed with paranoid understandings of her world.
Her world was a fearsome place with people seeking to murder her at every turn.
Most people know that most people in the world could care less about the other people in the world.
If someone tries to hurt me in some way, my first thought is, “oh they just don’t know who I am. I am the most cuddly person they will ever meet. I have the greatest personality, and the warmest smile, and the most dazzling looks and the greatest.. hey Mohamed Ali, move over.. I am the greatest!! Oops my wife and kids are here.. They know me … sigh! And so does Tal” hmmm.. so do you all! Well at least I do know that no one lays awake at night thinking of new a\ways to torment me. (At least I hope not.. if you do please tell me so I can get an avo out on you.)
God calls for our thinking and our world view to be changed.
“. . . Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” - Matthew 22:37
Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .- Romans 12:1-2
We think in fragments We think in images. We think in sounds.
“I think a lot of people are losing their religion. Definitely. Even me, I know that when I grew up, I used to go to church every Sunday, and now it’s become holidays. But I think as long as you have your own thing, whether it’s meditation—anything that centers you in life is good. Do I pray? Yeah, I do.”- Actress Kirsten Dunst, Rolling Stone, May 23, 2002, p. 69. “First I was ‘angry’, then ‘spiritual’. Now I don't know what I am.”-Alanis Morissette from Rolling Stone’s daily e-mail April 29, 2002.
What is a Worldview? “A worldview is first of all an explanation and interpretation of the world, and second, an application of this view to life.”
Your behaviour and values are built on your world view.
Our world view affects the way we see life and the way we see everything about life, and how we respond to life.
FACT: The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 was because Sioux Indians believed they were given shirts that would stop US Cavalry bullets. The Boxers in China had a similar faulty faith.
There is another name for “world-view”. It’s the word “faith”.
Everybody lives by some faith, whatever it may be.
It affects the cultural forms around us in our society.
God Theism Christian faith
Christianity is Christ. . .Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it; there is practically nothing left. Christ is the center of Christianity, all else is circumference. John Stott
We Christians live by the Christian faith. What does it mean to say that we Christians live by faith?
Making sense of the world.. by faith.
I live by faith…
Unfeigned faith
Unwavering faith
This solves the problems of Significance
The Son Of God who Loved me
The death of Christ is not only the demonstration of God’s love (John 3:16), it is also the supreme expression of Christ’s own love for all who receive it as their treasure. The early witnesses who suffered most for being Christians were captured by this fact: Christ “loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). They took the self-giving act of Christ’s sacrifice very personally. They said, “He loved me. He gave himself for me.”
Surely this is the way we should understand the sufferings and death of Christ. They have to do with me. They are about Christ’s love for me personally. It is my sin that cuts me off from God, not sin in general. It is my hard-heartedness and spiritual numbness that demean the worth of Christ. I am lost and perishing. When it comes to salvation, I have forfeited all claim on justice. All I can do is plead for mercy.
Then I see Christ suffering and dying. For whom? It says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
And I ask, Am I among the “many”? Can I be one of his “friends”? May I belong to the “church”? And I hear the answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). “Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
My heart is swayed, and I embrace the beauty and bounty of Christ as my treasure. And there flows into my heart this great reality – the love of Christ for me. So I say with those early witnesses, “He loved me and gave himself for me.”
And what do I mean? I mean that he paid the highest price possible to give me the greatest gift possible. And what is that? It is the gift he prayed for at the end of his life: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (John 17:24). In his suffering and death “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We have seen enough to capture us for his cause. But the best is yet to come. He died to secure this for us. That is the love of Christ. John Piper.
This solves the problems of Security
The Son of God who Gave Himself for me
We cannot relate to God with confidence unless we know he accepts us as we are, with all of our sins. (Reflect on Romans 8:1- "...there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.") Also, Christians who don't know their security in Christ remain superficial in their awareness of their sinfulness or defensive about it—they can't bear this light because their acceptance before God is still practically based on their righteousness. (GO BACK TO THE RIGHT-HAND COLUMN OF ATONEMENT WORDS CHART. These terms all elaborate on our security in Christ.)
(Richard Lovelace) "'I am accepted' - accepted as though my life displayed the spiritual perfection of the Messiah himself - ought to be the automatic response of our hearts whenever we wake, like the compass needle that always points north. This is a response which is always relevant to our current spiritual condition. We never make such progress in sanctification that we can depend on it for (God's) acceptance. And our continuing record of sin and failure never expands beyond the limits of the love of Christ, who has covered our debts for all time, past, present, and future . . . Most Protestants have therefore concluded that assurance of salvation is necessary for healthy spirituality. Christians need to know that they have a secure status as adopted sons and daughters of God in order to behave naturally in his presence. For us to be phasing in and out of sonship according to our behavior, constantly testing our experiences to make sure we are in a 'state of grace,' short-circuits the reality of grace." (Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life, pp. 142,143.)
Jesus died for sinners, in their stead, bearing their punishment, so that He could secure their salvation. Toplady put it well:"Complete atonement Thou hast made And to the utmost farthing paid Whate'er Thy people owed. How then can wrath on me take place,If sheltered in Thy righteousness And sprinkled with Thy blood?"
"Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (v. 18). It is God Himself who can thus purge the leper from all his uncleanness, and justify the ungodly from all his guilt. And He does it, not at the expense of righteousness, but in a perfectly righteous way."'Tis in the Cross of Christ we see How God can save, yet righteous be;'Tis in the Cross of Christ we trace His righteousness and wondrous grace.The sinner who believes is free, Can say, the Saviour died for me;Can point to the atoning blood And say, That made my peace with God."
So it is Isaiah who, above all other prophetic writers, sets forth the work of the Cross. He looks on by the eye of faith to Calvary, and there he sees the Holy Sufferer dying for sins not His own. He exclaims, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:5,6).Have you ever thoughtfully considered these remarkable statements? If not, I beg you to ponder over them now: It was Jesus that the Spirit of God brought before the mind of Isaiah. He would have you gaze upon Him, too. Take each clause separately and weigh its wondrous meaning:"He was wounded for our transgressions." Make it personal! Put yourself and your own sins in there. Read it as though it said, "He was wounded for my transgressions." Do not get lost in the crowd. If there had never been another sinner in all the world, Jesus would have gone to the cross for you! Oh, believe it and enter into peace!"He was bruised for our iniquities." Make it personal! Think what your ungodliness and your self-will cost Him. He took the blows that should have fallen upon you. He stepped in between you and God, as the rod of justice was about to fall. It bruised Him in your stead. Again, I plead, make it personal! Cry out in faith, "He was bruised for my iniquities."Now go farther: "The chastisement of our peace was upon him." All that was necessary to make peace with God, He endured. "He made peace through the blood of his cross." Change the "our" to "my." "He made my peace.""He bore on the tree The sentence for me,And now both the surety And sinner are free."Now note the last clause of this glorious verse, "With his stripes we are healed." Do you see it? Can you set to your seal that God is true, and cry exultingly, "Yes, I a poor sinner, I a lost, ruined soul, I who so richly deserved judgment, I am healed by His stripes"?" It is not that God ignores our sins, or indulgently over-looks them; but on the cross all have been settled for. In Isaiah 53:6, He has balanced the books of the world. There were two debit entries:"All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way."But there is one credit item that squares the account:"the Lord hath laid on him (that is, on Jesus at the cross) the iniquity of us all."
The first debit entry takes into account our participation in the fall of the race. Sheep follow the leader. One goes through a hole in the fence and all follow after. So Adam sinned and we are all implicated in his guilt. "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."But the second entry takes into account our individual wilfulness. Each one has chosen to sin in his own way, so we are not only sinners by nature, but we are also transgressors by practice. In other words, we are lost - utterly lost. But "the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). By His sacrificial death on the cross, He has paid to outraged justice that which meets every charge against the sinner.
"Payment He will not twice demand, First at my bleeding Surety's hand, And then again at mine."
There is an apparently authentic story told of the great Queen Victoria, so long ruler of Britain's vast empire. When she occupied her castle at Balmoral, Scotland, she was in the habit of calling, in a friendly way, upon certain cottagers living in the neighborhood. One aged Highland woman, who felt greatly honored by these visits and who knew the Lord, was anxious about the soul of the queen. As the season came to a close one year, her Majesty was making her last visit to the humble home of this dear child of God. After the good-byes were said, the old cottager timidly inquired, "May I ask your gracious Majesty a question?""Yes," replied the queen, ''as many as you like.""Will your Majesty meet me in heaven?"Instantly the royal visitor replied, "I will, through the all-availing blood of Jesus."
Will you be in heaven?
This solves the problem of Sanctification
We cannot relate to others appropriately unless we prioritize God's acceptance of us.
God's acceptance and forgiveness of us is the dynamic that motivates us to accept and forgive others. Unless we are secure in Christ, we will tend to take our security from others' acceptance of us—which leads to a host of relational dysfunctions.
I live by faith…
The Taking of Christ
John 1:11 He came to His own,and His own people did not receive Him. 12 But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood,or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man,but of God.
AB Simpson wrote the hymn
I clasp the hand of Love divine,
I claim the gracious promise mine,
Add to His my countersign;
I take, He undertakes.
I take Thee, blessèd Lord,
I give myself to Thee;
And Thou, according to Thy Word,
Dost undertake for me.
The Yielding to Christ
The Resting In Christ
Do you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you?
# posted by Groseys messages @ 4:01 PM 
