I constantly struggle and strain to assess the health of the Evangelical church in the U.S., since we are part. I find many who speak the words of profession, yet their lives do not reveal a yielded joy in belonging to Christ and on a wider level our culture seems unchanged if not sliding downward.
John Piper, as usual, in very clear form, hits the nail on the head.
7 comments:
Piper’s powerful analogy of carrying a “cavalier salvation card” of Christ as Savior around in your walled for the sake of comfort and connivance rings close to home. It reminds me an email I just received yesterday from my daughter. Unfortunately, she is living far from the Lord, and no longer considers HIM as Supreme Lord of great personal value. Working as Conciliate for our Embassy’s in various countries of South America, now stationed at our Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia.
I feel strongly that she made a profession of faith, even surrendered her life to Christ’s special services when she was 10. But, too much education has blinded their eyes to humanistic thinking. Tolerance over truth, sincerity/open-mindedness verses Christ, as the only Supreme Lord and Savior, is their religion. Christ is just one of the many ways to find peace.
I didn’t respond to her cold and condemning comment, that I am sure it was aimed right at me. I pray, for His mercy and gentle discipline to be upon them. I ask our Supreme Lord and Savior to keep our 2 precious grand children in His loving arms and bring them into His Joy everlasting. Hear was her closing comment.
“I just walked into the kitchen and Maria (the live-in maid) was listening to a 'hellfire and damnation' preacher on the radio. I got goose bumps and had to leave. Too many bad memories...”
Good slooge from the The Pipe ... and he's right.
Thanks, brother. I'll be shooting some folks your way to scope it out.
Go Cardinals!
Reading this month’s addition of TABLETALK, the first article Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God: Confessionally Challenged by Burk Parsons pretty much sums up most non-denominational evangelical Christians in America, and that is that they are confessionally challenged.
http://www.ligonier.org/tabletalk/2008/4/1049_Confessionally_Challenged
Mention Reform and Covenant Theology Creeds and Confessions and they are totally lost because these affirmations of faith are foreign to them. While I am encouraged that they claim Christ as their Savior, and read their Bibles, I am discouraged by the fact they unknowingly are lost in semi-Pelagian and Arminianism, which to me denies the Holiness, Sovereignty, and Lordship of our living Triune God. What these Christians are missing in their walk with the Lord, is true Biblical Christianity.
For them Christianity is a means to an end, they go to churches that make them feel comfortable in their sin without even knowing they are sinners in the hands of an Angry God. They go because a friend goes, you can go casual and do not have to dress up, or the preacher is a good speaker, or maybe in hopes to meet that perfect person. Whatever the reason, the one reason that seems absent is, I go to worship the Living Triune God, who is Holy, Sovereign, Just, Merciful and Loving. Tony some years ago in one of your radio spots for Redeemer Presbyterian Church, you said it best, “Worship is not about what I get out of it, it is what God gets out of it.” Similarly, our walk with Christ is not what we get out of it, but what Christ gets out of it.
As John Piper wrote, “God wants to be acknowledged for all that he has done and for all that he is. We will not give him all of the praise and glory that he should get if we don't acknowledge what he has done for us. So I think it is really important that we teach people how they actually got saved, even if they don't fully understand how they got saved, because we want them to begin--now better than never--praising and honoring and relying on God for all that he did and not just for part of it.”
2 Thessalonians 2:13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
Powerful thought Rick!
I don't get where Piper is coming from. The use of 'they' do this and 'they' to that makes no sense to me. He is trying to say that people accept Christ as an 'insurance policy' and as a result don't do all they need to do. 'WE' don't determine what happens, my Lord and Saviour is sovereign and supreme to anything "I" do. Any 'walk' that comes out of this is from the grace of God. Is this guy a liberal 'works guy' or is he reformed? I am confused with where he is coming from.
One who believes in the Supremacy fo Christ and the absolute depravity of man apart from Christ
I was changing from my headphones to speakers when I clicked on Piper's comments and did not hear his entry comments. He is 'right on'. They never truly received Christ if this is the attitude as he describes it. Christ is supreme and the center of the universe...end of discussion.
I'm assuming both anonymous comments are from the same person? If so, you must have heard Johnny P right the second time.
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