Mark Altrogge over at the Blazing Center blog recently posted the following.  Some good stuff on how we view God, ourselves and others.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ (LK 18.11-12)

I’m glad I’m not like that self-righteous Pharisee, so glad I have to pray.

Lord, thank you that I’m a Christian, not an alcoholic or a drug addict.  Thank you that I don’t swear, that I’m not like gays and lesbians or abortionists or those liberal idiots in Washington.  Thank you that I don’t have purple hair and I’m not covered with tattoos and piercings.  I tithe and read my Bible and pray before meals.  I even prayed last week in Ruby Tuesday.

Hey, wait a minute…

I am the Pharisee.

“We are all naturally self-righteous; it is the family disease of all the children of Adam. We secretly flatter ourselves that we are not so bad as some so that we have something to recommend us to God.” — JC Ryle

I am the Pharisee when my teenager sins and I say “How could you do that?”

I am the Pharisee when I believe I’m right and can’t possibly be wrong.

I am the Pharisee when I think “I hope my wife is listening to this message.”

I am the Pharisee when I judge my fellow Christian thinking, “I can’t believe he would do that.  I never would.”

I am the Pharisee when I feel disgust for any unbeliever, or fail to pity them in their sin.

Only the blood of Jesus can cure me.  The only antidote for my self-righteousness is Christ’s righteousness, and the only cure for my self-flattery is boasting in the cross.

Join my club, Pharisees Anonymous.  I’m President, but we still need a sergeant-at-arms.

The following was posted by Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds a few weeks ago.  I found it very helpful.

The best thing I’ve read on this is David Powlison’s essay-turned-booklet, “God’s Love: Better Than Unconditional.”

Powlison suggests that people who use the term often have good intentions, wanting to affirm four interrelated truths:

1. “Conditional love” is bad—unconditional is shorthand for the opposite of manipulation, demand, judgmentalism.
2. God’s love is patient—unconditional is shorthand for hanging on for the long haul, rather than bailing out when the going gets rough.
3. True love is God’s gift—unconditional is shorthand for unearned blessings, rather than legalism
4. God receives you just as you are: sinful, suffering, confused—unconditional is shorthand for God’s invitation to rough, dirty, broken people

These are true—and precious. But Powlison offers several responses. (I can only summarize and paraphrase here—buy the booklet to see the arguments in full.)

First, Powlison suggests that “there are more biblical and vivid ways to capture each of the four truths just stated.” “People currently employ a somewhat vague, abstract word — unconditional — when the Bible gives us more vivid and specific words, metaphors, and stories.”

Second, it’s not true that unmerited grace is strictly unconditional. Jesus Christ opened a way for us to experience the biblical love of God by fulfilling two conditions: a life of perfect obedience to the moral will of God, and a perfect substitutionary death on our behalf. Powlison writes: “Unconditional love? No, something much better. People who now use the word unconditional often communicate an acceptance neutered of this detailed, Christ-specific truth.”

Third, God’s love is more than conditional, for it is intended to change those who receive it. “Unconditional” often connotes “you’re okay.” But there is something wrong with you. The word “unconditional” may well express the welcome of God, but it does not well express the point of his welcome.

Fourth, “unconditional love” carries a load of cultural baggage, wedded to words like “tolerance, acceptance, affirmation, benign, okay,” and a philosophy that says love should not impose values, expectations, or beliefs on another. In fact, humanist psychology even has a term for it: “unconditional positive regard” (Carl Rogers).

Here is Powlison again:

We can do better. Saying “God’s love is unconditional love” is a bit like saying “The sun’s light at high noon is a flashlight in a blackout.” Come again? A dim bulb sustains certain analogies to the sun. Unconditional love does sustain certain analogies to God’s love. But why not start with the blazing sun rather than the flashlight? When you look closely, God’s love is very different from “unconditional positive regard,” the seedbed of contemporary notions of unconditional love. God does not accept me just as I am; He loves me despite how I am; He loves me just as Jesus is; He loves me enough to devote my life to renewing me in the image of Jesus. This love is much, much, much better than unconditional! Perhaps we could call it “contraconditional” love. Contrary to the conditions for knowing God’s blessing, He has blessed me because His Son fulfilled the conditions. Contrary to my due, He loves me. And now I can begin to change, not to earn love but because of love.

. . . You need something better than unconditional love. You need the crown of thorns. You need the touch of life to the dead son of the widow of Nain. You need the promise to the repentant thief. You need to know, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” You need forgiveness. You need a Vinedresser, a Shepherd, a Father, a Savior. You need to become like the one who loves you. You need the better love of Jesus.

Here are a few quotes I’ve enjoyed recently from the blog Of First Importance.  They made me think of the series on evangelism Josh has been taking us through. The gospel is a message worth proclaiming!

“Never lose heart in the power of the gospel. Do not believe that there exists any man, much less any race of men, for whom the gospel is not fitted.”

- Charles Spurgeon

“What Christ is as Savior perfectly dovetails our deepest and most ultimate need. This is just saying that Christ’s sufficiency as Savior meets the desperateness and hopelessness of our sin and misery.

Christ is exactly suited to all that I am in my sin and misery and to all that I should aspire to be by God’s grace. Christ fits in perfectly to the totality of our situation in its sin, guilt, misery, and ill-desert.”

—John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955), 111

“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.”

- D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation

In case you haven’t heard, next Friday, the 27th we are joining with Cornerstone Community Church and Foothill Christian Fellowship to host Matthew Smith in concert.

The concert will be held at Cornerstone, will start at 6:30pm and admission is free.  Invite friends and come enjoy fellowship, praising God together, and good music.

Some of Matthew’s songs you might recognize from our worship at church are, “All I Owe,” “Come Ye Sinners,” and versions of “Nothing but the Blood,” and “Come Thou Fount.”

You can hear his music streaming at his website- www.matthewsmith.us

The following quote was posted by Thabiti Anyawabi over at the Pure Church blog.  Definitely food for thought as we parent our boys (or girls).

“Imagine a family who did not prepare their children for college. This would be unthinkable in today’s world. Everyone prepares their child for an academic future. Day-care programs boast about the head start they will give children in their “academic careers.” We buy houses in neighborhoods with “the best schools.” Beyond that, many families place their children in expensive preparatory schools, enduring tremendous financial burdens, incurring debt, and commuting hours each day in an effort to give their children an edge in that all-important race for the apex of academia.

However, little thought is given to preparing our sons to be husbands. Thus, they meander through life without the skills or mind-set necessary to play this most important role until one day, having met “the one,” they pop the question, set a date, and—in the rarest of cases—go to the pastor to learn everything they need to know about being the priest, prophet, provider, and protector of a household in four one-hour sessions. In the words of that great theologian Dr. Phil, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

As a result, we have families led by men who haven’t the foggiest idea what their role is or how to carry it out. We have wives who were created with a God-given need to be led by godly men, a curse from the days in the garden that puts them at odds with this arrangement, and a cultural mandate to fight against male headship. Top this off with children who long for the security that can only be found in clear roles and boundaries in the home, and the result is a frustrated family mired in dysfunction. Sound familiar?

If we have any desire to change this, we must begin to prepare young men to be husbands and fathers. We must stop preparing them for lives of selfishness, immediate gratification, and perpetual adolescence if we ever expect to turn the tide. The skills required of a husband and father take a lifetime to acquire. Our sons must begin to acquire them sooner rather than later. If we prepare our children to be husbands and wives, and God calls and equips them to be single, we have lost nothing. On the other hand, if we do not prepare our children to be husbands and wives, and they (like the overwhelming majority of people) end up married someday, we have lost a great deal. Prudence would point toward the necessity to prepare our children for marriage, and to do so with all diligence.”

- Voddie Bauchman, What He Must Be… If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, p. 42-44

I know we often find it challenging to be proactive in our parenting when there seems to be so much reactive and disciplinary training necessary.  I suppose that to some extent we are laying the groundwork for a greater amount of proactive training to begin to take place in the next couple of years.

We depend on God, walk forward in faith, and trust God and His work in our children.

I realized I failed to post the links to the last couple weeks of our Equip class on vocation and work.  Here is what we’ve gone over.

Week #4-

Vocation Plans- article by Alex Chediak

Some questions to Ask When Considering a Job- article by John Piper

Ephesians 6:5-9- audio sermon by Ligon Duncan

Week #5-

Slow Down, I want to Get Off- article by Tim Chester

Work and Worship- audio sermon by Mark Driscoll

Here are a couple of quotes I’ve found thought provoking and helpful lately.

First, my friend Dave Cleland posted a quote from John Piper’s new book “Finally Alive.”

“…my feelings do not define truth.  God’s Word defines truth.  My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives.  And sometimes- many times- my feelings are out of sync with the truth.  When that happens- and it happens every day in some measure- I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”

John Piper, Finally Alive, p. 165-166

Second, from the blog Of First Importance:

“The doctrines of the gospel are meant to mould us so that our lives begin to ’set’ in the likeness of Christ. We have made little or no impression upon the world, for the very reason that the gospel doctrine has made a correspondingly slight impression upon us. It cannot be overemphasized that men and women who have accomplished anything in God’s strength have always done so on the basis of their grasp of truth.”

- Sinclair Ferguson, The Christian Life (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1981), 8-9.

Third, again from Of First Importance:

“Luther taught that every time you insist that I am a sinner, just so often do you call me to remember the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not upon mine, lie all my sins. So, when you say that I am a sinner, you do not terrify, but comfort me immeasurably.”

—Thomas Oden, The Justification Reader (Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 2002), 5