Jared Longshore's Blog, page 5

No Place for a Soggy Mind

When God raises men out of their graves, He raises the whole man, the mind included. You are to love the Lord your God with all your mind and thanks be to God your mind is no longer dead. It has walked out of the grave with your Lord. Even so, your mind is not yet perfect. It will be prone to wander in this very service. But you must not let it. 

You have climbed Mount Zion and have entered the throne room of heaven. There is no place where your mind should be sharper. There is no place where you should be more dialed in. You offer your songs to God and He requires that you do so knowledgeably. You will hear the Lord of Hosts speak to you and He requires you to pay attention, to stay awake. In the presence of Christ on this Mount of Transfiguration, the Father says to you, “This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.” 

As we are fond of saying, worship is our warfare and the front lines is no place for a soggy mind.

The post No Place for a Soggy Mind appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

A Word for the Idolaters in Texas

Not being able to make our values beautiful, we make them huge.

Pliny the Elder

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Union

The post A Word for the Idolaters in Texas appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

Virgin Womb, Virgin Tomb

The sin of all sins is the sin of unbelief. It is is the sin that says dry bones can’t live. Your children can’t flourish like the palm tree. The kingdom of God can’t breathe and the promises of God will flatline. 

The serpent’s lie before Adam’s fall was, “you will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). But his lie afterward, his lie today, is that you and yours will not surely live. You will not eat the fat, drink the sweet, and you will have no portions to send to others. That lie is all the more deceptive because in Adam all die (1 Corinthians 15:22).  

But two thousand years ago, the Creator wedded Himself to creation in the womb of a virgin. In a place of no seed, in a barren and dead place, God came and resurrection with Him. Some three decades later, in a virgin tomb, where no body had previously been laid, resurrection sprouted in history (John 19:41).

So look to the firstfruits of the new creation, which is Christ risen from the dead, and know for certain that you and yours will live. How could you not? You live in a world of resurrection.

The post Virgin Womb, Virgin Tomb appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

Takes Away and Gives

At this table we are reminded of Job’s faithful saying in reverse order. In Job’s suffering, he testified that the Lord gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. But the statement has a slightly different connotation when the words are reversed. The Lord takes away and gives, blessed be the name of the Lord.

The procedure of the Old Testament sacrifice was striking. The Israelite would bring an offering, identify with the offering by placing their hands on it, and it would be slain. Then, in the case of the peace offering, that sacrifice was turned into food for them. Sin taken away and sustenance given in return. And all of this in the same sacrifice.

So it is with the Lamb slain once for all time. At this feast, we declare that the LORD takes away and gives. By faith, we have laid hold of the Lord and all of our sin has been taken away. And by that same faith, we have laid hold of the Lord and receive Him as bread and wine.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Christ is half of a sacrifice. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the Great High Priest won’t follow the terms of the covenant sacrifice. He is a Generous Priest. And He is, at the same time, a whole sacrifice.

You have all sorts of needs. And you do not know exactly how the Lord will meet them. But you are promised that He will. And you have seen Him do so time and time again in the past. This sacrament is a gurantee of His provision. If He has given His very self to you as bread, if He has given His very self to you as wine, then surely He will supply you with all that you need. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

The post Takes Away and Gives appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

The Water and the Blood

As the water which flowed from Ezekiel’s temple grew deeper and deeper, so it is with the baptism of the world. Every baptism is yet another sign that God’s promises are true and the commission that Christ gave His disciples upon His resurrection will indeed come to pass. All nations will be blessed in the Lion of the tribe of Judah. All nations will take His name upon their heads. All nations will obey His commands. And as that Lion Himself promised, He is with us even now, guaranteeing His salvation by the water and the blood.

The post The Water and the Blood appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

Covenant Renewal Service

As our community continues to grow, we must remember to keep the central things central. And nothing is more central to our flourishing Christian culture than worship. But as it is with all of the central things, we can easily set up a stone of rememberance while forgetting what the stone signifies. We can set up statues while forgetting the men. In order to avoid this, I want to remind you about what you are doing here today.

You are the covenant people of God, who have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. You have assembled as covenant families before your covenant-keeping God. Our worship began with a call to lift up your hearts, and you have testified that you have lifted them up to the Lord. This includes an exaltation into the heavenly places themselves, where we have joined with seraphim, cherubim, and arch angels to offer service to the Almighty, Father, Son, and Spirit.

That service or worship you now pay to the Lord is your very body, which is to be a living and holy sacrifice (Romans 12:1). You know it is not has holy as it should be. And a moment’s reflection will call to mind how you have missed the mark this past week. So you are soon to kneel and confess those shortcomings that you might be a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord. Christ the Word will soon be preached to you and you must listen for His voice ready to believe and obey.

Following this consecrating Word, you will commune with God Himself, partaking of the peace offering, Jesus Christ. And then you will be commissioned to go forth from this covenant renewal service to do the good works God has prepared for you to do.

The covenant that God renews with you now is very real. The blessings promised are as rock solid as the curses promised. So sing, kneel, pray, hear, eat, and go as what you are: a sacrifice to the Lord.

The post Covenant Renewal Service appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

The Spirit of Jael

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning, the devil says, “Oh crap, she’s up.”

Unknown

The post The Spirit of Jael appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

The Whole Christ

This table is a tangible reminder that the Christian faith is supernatural. Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was truly and fully human, made like us in every way apart from sin. It follows that His body is like our body, albeit glorified after His resurrection from the dead.

The body of Christ, being fully human, has location. We disagree with the teaching of transubstatiation that claims this bread is turned into the physical body of Christ. That teaching would leave Christ’s physical body fragmented into a thousand pieces filling various churches across the globe. But we do not disagree with the truth that at this table we participate in the whole Christ. We commune with Him and that includes His divine and human nature. But if His physical body is not fragmented into the various churches where Christ is being worshipped today, how do we truly feed upon the body and blood of our Lord in this sacrament?

The answer is that we have ascended to heaven where we now feed on Him by faith. We have ascended like Elijah. We walk with God now like Enoch. We have gone up the true and better mount of transfiguration to commune with Christ in His glory. The bread you now eat is true bread indeed and the wine you drink is true wine that gladdens hearts eternally. You do not have to understand everything about this meal, and for that matter, you never could. But you do have to come in faith. Christ is dead for you, risen for you, ascended for you, and here you are with Him, so come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

The post The Whole Christ appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

New Book: Man for the Job

An announcement here that I wrote a new little book for young men called Man for the Job. Below is the preface.

You can pick up the paperback for $7 here.

And the Kindle version for $4 here.

Preface

This little book is an attempt to equip the rising generation of young men with truths they will need to rebuild our commonwealth. I trust that you already know that such a rebuild is necessary. If you are looking for a book on the fall of Western civilization, you will not find it here. But, if you have read enough of those books to be aware of our problem and would like to get on with the work of restoration, then this book has something to offer you. I do not offer a silver bullet. But I do offer you advice on the kind of men we need for the job at hand.

Within are ten fictional letters to a fictional nephew, each consisting of a directive for becoming the kind of man who can work with the sword and shovel. We need men who can both tear down strongholds and build the true, good, and beautiful amid the rubble. I have four sons of my own, four nephews, and I have the privilege of teaching high school seniors and college freshmen. As I look around at these young men, I see immense energy and loads of raw potential. We have many reasons to be hopeful about what these men may do for the health of our nation in the coming days.

But the task of each generation is to pass down the lessons of our fathers to our sons. Proverbs says that the glory of young men is their strength, and the splendor of old men is their gray head” (Proverbs 20:29). Unfortunately, I just passed my fortieth year which means I am not old enough to be wise nor young enough to be strong. So you will have to consider these lessons as coming from a middle man, simply passing down to the young bucks what I have learned from the gray heads thus far.

Sincerely yours,

Uncle Jared

The post New Book: Man for the Job appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.

No Reason to Doubt It

Baptism is a sign of one’s ingrafting into Christ. It is a sign of regeneration, the cleansing of sin, and God’s steadfast covenant love. As with all of God’s words, His sign of baptism is simply to be trusted. We do not know all of the trials and temptations that our covenant children will face in their lives. But we do know what God has promised. We do know what God says here in and through baptism. And given that God’s covenant promise is guaranteed in Christ’s blood, we see no reason to doubt it.

The post No Reason to Doubt It appeared first on REFORMATION & REVIVAL.