Daily Meditation

Rejecting Kingdoms of This World

Ligonier Ministries

Augustine stood by the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He had heard of the hordes of barbarians that were moving as a juggernaut against Rome and the empire. The reports were ominous and foreboding, lending little reason for hope of the survival of the Roman culture.

Augustine said a prayer in three parts. In the first part, he implored God to save the empire. In the second part, he asked for grace to accept the destruction of civilization as he knew it, if that should be the will of Providence. In the third part, he asked that in either case he might be permitted soon to die and enter his eternal rest.

Permanence and security cannot be found in the structures of man. Concrete crumbles. Glass shatters. Steel melts. When God says “No!” the cities and kingdoms of men come to ruin. God simply will not tolerate man’s quest for autonomy—his lust for idols of his own making. No city, no nation, no culture can survive the judgment of God.

Coram Deo

Spend some time in prayer today for your city, state, and nation.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 11:15
Psalm 145:11
Psalm 145:13

Daily Meditation

Becoming a Witness

Ligonier Ministries

The more the laity is involved in ministry, the more they want to deepen their understanding of the Word of God. The more they deepen their understanding of the Word of God, the more they want to put that understanding to work in ministry.

One thing that disturbs me about contemporary Christian jargon is the inexact use of the word witness. Too often people use the terms evangelism and witnessing interchangeably, as if they were synonyms. They are not.

All evangelism is witness, but not all witness is evangelism. Evangelism is a specific type of witnessing. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or teacher. Not everyone is called to administration or specialized ministries of mercy. Not everyone is called to be an evangelist (though we are all called to verbalize our faith). We are all called to be witnesses to Christ, to make His invisible kingdom visible. We witness by doing the ministry of Christ. We witness by being the church, the people of God.

Some of us can plant. Some of us can water. When we plant and water, God will bring an increase.

Coram Deo

How are you actively fulfilling your divine mandate to be a witness for Christ?

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 3:6
Acts 1:8
Luke 24:48

The Transience and Permanence of Christian Work

The Coming of the Kingdom

German theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg has this to say on the coming of God's Kingdom upon the earth.

Nevertheless . . . I shall not make the mistake of previous periods and think of the establishment of the Kingdom of God as something which could be brought about by human effort.  We must remain constantly aware that any "Christian" order we can create here and now is bound to be provisional.  This impermanence is a feature of all "good works", private as well as public.

That is what Christian humility is, a constant awareness of the distance between our own works and the glory of God.  An awareness of this distance, however, does not, when rightly understood, weaken our readiness to act.  On the contrary, the very realization of the distance between the promised future of the divine Kingdom of peace and the present state of the world can stimulate us to change the present.

The hope of God's promised Kingdom of peace can inspire our imagination and will to eradicate the most obvious faults of our world.  [Wolfhart Pannenberg, Faith and Reality (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), p. 109.]

An oft-repeated maxim is that "the (merely) good is always enemy of the best".

Daily Meditation

Authentic vs. Phony Faith

Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await him. (Hebrews 9:28)

John Piper

The question before us all is: Are we included in the “many” whose sins he bore? And will we be saved by his coming “for salvation”?

The answer of Hebrews 9:28 is, “Yes,” if we are “eagerly awaiting him.” We can know that our sins are taken away and that we will be safe in the judgment if we trust Christ in such a way that it makes us eager for his coming.

There is a phony faith that claims to believe in Christ, but is only a fire insurance policy. Phony faith “believes” only to escape hell. It has no real desire for Christ. In fact, it would prefer it if he did not come, so that we can have as much of this world’s pleasures as possible. This shows that a heart is not with Christ, but with the world.

So the issue for us is: Do we eagerly long for the coming of Christ? Or do we want him to wait while our love affair with the world runs its course? That is the question that tests the authenticity of faith.

So let us be like the Corinthians who were “awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7), and like the Philippians whose “citizenship was in heaven, from which also [they] eagerly waited for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

That’s the issue for us. Do we love his appearing? Or do we love the world and hope that his appearing will not interrupt our worldly plans? Eternity hangs on this question.

Daily Meditation

We Will Rule All Things

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21)

John Piper

What does Jesus mean when he says this to the church in Laodicea?  Sit with Jesus on his throne? Really?

This is a promise to everyone who conquers, that is, who presses on in faith to the end (1 John 5:4), in spite of every threatening pain and luring pleasure. So, if you are a believer in Jesus, you will sit on the throne of the Son of God who sits on the throne of God the Father.

I take “throne of God” to signify the right and authority to rule the universe. So Jesus promises us a share in the rule of all things.  Is this what Paul has in mind in Ephesians 1:22–23? “He put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

We, the church, are the “fullness of him who fills all.” I take this to mean that the universe will be filled with the glory of the Lord (Numbers 14:21). And one dimension of that glory will be the complete and unopposed extension of his rule everywhere.  Therefore, Ephesians 1:23 would mean: Jesus fills the universe with his own glorious rule through us. We are the fullness of his rule. We rule on his behalf. In that sense, we sit with him on his throne.

None of us feels this as we should. It is too much. That is why Paul prays for God’s help: “I pray that the Father of glory enlighten the eyes of your heart, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Ephesians 1:18).

Without omnipotent help now, we cannot feel the wonder of what we are to become. But if we are granted to feel it as it is, all our emotional reactions to this world will change for the better.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Reformation Fail?

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

So I don’t want to come across like a fastidious person or anything, but there were a couple of things recently that I thought were kind of in poor taste. (“Just a couple? Where do you live, man?”)

I mean a couple of things regarding Reformation 500, the half-millennium anniversary of the Reformation yesterday, and I am talking about a couple things from the Protestant side. I am not talking about all the funny Wittenberg door memes, or the general horsing around that characterizes robust theological debate. (“No, I am not fixing the door. I am fixing your theology.”) So it is not that I think we have to be all sanctimonious about Reformation history. I mean, it is not like we are talking about the signing of the Declaration of Independence or anything.

Special note to a select cadre of my readers. That was a joke. 

But here’s the thing.