Last night I listened to another Paul Washer sermon, "Pray And Be Alone With God." Washer made a statement that really made me think hard. Here it is:
The most dangerous prayer you could pray:
Praying to be like Jesus Christ is practically calling a death sentence upon yourself.
What did He mean by that? At first I was a little bothered because isn't that what we're supposed to pray? And isn't that what sanctification is all about? And isn't it what I've been praying?
Then as I thought about that last part, how it is what I have been praying, I really began to understand what Paul Washer meant by death sentence.
I think when we pray that God will make us more like His Son, sometimes we forget what this entails. We are praying for and expecting the outcome of being like Christ yet not necessarily for the means of what it will cost us to become like Him.
Calling a death sentence upon yourself...
"...If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." Luke 9:23
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20
God did not spare His Son suffering and death. He surely will not spare us whatever it takes to make us more like His Son. If we really truly genuinely want to be more like Christ, and that is our prayer, we can't be expecting a life of comfort and ease.
We must die. Die to self. Death is the way to life.
"For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His." Romans 6:5
"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it." Mark 8:35
And let's not forget this verse...
"That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death." Philippians 3:10
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
The True Gospel- Paul Washer
Notes taken from a Paul Washer sermon that I was listening to earlier this evening...
There was so much more to it, but this part really stood out to me and I had to post it on my blog. If for no other reason, to remind me of what I heard because it is so directly related to my own testimony and I have to continue to remember it.
When I think of when the Lord first revealed to me how much He has forgiven me, I am brought once again to my knees. We have to be constantly daily reminded of the Gospel and what Christ did for us. It keeps us forever grateful to Him and more passionate about sharing Him with others because of what He has done for us. I know I don't deserve what He has done for me. My sin is great. But His death on the cross was more than great enough to pay the price for my sins to save me from the penalty of being separated from God forever.
Until you understand the depths of the sin of man, you cannot understand the glory of God in the Gospel.
Example: where did all the stars go this afternoon? You couldn't see them because there was so much light. You couldn't see their glory. You couldn't find them. But when the pitch black darkness of the sky appeared, the stars came out in the fullness of their glory. In the same way, we cannot understand the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ until it is set against the pitch blackness of our own sin.
loves much because forgiven much(Luke 7:47)
We don't love Christ as much as we should because we do not realize how much we've been forgiven.
And we don't realize how much we've been forgiven b/c we don't see the full darkness of man.
sinful depravity...the more we see it, the more we see the glory of Christ.
We look at our sin so that it might lead us to Him.
"Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Genesis 6:5
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
There was so much more to it, but this part really stood out to me and I had to post it on my blog. If for no other reason, to remind me of what I heard because it is so directly related to my own testimony and I have to continue to remember it.
When I think of when the Lord first revealed to me how much He has forgiven me, I am brought once again to my knees. We have to be constantly daily reminded of the Gospel and what Christ did for us. It keeps us forever grateful to Him and more passionate about sharing Him with others because of what He has done for us. I know I don't deserve what He has done for me. My sin is great. But His death on the cross was more than great enough to pay the price for my sins to save me from the penalty of being separated from God forever.
Until you understand the depths of the sin of man, you cannot understand the glory of God in the Gospel.
Example: where did all the stars go this afternoon? You couldn't see them because there was so much light. You couldn't see their glory. You couldn't find them. But when the pitch black darkness of the sky appeared, the stars came out in the fullness of their glory. In the same way, we cannot understand the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ until it is set against the pitch blackness of our own sin.
loves much because forgiven much(Luke 7:47)
We don't love Christ as much as we should because we do not realize how much we've been forgiven.
And we don't realize how much we've been forgiven b/c we don't see the full darkness of man.
sinful depravity...the more we see it, the more we see the glory of Christ.
We look at our sin so that it might lead us to Him.
"Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Genesis 6:5
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
Sunday, October 3, 2010
All Things Crucified
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20
Taken from Milton Vincent's "A Gospel Primer":
The Gospel is not simply the story of "Christ, and Him crucified"(1 Cor. 2:2); it is also the story of my own crucifixion. For the Bible tells me that I, too, was crucified on Christ's cross. My old self was slain there, and my love affair with the world was crucified there too. The cross is also the place where I crucify my flesh and all it's sinful desires. Truly, Christ's death and my death are so intertwined as to be inseparable.
God is committed to my dying every day, and He calls me to that same commitment. He insists that every hour be my dying hour, and He wants my death on the cross to be as central to my own life story as is Christ's death to the Gospel story. "Let this attitude be in you," He says, "which was also in Christ Jesus...who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."
Crucifixion hurts. In fact, its heart-wrenching brutality can numb the senses. It is a gasping and bloody affair, and there is nothing nice, pretty, or easy about it. It is not merely death, but excruciating death.
Nevertheless, I must set my face like a flint toward the cross and embrace this crucifixion in everything I do. I should expect every day to encounter circumstantial evidence of God's commitment to my dying' and I must seize upon every God-given opportunity to be conformed more fully to Christ's death, no matter the pain involved.
When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don't want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.
"Not my will, but Yours be done," Christ trustingly prayed on the eve of His crucifixion; and preaching His story to myself each day puts me in a frame of mind to trust God and embrace the cross of my own dying also.
Thankfully the Gospel teaches me that dying is not an end, but a beginning also. For after Christ too up His cross and died, God raised Him from the dead, exalted Him to the highest heaven, and drew Him into His bosom. These facts surrounding Christ's resurrection stand as proof positive that God will not leave me for dead, but will raise me similarly, if I would only allow myself to die. Indeed, on the other side of each layer of dying lie experiences of a life with God that are far richer, far higher, and far more intimate than anything I would have otherwise known.
In God's economy, death is the way to life. "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it," Jesus says, "but whoever loses his life for My sake, he shall find it." Indeed the more conformable I am made to the death of Christ, the more I experience freedom from sin and taste the power of the resurrection of Jesus Himself. The path to such power is achieved with each incident of dying to myself and reckoning myself dead to sin.
The more I contemplate the Gospel, the more I understand that this "word of the cross" stands as a blueprint for my own life story. The death that Christ died is the death to which I also am called, and the death to which I am called is my entry point to union with Christ and life at its fullest. So, come what may, I'll let no one take this death from me!
Taken from Milton Vincent's "A Gospel Primer":
The Gospel is not simply the story of "Christ, and Him crucified"(1 Cor. 2:2); it is also the story of my own crucifixion. For the Bible tells me that I, too, was crucified on Christ's cross. My old self was slain there, and my love affair with the world was crucified there too. The cross is also the place where I crucify my flesh and all it's sinful desires. Truly, Christ's death and my death are so intertwined as to be inseparable.
God is committed to my dying every day, and He calls me to that same commitment. He insists that every hour be my dying hour, and He wants my death on the cross to be as central to my own life story as is Christ's death to the Gospel story. "Let this attitude be in you," He says, "which was also in Christ Jesus...who became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."
Crucifixion hurts. In fact, its heart-wrenching brutality can numb the senses. It is a gasping and bloody affair, and there is nothing nice, pretty, or easy about it. It is not merely death, but excruciating death.
Nevertheless, I must set my face like a flint toward the cross and embrace this crucifixion in everything I do. I should expect every day to encounter circumstantial evidence of God's commitment to my dying' and I must seize upon every God-given opportunity to be conformed more fully to Christ's death, no matter the pain involved.
When my flesh yearns for some prohibited thing, I must die. When called to do something I don't want to do, I must die. When I wish to be selfish and serve no one, I must die. When shattered by hardships that I despise, I must die. When wanting to cling to wrongs done against me, I must die. When enticed by allurements of the world, I must die. When wishing to keep besetting sins secret, I must die. When wants that are borderline needs are left unmet, I must die. When dreams that are good seem shoved aside, I must die.
"Not my will, but Yours be done," Christ trustingly prayed on the eve of His crucifixion; and preaching His story to myself each day puts me in a frame of mind to trust God and embrace the cross of my own dying also.
Thankfully the Gospel teaches me that dying is not an end, but a beginning also. For after Christ too up His cross and died, God raised Him from the dead, exalted Him to the highest heaven, and drew Him into His bosom. These facts surrounding Christ's resurrection stand as proof positive that God will not leave me for dead, but will raise me similarly, if I would only allow myself to die. Indeed, on the other side of each layer of dying lie experiences of a life with God that are far richer, far higher, and far more intimate than anything I would have otherwise known.
In God's economy, death is the way to life. "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it," Jesus says, "but whoever loses his life for My sake, he shall find it." Indeed the more conformable I am made to the death of Christ, the more I experience freedom from sin and taste the power of the resurrection of Jesus Himself. The path to such power is achieved with each incident of dying to myself and reckoning myself dead to sin.
The more I contemplate the Gospel, the more I understand that this "word of the cross" stands as a blueprint for my own life story. The death that Christ died is the death to which I also am called, and the death to which I am called is my entry point to union with Christ and life at its fullest. So, come what may, I'll let no one take this death from me!
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