A Reformed Christian Blog
Hello friends,
I will be taking a break from blogging and all forms of social media for a season in order to devote my energies to some personal items that require immediate and undivided attention.
I will be back on Monday, February 27th with a giveaway and a review of our beloved Jon Cardwell’s, “Christ and Him Crucified” — a book I look forward to finishing during my time away.
In the meantime, may the Lord bless you!
Your sister in Christ,
Christina
Hello everyone,
I wanted to pass on a few items of interest.
John Samson has a new eBook publication called “Twelve What Abouts: Answering Common Objections Concerning God’s Sovereignty in Election”. In this book John provides answers to the twelve most common objections to the Doctrine of Election. For anyone seeking to understand the sovereign grace of God in our salvation, I believe this book will be an invaluable resource. John has an ability to break down complex theological concepts and present them in simple and practical terms. The teaching on his blog has helped equip me to teach the Doctrines of Grace to the women at our church. You can visit Monergism to learn more about, and purchase his newest publication.
In-keeping with the biblical mandate of “equipping of the saints for the work of service” (Ephesians 4:2), I finally got my hands on our beloved Jon Cardwell’s recent publication, “Christ and Him Crucified”. Long story short, my package, which contained 6 copies, was sitting in the loading docks at work since before Christmas! Thankfully, I was able to locate it and Lord willing, in February, I will post a review and also give away 2 copies. If you’d like to check it out and even purchase beforehand, visit here. Jon Cardwell not only had a huge hand in teaching us the Doctrines of Grace, but beyond that he lives out what he preaches. To God be the glory!
Lastly, make sure you return on January 30th to read my review of Simonetta Carr’s, Weight of a Flame: The Passion of Olympia Morata. If you remember, last month I had the privilege of interviewing Simonetta here at Heavenly Springs. You can read that here if you missed it. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of reading this delightful yet scholarly book which provides historical insight into the Italian Reformation. While the Chosen Daughter series is clearly written for young women, there can be no denying that Simonetta’s work will benefit everyone! If you are interested, you can purchase here.
That’s all for now my friends!
Love and blessings!
Well, it appears as if construction will take a little longer than expected.
Despite all the hard work and over time, we’re all admittedly disappointed in the progress that has been made. Sadly, I’m in no position at this time to offer a return date for Heavenly Springs.
In the meantime, please feel free to email me at christinalangella@me.com.
See you soon!
Hello everyone:
In my last post I explained my intention to blog through my studies on the Doctrines of Grace. It’s been a few days and I thought I’d share a few thoughts, ideas, quotes, etc from my studies thus far on Total Depravity. These are very random and some items might be overlapping.
1. Genesis 3. This is where it all starts. It is impossible to understand total depravity without understanding first what really happened in Genesis 3. If you do not understand what happened here and what the consequences were for human nature and all of humanity going forward, you cannot fully comprehend the biblical doctrine of total depravity. Adam sinned. Adam died. We all die in Adam.
2. This is not so much related to total depravity but we see in Genesis, as clear as day, God’s divine order of male headship. There is no getting around this. Eve takes the fruit but God comes looking for Adam. Problem in the marriage? Problem in the church? He’s coming for the man. This makes me want to help my husband any way that I can and it compels me to pray for my brothers.
3. Apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, man is not well nor is he sick; he is dead. How we view human nature, as a consequence of the fall, has everything to do with how we view our salvation. Prior to my salvation, I didn’t just need a little gospel medicine. I was dead in my transgressions and only God could make me alive.
4. Lorraine Boettner says this on the Bondage of the Will: “Man is a free agent but he cannot originate the love of God in his heart. His will is free in the sense that it is not controlled by any force outside of himself. As the “bird” with a broken wing is “free” to fly but not able, so the natural man is free to come to God but not able. How can he repent of his sin when he loves it? How can he come to God when he hates him? How can he come to God when he hates Him? This is the inability of the will under which man labors.”
5. I have a heightened appreciation for rules and laws. It is the grace of God that restrains man. The breaking of the law, or the casting off of restraint, is lawlessness which is ultimately anti-Christ. Parental discipline, and government for example are designed to restrain and that is a good thing.
6. That the Fall extended to every part of our nature means does not mean that man is incapable of doing anything good. It means that everything the unregenerate man does is motivated by selfishness – even the best things! Man is capable of what some theologians call “civic goodness” but ultimately, according to Leonard Coppes, “Everything that unregenerate man does or thinks is undergirded by rebellious inclinations against God or motivations that are sinful.”
7. Gordon Clark has this to say on man’s spiritual inability: “…Adam’s ability to will what is good was lost by the fall. From that time on man could not choose to will “any spiritual good accompanying salvation.’ True, a man might will to be honest, to support his family, to discharge most of his obligations as a citizen. In colloquial language these things are called good. But they are not spiritual goods, and they have nothing to do with salvation. Furthermore, a man cannot will to be saved. He cannot convert himself, nor even make preparation for the conversion. The simple reason is that he is dead in sin.”
8. I feel like these two verses have particularly stuck: “And without faith it is impossible to please him,” (Hebrews 11:6a) and “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6).
9. I’ve been meditating on this devotional published in the Valley of Vision. Read it and you will see — even repentance is a gift!
O LORD,
My every sense, member, faculty, affection, is a snare to me, I can scarce open my eyes but I envy those above me, or despise those below. I covet honour and riches of the mighty, and am proud and unmerciful to the rags of others; If I behold beauty it is a bait to lust, or see deformity, it stirs up loathing and disdain; How soon do slanders, vain jests, and wanton speeches creep into my heart!
Am I comely? what fuel for pride! Am I deformed? what an occasion for repining! Am I gifted? I lust after applause! Am I learned? how despise what I have not! Am I in authority? how prone to abuse my trust, make my will my law, exclude others’ enjoyments, serve my own interests and policy! Am I inferior? how much I grudge others’ pre-eminence! Am I rich? how exalted I become!
Thou knowest that all these are snares by my corruptions, and that my greatest snare is myself. I bewail that my apprehensions are dull, my thoughts mean, my affections stupid, my expressions low, my life unbeseeming; Yes what canst thou expect of dust but levity, of corruption but defilement? Keep me ever mindful of my natural state, but let me not forget my heavenly title, or the grace that can deal with every sin.
10. George Whitfield said, “But before you can speak peace to your heart, you must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties all your righteousness as the prophet elegantly expresses it put them all together, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that he will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth that God hates them, and cannot away with them, if you bring them to him in order to recommend you to his favor.” You can read more here.
That’s all I got for now!
Have a beautiful day in the Lord!
As the hour of His return draws near, the words of Octavious Winslow are every bit as true now as they were then.
May God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, keep our hearts “open” to the hostile world that we would preach Christ to. ______________________________________________________________________________________________
“Go forth and be loving, even as your Father in heaven is loving. Let your heart be as large in its creature capacity as God’s heart is in its divine. If He has a large heart for you, beware of a small heart for your fellows. If His heart is open, see that your heart is not closed. And since He departs at no sinfulness or ingratitude, at no injury or unworthiness on the part of the recipient of His goodness, be an imitator of God. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” God has so dealt with you, overcoming and winning your evil heart with the goodness and love of His own. Go and do likewise towards all who have injured you, wounded you, and despitefully used you, and so shall you be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Live for God, and act towards others as one who, in a little while, will flee from a world of sin, infirmity, and strife- from all its taintings, woundings, and misunderstandings, and find yourself playing upon the surface, and plunging into the depths of the ocean of love which flows and sparkles beneath and around the throne of God and the Lamb.”
~Octavius Winslow
Below are some thoughts from Dr. John Davis of Grace Church in Philadelphia, on the “Already, Not Yet” Kingdom of Jesus. Pastor Davis is the overseer of Sonship Ministries, the church I am privileged to call home. You can read his blog here.
1. Already a Kingdom in which the King offers redemption through his death and resurrection; not yet a kingdom in which redemption is applied to all of creation.
2. Already a Kingdom which one sees and enters through repentance and faith (John 3:3-5); not yet a kingdom which one sees with the physical eye.
3. Already a spiritual kingdom in which the King rules over the hearts and lives of his subjects, not yet, a geo-political kingdom in which all the universe is in subjection to His righteous rule.
4. Already a kingdom in which the subjects of the King are learning to love one another and live in unity; not yet a kingdom in which the subjects of the King perfectly love another and live in unity.
5. Already a kingdom in which its subjects hold title to an eternal inheritance; not yet a kingdom in which the subjects are in full enjoyment of the inheritance.
6. Already a kingdom in which its subjects are granted the New Heavens and Earth; not yet a kingdom in which they possess the New Heavens and Earth.
7. Already a kingdom which is in conflict with the powers of darkness; not yet a kingdom which is fully triumphant over the powers of darkness.
8. Already a kingdom in which the power of the King over death, disease, and the devil is evident; not yet a kingdom in which death, disease, and the devil are banished forever.
9. Already a kingdom growing mysteriously and gradually (Matt 13); not yet a kingdom manifested in power and glory.
“God expects nothing from Alan Redpath but failure. I as a man am no different today from the day before I was converted. Five minutes after I’ve finished preaching I would be capable of committing any sin imaginable but for the grace of God. Alan Redpath is no different as a man from what he was as a youngster. And the sins that beset him then beset him now, were it not for a constant, continual dependence upon the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit to keep me.”
- Alan Redpath
“For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” Romans 3:28
Trust – what is it?
Go to that child’s couch when the storm is raging,
moaning among the tree-tops and strewing branches
on the lawn, the blackened sky echoing with the
artillery of heaven. A parent’s hand draws the curtain
and smoothes the ruffled pillow; a parent’s lip kisses
all fear away.
Such is the trust and confidence of His children inspired
by their Heavenly Father in the hour of anxiety and dismay,
“In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and His
children shall have a place of refuge.” Proverbs 14:26
John MacDuff, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour
“There is fullness of sympathy in our God. The river that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, did you ever hear of it drying up? “The “Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” The Son, the “Consolation of Israel,” He that was sent to comfort all that mourn; the Holy Spirit “the Comforter,” leading us to Consolation of Israel and the Father of mercies. We are at the deep, deep well of love. The weariest head and the sorest heart may lean on the bosom on which the beloved disciple leaned, and find indescribable relief and indescribable sympathy, for He will whisper all the time, “All things work together for good to them that love God,” “For thought He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.”
- Andrew Bonar, Heavenly Springs.
The other day when I got on the train, I observed an older man. He was probably in his mid 70′s. I watched him from the distance and thought to myself that he had a certain benevolence about him. He was neatly dressed. He wore khaki pants and a light green jacket. I even observed something about his nose that reminded me of my dad.
It didn’t take long before I realized something was wrong. He was having a conversation. Only there was no one there.
Immediately my heart went out to this poor man.
Where was he going? Did he have family, or people who cared about him? Who will protect him if someone tries to hurt him?
There he was, an old man today but yesterday someone’s little boy, tucked inside a sea of people who were brushing by him and giving him no thought whatsoever.
I lost him in the crowd, but his face has come to mind more than a few times this weekend. I pray that Jesus protect him. While I cannot know if this man knew Jesus as His Savior or not, isn’t it for lost souls, just like him, that Jesus came?
Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
Jesus comes to a lost and dying world to seek and to save it. For those who are not looking or asking, salvation comes, in the beautiful name of Jesus.
Remember my nameless friend in your prayers, please.
“The Age of Reason” is a term that is used to describe an era that challenged the authority of the Bible. Personally, I find that rather ironic since it is precisely His Word, or His reason, that enables me to make right decisions in difficult situations.
One of keys to discovering the will of God, or the best course of action, in challenging situations is to ask a simple question: How can I best bring God glory?
In other words, are you poor? How can you best glorify God in your poverty?
Are you rich? How can you best glorify God in your wealth?
Are you in a heap of trouble, that is largely a consequence of your own doing? Then stop where you are right now and consider how you can best glorify God going forward. Since when has God been afraid of a mess?
Are you sick? How can you best glorify God in your affliction?
Once the decision to glorify God has been made, I have seen that goodness and mercy are right behind.
Surely the authors of the Westminster Shorter Catechism had it right when they declared that, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
In light of this, may the Word of God be our compass, “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:11).
And they who for their country die
Shall fill an honored grave,
For glory lights the soldier’s tomb,
And beauty weeps the brave.
- Joseph Drake
