Reformed Readers

It takes a wartime mentality to realize the need for a strategy. The gospel is being attacked and we have the responsibility to defend it but the Church seems dysfunctional and disconnected from each other. As a whole we seem to have a superficial Christianity. In our local churches we need to be a praying people and to have deep relationships within our Churches, the kind where the iron really grinds the iron. Not fake but loving relationships. We need to promote a closer personal walk with God accompanied by a holy life that boils over into every facet of our life. We need to have a living faith and a life of faith.

Joh 13:35  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Rom 13:8  Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

2Co 13:11  Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Gal 5:13-16 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

1Th 3:12  and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you…

These scriptures show us the need of and error in not loving one another. When I read John Piper’s article ‘The power of books and How to Use them‘ several years ago I thought it would be a good way foster the type of relationships in the church that could example ‘loving one another’ to the world as these scriptures describe. Reading the Bible and other Christ center book is a good way to build relationships within the church. We reap what we sow brothers.

Hos 10:12-13 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way.….

To Be Near Unto God is daily devotional book by Abraham Kuyper. This is the preface from the book.

As in everything that risks itself in the depth of mysticism, so in the preparation of these Meditations, lurked undeniable danger. The soul that seeks God involuntarily inclines to step across the boundary appointed of God, defined by the word “near,” and to force an entrance into His being. From the first I was on guard against this danger, and I believe I have escaped it. On the other hand, fear of this danger could not be allowed to repress that fervor and that spiritual warmth, which refreshes the soul only when the feelings are aroused and the imagination awakened. Mere thinking is not meditation, this is something quite different, and, in view of the wide-awake preparedness necessary to withstand the constant onslaught waged from the gates of hell against the Church of the Living God, with a fierceness that neither respects nor spares, this other something is an undeniable need of the soul.

This onslaught puts one on his mettle (determination and courage) to present counter arguments, philosophical refutation and keen-edged anti-criticism. But this, unless counter-balanced, confines our spirit to the world of thought, and thereby threatens to externalize our creed, our faith and our piety. Intellectualism produces, as it were, beautifully shaped, finely cornered and dazzlingly transparent ice-crystals. But underneath that ice the stream of the living water so easily runs dry. There may be gain in doctrinal abstractions, but true religion, as show in the warm piety of the heart, suffers loss.

This is not necessary. The fathers of the church have set us an example. With them we find a virile (fervent and manly) gift of argument; but it is always permeated with ardent mysticism.

Contemplative thought, reflections and meditations on the soul’s nearness unto God tend merely to correct the above-named error; tend to draw the soul away from the abstract in doctrine and life, back to the reality of religion; tend, with all due appreciation of ‘chemical’ analysis of the spiritual waters, to lead the soul back to the living Fountain itself, from whence these waters flow.

Stress in creedal confession, without drinking of these waters, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism.

Only he who feels, perceives and knows that he stands in personal fellowship with the living God, and who continually tests his spiritual experience by the Word, is safe. He exhibits strength, and maintains, for his part, the power of religion in his home. Among his associates and in the world at large, and inspires with reverence even those who are despisers of God and His word.

My prayer is, that the meditations here offered may establish, advance, or restore, such a healthy state of soul with many a child of God.

To have reached this end in the case of even one heart would furnish abundant reason for praise and thanksgiving.

Kuyper

The Hague, Netherlands

June 1, 1908

Jonathan Edwards is arguably the greatest American theologian.  He has contributed many great works for furtherance of the gospel. For me the writing of greatest influence is his resolutions. Edwards wrote these in his teenage years between 1722 and 1723 (O may we raise teens like this). They show a real zeal for the glory of God and for the love of people, a hatred for sin and a healthy self loathing and self awareness found in very few today. They encourage us to be gentle and meek while making statements of vehement living like “live with all my might wile I do live”

Although much of what is said is ideal and seems beyond attainability for the common man he adds through out hints of the reality that these things are dependent, like the opening, “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.”

These resolutions are worthy to imitate and the example of writing our own resolutions should be followed. I hope this post will be an encouragement to you for godly living. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” – Philippians 4:8

http://www.apuritansmind.com/ChristianWalk/ResolutionsOfJonathanEdwards.htm

My first post is a dedication to my wife Heidi. My Katherine von Bora whokeeps me in touch with reality and puts up with all crazy ideas. I love you more.