The Desire to Evangelize

Here's a few words from Donald Whitney writing in the May 2011 edition of TableTalk magazine:

One effect of the gospel upon the believer's heart is the creation of a new "gospeler", that is, a person who wants to tell others about the person and work of Jesus Christ. Notice that I said the person wants to evangelize. For various reasons, he may often fail to do so, bu the desire is present. And the desire isn't based upon merely wanting to live up to others' expectation, but is rather a genuine longing to see people become followers of Jesus.

Daily Gospel: Kiss My Backside, Devil

It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold on to the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time that he should kiss my backside. Even if I sinned I would say, ‘Should I deny the gospel on this account?’ … Once I debate about what I have done and left undone, I am finished. But if I reply on the basis of the gospel, ‘The forgiveness of sins covers it all,’ I have won.

 - Martin Luther, via OFI

This was too good to pass up. "Kiss my backside" + "if I reply on the basis of the gospel" = Martin Luther gold.

Daily Gospel: The One Whose Opinion Most Matters

Sin itself turns you in on yourself, blinding you to God. Guilt also tends to turn you in on yourself. Self-laceration exalts your opinion of yourself as supremely important; shame exalts the opinion of other people. But living repentance and living faith turn outward to the one whose opinion most matters. What God chooses to “remember” about you will prove decisive. Your conscience, if well-tuned, is secondary and dependent on the stance He takes. If the Lord is merciful, then mercy has final say. It is beyond our comprehension that God acts mercifully for His sake, because of what He is like. Wrap your heart around this, and the typical aftermath of sin will never be the same. You will stand in joy and gratitude, not grovel in shame. You’ll be able to get back about the business of life with fresh resolve, not just with good intentions and some flimsy New Year’s resolutions to do better next time. This is our hope. This is our deepest need. This is our Lord’s essential, foundational gift. You know people who need to know this. They typically mishandle the aftermath of sin with further forms of the God-lessness that also manufactured sin. You, too, need to know how faith in Christ’s mercy decenters you off of yourself and recenters you onto the living God’s promise and character. The one with whom we have to do freely offers mercy and grace to help us by the lovingkindness of the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:13-16).

 - David Powlison, "Making All Things New: Restoring Purity to the Sexually Broken"

Via CCEF

Restoring Pure Joy to the Sexually Broken

Here are a few excerpts from an excellent article from David Powlison:

We often underestimate just how radically biblical faith relies on grace. Grace means that what makes things right comes to you from the outside. It’s the sheer gift that someone else gives to you. You don’t get it by jumping through certain religious hoops. You are forgiven, accepted, saved from death outside of yourself and because of Another. Listen to how a man of faith dealt forthrightly with his former sins. The italics highlight how much your hope amid real guilt lies outside of you:

Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses,

for they have been from of old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions.

According to Your lovingkindness remember me,

for Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.…

For Your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity for it is great.

– Psalm 25:6f, 11

The romantic novel genre has even made a crossover to evangelical Christian publishing houses. The sex is cleaned up; the knight in shining armor is also a deep spiritual leader who marries you before sleeping with you. But the fantasy appeal to intimacy and romance lusts remains as the inner engine that allures readers.


We must have a vision for a long process (life-long), with a glorious end (the Day), that is actually going somewhere (today). Put those three together in the right way, and you have a practical theology that’s good to go and good for the going.


No one ever says, “I’ve made it. No more forks in the road. No more places I might stumble and fall flat. No more hard, daily choices to make.” Look at yourself. Life never operates on cruise control. The living God seems content to work in His church and in people groups on a scale of generations and centuries. The living God seems content to work in individuals (you, me, the person you are trying to help) on a scale of decades, throughout a whole lifetime.


The key to getting a long view of sanctification is to understand direction. What matters most is not the distance you’ve covered. It’s not the speed you’re going. It’s not how long you’ve been a Christian. It’s the direction you’re heading.

Daily Gospel: Satisfactory Blood

The Israelites at the time of the exodus knew they had escaped the night of God’s judgement through trusting in the blood of the Passover lambs on their doorposts.

Notice that the blood was to be placed on the outside of their houses. The blood was for God to see, not for their benefit. The blood was not to make them feel good or feel safe. The blood was not for their feelings at all. The blood was to satisfy God. It was for his eyes alone. God said, ‘When I see the blood I will pass over you’ (Exodus 12:13).

We have peace, not because we feel good, but because God is satisfied with the blood. Only he can evaluate the worth of the lamb. Because he is satisfied, we have peace.

Terry Virgo, God's Lavish Grace, (Oxford, UK: Monarch Books, 2003), 45

Borrowed shamelessly from OFI

Light and Salt

John Piper, writing in TableTalk Magazine this month on the topic of being a Christian exile:

The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat. Where it can, it saves and seasons. Where it can't, it weeps. And the light of the world does not withdraw, saying "good riddance" to godless darkness. It labors to illuminate. But not dominate.

This is a helpful reminder and rebuke to those such as myself who can quickly become so disgusted and angry with the people around us. Am I not the light of the world and the salt of the earth? May I never lose my saltiness, for then I will be only useful for being trampled underfoot.

Daily Gospel: The Water and The Blood

Lord we confess our many faults And how great our guilt has been
Foolish and vain were all of our thoughts
No good could come from within

But by the mercy of our God
All our hopes begin
And by the water and the blood
Our souls are washed from sin

Itʼs not by the works of righteousness
Which our own hands have done
But we are saved by our Fatherʼs grace
Abounding through His Son

 - Isaac Watts

Sojourn Community Church has recently put out an album titled "The Water and The Blood" based off this hymn. Go get it.

Daily Gospel: Hearts and Hopes in Heaven

In the strength of Divine grace their souls shall ascend above the world. They shall run the way of God's commandments cheerfully. Let us watch against unbelief, pride, and self-confidence. If we go forth in our own strength, we shall faint, and utterly fall; but having our hearts and our hopes in heaven, we shall be carried above all difficulties, and be enabled to lay hold of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

 - Matthew Henry, Commenting on Isaiah 40:27-31

Daily Gospel: "But"

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved

Ephesians 2:4-5

TableTalk Magazine notes: "Mercy - unexpected love and generosity - cannot be showered upon us as something owed, because mercy that is owed is not mercy but obligation."

Daily Gospel: Washed Robes

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

 - Revelation 7:13-14, Emphasis added.

What robes are washed? Only dirty ones. But how are robes made clean by washing them in blood? How can something so red make something so white?