The Remedy for Our Idolatry

Nick Batzig

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1st John 5:21). If the heart of man is, as John Calvin described it, “an idol-making factory”, then the way in which those idols are destroyed should be of utmost importance to us. The Bible is replete with references to idolatry because it was written with the purpose of confronting it and providing the remedy for it. The idolatry of Israel is evident throughout the Old Testament—no less than the idolatry of the Gentile nations. No sooner did God deliver His people from the bondage of the idolatrous Egyptians, than they made an idol at the foot of the mountain to which He had brought them to worship. The New Testament writers also bear witness to the pervasive sin of idolatry. In his letter to the church in Rome, the Apostle Paul taught that men, by nature, “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” He reminded the church in Thessalonica that they had “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven”, and he exhorted the Colossians to put off “covetousness, which is idolatry”. In similar fashion, the Apostle John closed his first epistle with the admonition: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Throughout Israel’s history, a recurring act symbolized the means by which God would remove the idolatry of His people. When Moses found the people worshiping the golden calf at the foot of the mountain, he “took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder.” He then “scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it” (Exodus 32:20). When Moses recounted the act, he explained that he threw the dust of the idol “into a nearby brook” (Deuteronomy 9:21). The burning, crushing, and grinding of the idol represented the judgment of God against sin. The act of throwing the dust of the idol into the brook almost certainly represented the removal of it from the people, as well as from the presence of God. Like the scapegoat being sent into the wilderness, this act prefigured God’s promise to put the sins of His people away from His presence.

Moses’ symbolic act became a paradigm for the subsequent acts of the righteous kings of Israel. Each of these kings removed idols from the land in a manner similar to that of Moses. King Asa cut down the idol that his grandmother set up and burned it by the Kidron (1st Kings 15:11-13). King Josiah “brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord, to the brook Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it at the brook Kidron and ground it to ashes.” He “broke them down and pulverized them, and threw their dust into the brook Kidron” (2nd Kings 23:6, 12).

Under the reign of King Hezekiah, “the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the debris that they found in the temple of the Lord…and carried it to the brook Kidron…and they took away all the incense altars and cast them into the brook Kidron” (2nd Chronicles 29:16; 30:14). While these kings are remembered for destroying idols from the land of Israel, none of them could purge the hearts of the people. The righteous kings of Israel may have temporarily purged the land of idols, but King Jesus removes them from our hearts forever. As He made His way to Calvary, Jesus crossed over the brook Kidron (John 18:1) to symbolize everything He had come to do. He was burnt, crushed, and ground by the wrath of God on the cross.

Jesus is the cure for our idolatry. God the Son took to Himself flesh and blood, so that He might bear the penalty for our idolatry in His own body on the tree. Then He rose bodily from the dead. The Father now commands us to worship a Man— the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

France’s foremost preacher of the nineteenth century, Adolphe Monod, explained the mystery of this truth in a most profound way:

“I strive to live in the communion of Jesus Christ—praying to Him, waiting for Him, speaking to Him, hearing Him, and, in a word, constantly bearing witness to Him day and night; all which would be idolatry if He were not God, and God in the highest sense of the word, the highest that the human mind is capable of giving to that sublime name.”

What idols are you harboring in your heart? Are you giving affections and labors to created things? How are we to keep ourselves from idols? The remedy is only to be found in the person and finished work of Christ. He has destroyed the idols of His people, once and for all, by His death on the cross. Our sins have been washed away in His blood. He has “cast them into the depths of the sea”, even as the righteous kings cast the crushed idols into the brook Kidron. Praise God for His righteous King and His righteous rule in our hearts!

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/the-remedy-for-our-idolatry/

Ten Reasons to Love and Trust Jesus

By: Pat Quinn

In our perilous time of pandemic, disruption, and death, Jesus shines forth with hope-filled and glorious love and power. As counselors today, we share the same circumstantial fears, frustrations, and isolation as those we counsel, and we need the same Jesus we commend to them. Mark 5:21-43 records two stories of Jesus dealing with seemingly impossible situations: the healing of the woman with an incurable discharge of blood and the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Both of these accounts point to a Savior who is utterly reliable and unfailingly strong in the most trying of circumstances. These two stories provide ten solid reasons to love and trust Jesus Christ in the hardest situations.

Ten Reasons to Love and Trust Jesus

1. Jesus is compassionately responsive to urgent requests for help.

Jairus, a ruler of a local synagogue, pleads with Jesus to come and heal his dying daughter. Mark records simply, “And he went with him” (Mark 5:24). No hesitation; no request for information. Jesus responds immediately. He could have healed her right away from a distance and said, “Go home; your daughter will live.” By agreeing to go with Jairus to his house, there would be a delay and then a costly interruption and, therefore, an extended time for Jairus to have to wait anxiously. This reminds us that Jesus always hears and responds to our cries for help, but the timing and method of His help are in His sovereign hands. Delays and frustrating interruptions may come but cannot ultimately hinder His work.

2. Jesus is absolutely undaunted by “impossible” situations.

There are three increasingly difficult situations Jesus deals with here. First, a daughter at the point of death—urgent. Second, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years who had spent all her money and had only gotten worse—desperate. Third, during the delay dealing with the woman, the daughter dies—beyond all help. However, Jesus is unfazed by the escalating problems. Sickness, incurable disease, and even death do not trouble Him. As He told His disciples later, “All things are possible for God” (Mark 10:27).

3. Jesus calls needy sinners to engage with Him face-to-face.

As Jesus follows Jairus, the woman with the discharge of blood touches His garment and is immediately healed. Jesus perceives that power had gone out from Him and asks, “Who touched my garment” (Mark 5:30)? The terrified woman comes forward and tells Him what she did, probably expecting to be rebuked for touching Jesus when she was unclean. However, Jesus unexpectedly reassures her. Why did He call her out of hiding? I believe it is because Jesus doesn’t merely want to help people; He wants to make disciples. This is important in our counseling troubled people. The ultimate goal of our counseling is not just to help people work through their problems, even with Jesus’ help. The goal is that they would see His glory, love Him, and follow Him in committed discipleship.

4. Jesus responds powerfully to the “touch of faith.”

Verses 27-29 says, “She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, ‘If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.’ And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body she was healed of her disease.” She heard about Jesus, she sought Him out, and she “touched” Him in faith. This describes well what we attempt to do in biblical counseling: point people to the real Jesus, showing through scripturally faithful and creative means who Jesus is, what He has accomplished, and what He promises to do. Then we seek to lead them sensitively to actually touch Him in faith-filled prayer. Every sincere cry for help, however feeble, is touching Jesus. And it always results in a response from Him. Like Jairus, it may encounter delays or unexpected hindrances. The answer might not be exactly how and when we pictured it, but Jesus promises that if we ask, it will be given (Matt. 7:7-11).

5. Jesus confirms and commends genuine faith.

I love how Jesus responds to the woman’s faith. As she comes “in fear and trembling,” anticipating Jesus’ displeasure at her presumption, He says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34). Marvel at His gifts of grace: He tenderly calls her “daughter;” He commends her faith in front of a crowd that would earlier have looked down on her, thus restoring her to community; He offers her the peace that has eluded her for so long; He confirms her healing and the new life she has been given. This is the Jesus we connect our counselees to—the gentle Healer who “took our illnesses and bore our diseases” (Matt. 8:17) on the cross and who longs to give new life to those who reach out to Him in faith.

6. Jesus confronts fear and despair with, “Do not fear; only believe.”

I’m so thankful that the Bible is utterly realistic. While the story of Jesus (and all who are united to Him by faith) ends with the happiest of all happily ever afters, there are surprising setbacks and discouraging plot twists along the way. Jairus, who has been anxiously waiting for Jesus to finish dealing with the woman, is now confronted with, “Your daughter is dead: Why trouble the teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35). This is what life looks and feels like sometimes: things are desperate, we cry out to God, and then they get worse. They seem to go from difficult to desperate to improbable to impossible. How striking that Jesus speaks what sounds like a crazy command to Jairus: “Do not fear; only believe” (Mark 5:36). How can Jesus say this? How can we believe in the face of death itself? Jesus knows what we often forget or simply struggle to believe: He is the Son of God, the resurrection and life (John 11:25), the all-sufficient Creator and Redeemer. He has the power to raise the dead! How important for us to meditate long and hard on the character and power of Christ so we can commend Him to hopeless counselees.

7. Jesus radically reinterprets hopeless situations.

Death is final. It’s the end of life and the end of hope. It’s the final loss of everything. So how does Jesus address death? What is His interpretation? Again, His reply is shocking but shockingly hopeful: “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping” (Mark 5:39). Why does Jesus say this? If the child had been hooked up to a heart monitor, it would have flatlined. He says this because to Him, death is merely sleep, and He can wake her by calling gently to her and telling her to get up. That’s what it means to be the Son of God. You see everything differently because you have all power and authority in heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18). Biblical counselors have the privilege of connecting our counselees’ stories to Jesus’ story so we can help them reinterpret their circumstances in a realistic yet hopeful way. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our lives are ultimately comedies, not tragedies, and this story helps us interpret them that way.

 8. Jesus tenderly raises little ones to new life.

“Talitha cumi…Little girl I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41). One of our granddaughters is named Talitha. When her mom was pregnant with her, there was a time when they thought they had lost her. Thankfully, that didn’t turn out to be the case. One of the reasons they named her Talitha was because they felt like they had received her back when they thought they had lost her. Needless to say, the name Talitha and this story are precious to me. I am drawn again to the power and tenderness of Jesus. He radiates compassion for this family, love for this little girl, the power to raise the dead, and a burning desire for all to see Him as He is and trust Him with what is most precious to us.

9. Jesus cares about our most practical earthly needs.

Most of this story soars in the stratosphere of Jesus’ transcendent power over sickness and death. We are breathing the air of heaven and walking on holy ground. I smile, therefore, when at the end of this amazing story, Jesus tells the parents to “give her something to eat” (Mark 5:43). From the heights of heaven to the mundane needs of the earth. “She looks a little pale. Why don’t you make her some lunch.” He responds to our desperate cries for supernatural power as well as our ordinary needs for food and drink. This is an important reminder to me as I counsel. I am wired more to attend to spiritual needs. I need to remember and remind my counselees that Jesus cares just as much for our practical needs. What a Savior!

10. Jesus is utterly amazing in every way.

This story is an eloquent testimony to the beauty and greatness of Jesus. It impresses upon us that the only reasonable response to Him is to be “overcome with amazement” (Mark 5:42). The goal of our counseling can be nothing less than grateful worship and joyful service to our Redeemer and King.

Ten reasons to love and trust Jesus: let us commit ourselves to learning, living, and lavishing them on those entrusted to our care.

 Questions for Reflection

1. What do you see about Jesus in these two stories that moves you to love and wonder?

2. Think of someone you’re counseling who is facing desperate circumstances. Which of the ten reasons does this person especially need to see and take to heart?

3. How can you help him/her to see Jesus more clearly, love Him more genuinely, and trust Him more fully?

Posted at: https://www.biblicalcounselingcoalition.org/2020/05/11/ten-reasons-to-love-and-trust-jesus/

Christ the Divine Son

Joseph Hamrick

John 1:1-4- “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

The Divine Son of God, the Word of God

Jesus is the divine Son of God, without beginning and end, fully equal in the Trinity with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

As William Hendricksen states in his Colossian Commentary, “If the Son is the very image of the invisible God, and if the invisible God is from everlasting to everlasting, it follows that the Son, too, must be eternally God’s image.”

When Paul states that Christ is the image of God in Colossians 1. Christ Himself agrees when he states, “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” Christ can say that and be completely accurate considering He is the express image of God. In His incarnation, He was the invisible God made visible.

See the distinction: we are made in God’s image, but Christ is God’s image. And as God’s image, therefore, He must be fully equal in divinity with the Father.

The Divine Son of God, Creator, and Sustainer of All Things

Everything exists because of Christ, and everything exists for Him.

Christ’s preeminence is not only present in the Gospel accounts, but also throughout the Pastoral letters, including Colossians 1:15-20, Hebrews 1:1-3, and a plethora of others as well. The New Testament authors, carried along by the Spirit, took painstakingly clear measures to show in no uncertain terms, Christ is fully divine, and being divine is eternal.

Since Christ created all things, He is considered the “firstborn” of all creation. This is different than how we view that word. To be a firstborn naturally means one was born first. But here in Colossians 1:15, Paul means for us to understand Christ not as firstborn in the sense that Christ the Divine Son of God was ever created, rather, that considering that God created all things through Christ, He has the status of the firstborn: all things are His.

And not only does everything owe its existence to Christ, but also its continual sustainment. Christ keeps all things by the power of His word (Hebrews 1:3). Take a moment to dwell on that knowledge. It can be too easy to gloss over these sections of Scripture, to read of the radiance of Christ so often that it becomes a mundane, ordinary affair. That is why meditation and prayer are so essential to the Christian walk. Read these beautiful passages of Christ’s divine power and meditate on what it means that Christ sustains you.

Breathe in. Christ sustains you. Breathe out. Christ sustains you still. He does this by the divine word of His power.

The Divine Son of God, the Light of Life

Humans have the innate ability to create. We see and use our creations every day: books, movies, electronics, buildings, etc.; but all these are secondary creations, and they all lack one essential thing: life.

No matter what we create, we cannot imbue our creations with life, we cannot create a soul.

But Scripture says that in Christ Himself is life itself. When we look upon Christ, we are looking at someone who controls the very essence of life. Thankfully, and most graciously, Christ did not keep that life to Himself. For  Christians, He gave us the twofold meaning of life.

First, in our creation, He gave us the breath of life. Our lives began from the moment of conception, knitted in the womb by Christ (Psalm 139:13), and secondly in our newborn lives, Christ gave us spiritual life, raising us from the dead, having created us in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).

Christ is the giver of life, and the giver of life is none other than the divine Son of God.

Prayer

Christ, may we recognize who You are as the divine Son of God, without beginning and without end. May we realize our utter dependence on the Lord to give us life from the dead and to sustain our very breath and being. May we say along with Peter, “Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Amen.

Posted at: https://servantsofgrace.org/christ-the-divine-son/

The Greatest Salvation Imaginable

• Devotional by John Piper

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . . . ” (Jeremiah 31:31)

God is just and holy and separated from sinners like us. This is our main problem at Christmas — and every other season. How shall we get right with a just and holy God?

Nevertheless, God is merciful and has promised in Jeremiah 31 (five hundred years before Christ) that someday he would do something new. He would replace shadows with the Reality of the Messiah. And he would powerfully move into our lives and write his will on our hearts so that we are not constrained from outside, but are willing from inside, to love him and trust him and follow him.

That would be the greatest salvation imaginable — if God should offer us the greatest Reality in the universe to enjoy and then move in us to know that Reality in such a way that we could enjoy it with the greatest freedom and the greatest pleasure possible. That would be a Christmas gift worth singing about.

That is, in fact, what he promised in the new covenant. But there was a huge obstacle. Our sin. Our separation from God because of our unrighteousness.

How shall a holy and just God treat us sinners with so much kindness as to give us the greatest Reality in the universe (his Son) to enjoy with the greatest possible joy?

The answer is that God put our sins on his Son, and judged them there, so that he could put them out of his mind, and deal with us mercifully and remain just and holy at the same time. Hebrews 9:28 says Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many.”

Christ bore our sins in his own body when he died (1 Peter 2:24). He took our judgment (Romans 8:3). He canceled our guilt (Romans 8:1). And that means our sins are gone (Acts 10:43). They do not remain in God’s mind as a basis for condemnation. In that sense, he “forgets” them (Jeremiah 31:34). They are consumed in the death of Christ.

Which means that God is now free, in his justice, to lavish us with all the unspeakably great new covenant promises. He gives us Christ, the greatest Reality in the universe, for our enjoyment. And he writes his own will — his own heart — on our hearts so that we can love Christ and trust Christ and follow Christ from the inside out, with freedom and joy.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-greatest-salvation-imaginable

The Stains That No One Sees : How Jesus Removes Our Shame

Article by Sam Allberry

In 1966, England charged to glory by winning the football World Cup. It fell on the captain, Bobby Moore, to have the honor of walking up the steps of Wembley Stadium to receive the trophy from the queen.

Asked afterward how he felt during that historic moment, Moore admitted that he was terrified. The queen, he’d noticed, was wearing pristine white gloves. His hands were covered in dirt from the match, and he was going to have to shake her hand. And so, as he walked up those steps, he frantically tried to wipe his hands clean.

Most of us have had some experience of being unclean. But of course, there is more than one kind of being dirty. We can feel desperately unclean on the inside too.

How Shame Feels

Mark’s Gospel introduces us to someone who knew all too well what it meant to feel unclean. In Mark 1:40–45, Jesus encounters a leper, someone whose skin condition left him ceremonially unclean according to Old Testament law. Leprosy was a particularly cruel condition. It was regarded as incurable and highly contagious. Those afflicted with it endured both physical discomfort and social isolation, and for something they did not do or bring on themselves. They were considered a spiritual, as well as a physical, contagion.

“At the cross Jesus took the full extent of my (and your) uncleanness onto himself.”

That might be how you feel: toxic, radioactive — a contagion.

It might be because of something you’ve done. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth had been complicit in the murder of King Duncan, and it weighed so heavily on her that we hear of her trying to rub the blood off her hands in her sleep. “Will these hands ne’er be clean!” she cries. Shakespeare, it turns out, had incredible insight into the workings of a guilty subconscious.

Ashamed to Be Assaulted

It is not just our own actions that can leave us feeling unclean, though. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of human evil, and it has left you with a deep sense of being unclean. One victim of sexual assault describes why she never opened up about it for so many years:

I told no one. In my mind, it was not an example of male aggression used against a girl to extract sex from her. In my mind, it was an example of how undesirable I was. It was proof that I was not the kind of girl you took to parties, or the kind of girl you wanted to get to know. I was the kind of girl you took to a deserted parking lot and tried to make give you sex. Telling someone would not be revealing what he had done; it would be revealing how deserving I was of that kind of treatment.

In her mind, this assault did not leave her with a feeling of her assailant’s dirtiness; it made her feel dirty.

‘You Can Make Me Clean’

So, we need to pay close attention to this encounter in Mark.

A leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” (Mark 1:40)

Again, his leprosy, as far as we know, was not a result of any sin he committed, but according to the law, he was not supposed to approach anyone. He knows, however, that Jesus has unique power — power to restore him, to cleanse him. “If you will” may indicate he knows he has no right to such healing. He does not presume that he deserves it.

Jesus is moved deeply by this man’s plight. He’s not indifferent. Jesus doesn’t back away in revulsion. He feels for this man. Jesus touches him. This may be the first time in decades this man had been touched by anyone.

“There is always more that’s right in Jesus than there is what’s wrong in us.”

This is what Jesus does with the uncleanness of those who come to him as this leper did. Rather than withdrawing in disgust, he draws near and reaches out to us. He moves toward us, not away from us. “Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I will; be clean’” (Mark 1:41). Jesus is willing. And the effect is immediate and dramatic. “Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean” (Mark 1:42).

More Grace in Christ

Lepers were to be separated from people because they were seen as a danger, a contaminant. When it comes to Jesus, however, it turns out the leprosy was the one at risk.

Jesus’s cleanness is a far more powerful contagion than any dirt we can bring to him. There is always more that’s right in Jesus than there is what’s wrong in us, more grace in him than offense in us, more forgiveness in him than sin in us. The very worst in us cannot compete with the best in Christ. We can’t sully him. He can only purify us. However deep our mess goes, his holiness goes deeper. We will never exhaust it.

I don’t find this easy to believe. I think I must be the exception — that my toxicity is too much for Jesus to contain. Sometimes this thinking looks like self-deprecation. People mistake it for humility. Actually, it is a form of pride — I am so significant that not even Jesus can contend with me. So, I need to believe what I see in Mark.

All Our Sin and Shame

After his healing, the cleansed man is told in the strongest terms not to tell anyone what has happened (except for a priest, so that he can be certified as ceremonially clean and rejoin society). Jesus is not ready for this to go public. And yet the man does the exact opposite, and the news rapidly spreads widely. The result?

He went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter. (Mark 1:45)

The two have swapped places. Previously the leper had been unable to enter towns and had to live in desolation. Now he is back in the community, and Jesus is forced to the desolate places. The outsider and the insider have reversed roles. In a sense, Jesus has become contaminated by this man. And it is key for us all.

How Christ Removes Shame

How can I know I really have cleansing in Christ from all my sin and shame? Because at the cross he took the full extent of my (and your) uncleanness onto himself. Every sin, every wound, every piece of brokenness and shame.

Jesus went through ultimate exclusion — not just from people, but also from his Father (Mark 15:34). He was made toxic so I can be made fragrant. He was shut out so I could be beckoned in. That doesn’t mean I never feel unclean. There is the ongoing attack of the accuser. Satan’s gonna Satan. But I have a place to look in my war against sin and shame.

Bobby Moore was left to ineffectively wipe his hands on his shorts, but Christ wipes us utterly clean of all that has made us most dirty.

Posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-stains-that-no-one-sees

What to Do When a Memory of Sin Paralyzes You

by Jason Meyer

I’ve been married for 19 years, and I have many happy memories with my wife. Cara is my best friend by far. We especially enjoy looking back and reliving some of our favorite dates together.

One treasured memory is the time I found out she once dreamed about being in the Air Force. By that point in our relationship, I had learned to plan dates we would both enjoy rather than dates only I would enjoy—no extra charge for that little piece of advice. One of my close friends was a pilot, and I asked him if he could take us flying. He delivered in a big way. He flew us to a nearby regional airport, I took her to a Mexican restaurant, and he flew us back. I have a picture of Cara and me standing next to the plane, and we both have beaming smiles. I love to look at that picture and relive the date.

Memories can be a precious gift that allow us to enjoy the same event multiple times. But our memories can also be a curse.

Curse of Memory

One of the most painful moments of my life came during premarital counseling. I tearfully told Cara (my fiancée at that time) about some of my past pornography usage. By God’s grace, porn was no longer a problem in my life, but it was an issue in my past. I wanted her to know the truth about my old struggle, and I earnestly desired her forgiveness for that sin. I will never forget seeing the pain etched on her face. She freely forgave me, but it was a heart-wrenching for both of us.

For several days, I struggled to apply the gospel to my situation. I wanted to beat myself up. I remembered the pain on Cara’s face, and I replayed it in my mind over and over. I raked myself over the coals again and again for the bad choices I’d made years before.

Don’t sit in your sin. Take it on a journey all the way back to the cross and see it nailed there.

Our memories can serve as a kind of time machine. The time machine of memory can be a good thing when we go back and replay the good times. It can help us enjoy a pleasant experience in exponential ways. But the time machine of memory becomes twisted when we use it to relive our past failures and punish ourselves multiple times for the same mistake. When we put our sins on repeat mode, we wince and groan over and over again because it triggers sharp pangs of guilt and shame. Our guilt brings past sins into the present and says, “Look, you made a mistake.” Then shame joins the conversation and adds, “Yes, and you are the mistake.”

Why do we torture ourselves by going back to places of failure in our memory banks? Why do we continue to push the play button and experience it all over again? We wish we could go back and erase our failures, but that’s not an option. We can’t seem to get over it, so we go over it in our minds again and again.

Embrace the Full Truth

Here’s the problem with the twisted time machine of memory. We travel back in time under the pretense of a half-truth. Yes, we sinned. No, sin should not be taken lightly. There is appropriate guilt and shame that flow from sin, but as Christians, we know that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). We can’t allow our past shames to cloud the fact that Christ has come.

Discouragement gets stuck in the half-truth that says, “Go back and see for yourself that you failed,” but we can take heart when we realize the full truth that our problem is not that we look back, but that we don’t look all the way back.

Yes, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—but our debts have been paid. Don’t sit in your sin. Take it on a journey all the way back to the cross and see it nailed there. Then, and only then, will you be ready to move forward in the forgiving love of Christ.

Editors’ note:

This is an adapted excerpt from Don’t Lose Heart: Gospel Hope for the Discouraged Soul, published in partnership with Baker Books.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/memory-paralyzes-you/

Four Things Jesus Finished on the Cross

By Colin Smith

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’  With that, he bowed his head and gave up his Spirit. (John 19:30) 

At Easter, Jesus went through the agony of his suffering, enduring all the pains of hell. He has cried out from the depths, but now he’s announcing his victory. He moves into death, not defeated, but triumphant: “It is finished.”

What did Jesus finish? 

1. The long night of his suffering 

I put this first because John described how someone held up a sponge soaked in vinegar on a stick, and the Apostle says, “When Jesus had received the drink, he said ‘It is finished.’” Matthew Henry says: 

When He had received that last indignity in the vinegar they gave Him, He said, “This is the last. I am now going out of their reach.” [i] 

This was the end of his excruciating suffering. Jesus knows suffering from the inside—more than anyone has ever known it. But he is not suffering now. He’s done with that. It is finished. He’s not in the grave either. He’s at the right hand of the Father where he intercedes for us.  

That is of massive importance for us. A suffering world needs a savior who knows about suffering. A savior who is overwhelmed by suffering, a savior who remains in suffering is of no use to us.  

We need a Savior who has triumphed over suffering. That is what we have in Jesus. He was plunged into indescribable suffering, but he was not overcome by it. He came through it and he triumphed in it.  

2. The full course of his obedience 

Remember why Jesus came into the world. The Son of God became a man to live the life you and I would have to live in order to enter heaven. Jesus lived the perfect life. There was no sin in him.

The night before he died, he was able to say to his Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). Spurgeon says: 

Examine the life of the Savior from Bethlehem to Calvary, look minutely at every portion of it, the private as well as the public, the silent as well as the spoken part, you will find that it is finished, complete, perfect.[ii]  

Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish [the law] but to fulfill [it]” (Matthew 5:17). Every commandment of God was fulfilled in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Throughout his life, Jesus loved God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he loved his neighbor as himself. He’s the only person who has ever done it.

Jesus’ perfect life of obedience was now complete and he was about to lay it down, so he said, “It is finished.”  

3. The decisive battle with his enemy 

The life of Jesus was a life of suffering, it was a life of obedience, but it was also a life of conflict with our great enemy the devil. Look at the world today and ask the question: 

Where does evil come from? Why do so many marriages fail? Why do wars keep happening?  

Jesus spoke with absolute clarity about Satan or the devil. Confronting the devil was the first act of Jesus’ public ministry. The Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Throughout his ministry we see Jesus casting out evil spirits that were holding human lives in bondage.  

The story of this conflict goes back to the beginning of the Bible. Satan tempted the man and the woman and led them into sin that caused them to lose the joys of the paradise of God.  

They got the knowledge of evil and came under the power of the evil one. That’s been our story ever since. It is the explanation of what we see in the world today.

But God promised that a Redeemer would come, saying to Satan, “You will bite his heel, but he will crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). What a picture!  

God’s promise in Eden is precisely what happened at the cross. In Christ’s death, he breaks the devil’s power:

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

When Jesus died, he went beyond the reach of Satan. Satan could no longer tempt him. The devil could no longer afflict him or cause him to suffer. When Jesus went into death, it was “game over” for the devil and “game on” for us. The decisive battle with the enemy had been won.  

4. The complete work of his atonement 

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He came to give his life as a ransom for many, and on the cross he says, “It is finished.” He has borne the guilt of our sins. He has endured the punishment of our hell. The divine wrath has been spent on him. The justice of God has been satisfied in him. 

The perfect sacrifice has been offered. Complete atonement has been made. Hell has been vanquished. The condemnation has been removed.  Now the Redeemer says, “It is finished.” Jonathan Edwards wrote: 

Though millions of sacrifices had been offered; yet nothing was done to purchase redemption before Christ’s incarnation… so nothing was done after His resurrection, to purchase redemption for men. Nor will there be anything more done to all eternity. [v]

What can be added to Jesus’s redemptive work, his death and resurrection? It is finished! His long night of suffering is over. He’s no longer on the cross. The full course of his obedience is over. The decisive battle with his enemy is over.

Christ finished. You haven’t. But with him you will. 

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2019/04/four-things-jesus-finished-cross/

It Was Your Sin that Murdered Christ!

By Tim Challies

Sometimes it does us good to consider the sheer sinfulness of our sin. Sometimes it does us good to consider what our sin has cost. Perhaps these words from Isaac Ambrose will challenge you as they did me.

When I but think of those bleeding veins, bruised shoulders, scourged sides, furrowed back, harrowed temples, nailed hands and feet, and then consider that my sins were the cause of all, methinks I should need no more arguments for self-abhorring!

Christians, would not your hearts rise against him that should kill your father, mother, brother, wife, husband,—dearest relations in all the world? Oh, then, how should your hearts and souls rise against sin! Surely your sin it was that murdered Christ, that killed him, who is instead of all relations, who is a thousand, thousand times dearer to you than father, mother, husband, child, or whomsoever. One thought of this should, methinks, be enough to make you say, as Job did, ‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

Oh, what is that cross on the back of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that thorny crown on the head of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is the nail in the right hand and that other in the left hand of Christ? My sins. Oh, what is that spear in the side of Christ? My sins. What are those nails and wounds in the feet of Christ? My sins. With a spiritual eye I see no other engine tormenting Christ, no other Pilate, Herod, Annas, Caiaphas, condemning Christ, no other soldiers, officers, Jews or Gentiles doing execution on Christ, but only sin. Oh, my sins, my sins, my sins!”

These words from Joseph Hart seem fitting:

Many woes had Christ endured,
Many sore temptations met,
Patient, and to pains inured:
But the sorest trial yet
Was to be sustain’d in thee,
Gloomy, sad Gethsemane !

Came at length the dreadful night:
Vengeance, with its iron rod,
Stood, and with collected might
Bruised the harmless Lamb of God:
See, my soul, thy Saviour see
Prostrate in Gethsemane !

There my God bore all my guilt:
This, through grace, can be believed;
But the horrors which he felt
Are too vast to be conceived:
None can penetrate through thee,
Doleful, dark Gethsemane !

Sins against a holy God,
Sins against his righteous laws,
Sins against his love, his blood,
Sins against his name and cause,—
Sins immense as is the seal
Hide me, O Gethsemane !

Here’s my claim, and here alone;
None a Saviour more can need :
Deeds of righteousness I’ve none;
No,-not one good work to plead:
Not a glimpse of hope for me,
Only in Gethsemane.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
One almighty God of love,
Hymn’d by all the heavenly host
In thy shining courts above,
We adore thee, gracious Three,—
Bless thee for Gethsemane.

posted at: https://www.challies.com/quotes/it-was-your-sin-that-murdered-christ/

Why Did Christ Die?

Excerpt from John Stott book “The Cross of Christ”

Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews … had together “conspired” against Jesus (Acts 4:27). More important still, we ourselves are also guilty. If we were in their place, we would have done what they did. Indeed we have done it. For whenever we turn away from Christ, we “are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace” (Heb 6:6). We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the old negro spiritual asks. And we must answer, “Yes, we were there.” Not as spectators only, but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming, betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to wash our hands of responsibility like Pilate. But our attempt will be as futile as his. For there is blood on our hands . . .

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, “only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,” wrote Canon Peter Green, “may claim his share in its grace.”

On the human level, Judas gave him up to the priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers, who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.” The apostle Peter brought the two truths together in his remarkable statement on the Day of Pentecost, both that “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” and that “you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” Peter thus attributes Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men. For the cross which . . . is an exposure of human evil is at the same time a revelation of the divine purpose to overcome the human evil thus exposed.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/why-did-christ-die

The Joy of Overlooking an Offense

Article by Scotty Smith Pastor, Franklin, Tennessee

My wife and I just returned from an awesome eight-night holiday in one of our favorite spots in the world — the little village of Iseltwald, nestled on the Lake of Brienz, ten kilometers from Interlaken, Switzerland. No place makes me happier and hungrier for the life we’ll enjoy in the new heaven and new earth.

But as wonderful as it was to celebrate my wife’s “39th birthday” in Switzerland (we’ve been married 46 years), there were moments when the brokenness of my attitude contradicted the beauty of the Alps.

When Life Gets Very Irritating

My capacity for aggravation and irritability and resentment followed me onto our flight to Zurich and then into different scenarios in the land of yodeling and chocolate. What does a follower of Jesus do when:

• Fellow travelers put their oversized carry-on luggage in the overhead bin directly over your assigned seat?

• Flight attendants seem to enjoy attending to the needs of those all around you, but treat you as invisible passengers?

• Free Wi-Fi on your flight faithfully delivers “feedback” emails including “constructive criticism” about your last sermon and preaching attire, your “redneck” sounding accent, and your lack of late-night accessibility?

• Robust young men on a packed bus don’t offer your back-pained wife a seat?

• By happenstance, you run into an old friend in the high-elevation village of Mürren, who mentions the name of another college friend — a friend who has caused you the yet-to-be-healed pain of betrayal?

• A hotel reservation you made months ago, for your last night in Switzerland, suddenly disappears, though you have four confirmation letters, and you have to scramble to rebook in a region of sold-out hotels?

Indeed, what should a follower of Jesus do in response to everything from normal life-in-a-fallen-world brokenness, to encounters with irritating people and provoking circumstances, to intentional insults and mean-spirited slights?

The good news is that the gospel doesn’t make us less human, but more human. As followers of Jesus, we experience the full range of disappointments and emotions common to all image bearers of God. But, by God’s grace, we can learn to steward them rather than live as slaves to them. We can learn to respond as redemptively as possible, as opposed to reacting selfishly and self-righteously. And we can actually find joy when we “overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11).

Five Happy Reasons to Overlook an Offense

Joy in overlooking offenses? Yes. Joy from what? Let’s look at five things the Bible says can give us joy if we’re willing to receive them.

But first, let’s be clear: overlooking an offense must not be confused with submitting to abusive people or morally and ethically unacceptable circumstances. Jesus calls us to be foot washers, not doormats.

However, there are at least five reasons that joy is found in overlooking an offense.

1. Gospel Sensibilities

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re growing gospel sensibilities and tasting true glory. The Bible says, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11). The shorter our anger-fuse, the quicker we’ll take offense at anything and anyone. “Good sense” is gospel sense.

The more the truth of the gospel renews our minds and shapes our perspective, the quicker and easier we’ll overlook stuff. We’ll care more about honoring Jesus by our reactions to irritating people and aggravating circumstances and give up on the illusion of having a hassle-free, painless life. There is tremendous joy in caring more about God’s glory than our own reputation, convenience, and rights. God will always be most glorified in us when we are most satisfied, joyful, at peace, and free in him.

2. Owning Our Sin

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re starting to acknowledge our own sin. We begin to believe that the log in our eye is a bigger issue than the speck in anyone else’s eye (Matthew 5:38–42). The freest, most joyful Christians I know are the quickest repenters. It’s not that they have less to repent of; they’re just faster at owning their sin, humbling themselves, and resting in Jesus.

As the gospel moves us from Satan’s condemnation into the Spirit’s conviction, we become more aware that we need the grace of God as much as anyone who sins against us, and there’s tremendous joy associated with that kind of humility. We take less offense and extend more grace; we are more patient and less petty; we are getting better at waiting than whining. We’re more realistic about life among ordinary sinners who, like us, love poorly — and wiser about what to take seriously, and what to completely ignore.

3. God’s Spirit at Work

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that God’s grace and Spirit are becoming more operative, transforming powers in our lives. As Christians, we are called to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Growth in grace results in our getting to know Jesus better, who desires that we will have the fullness of his joy in us (John 15:11).

And as we surrender to the work of the Spirit in our lives, he grows a vibrant crop of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” — the very anti-fruit of an easily offended spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). The Holy Spirit also leads us into a greater experience of our sonship (Romans 8:15–17), which gives us even greater joy in seeing our Father at work in all things for our good — even in the most off-putting, irritating, and offensive scenarios (Romans 8:28). God never promised to do all things easy but all things well.

4. Freedom from Approval Seeking

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re gaining freedom from living as approval seekers. Christians are a people whose joy need not be connected to what others think and say about us, or how they relate and react to us. As Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”

To fear people isn’t so much to be afraid of them, but to esteem their approval too much. We look either to God or to people as the fountain and fuel of our joy. People always make poor saviors. We can’t freely or joyfully love anyone whom we’ve given the power to either shame us or exalt us.

5. Forgiving as the Forgiven

When we overlook an offense, we can rejoice that we’re getting better at forgiving others as we’ve been forgiven in Christ. There is no greater non sequitur in the entire universe, or the history of mankind, than for those of us who have been forgiven all our sins — every sinful thought, word, and deed — to withhold forgiveness from others (Matthew 18:21–35).

It was our Father’s kindness that led (and still leads) us to repentance (Romans 2:4). So where do we think our rigid, easily offended, keeping-record-of-wrongs attitudes will lead people? As Paul wrote, we are to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). Our joy in forgiving others is directly connected to the unspeakable, glorious joy of God’s forgiveness of us and his great delight in us.

Scotty Smith (@ScottyWardSmith) is the founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee.

posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-joy-of-overlooking-an-offense?fbclid=IwAR0oYxyt8JPzAxL94lZDTjFAGVqB-yGmpJDW1cbkjah4YgGNndjACq898Qo