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by
John Piper
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April 21 - May 17, 2020
The key here is not professionalism. The best soul-searcher and the best counselor may have no letters after their names.
traits of selfishness is that there is no premeditation.
Self-pity: a desire that others feel my woundedness and admire me for my being mistreated and move to show me some sympathy.
the link between the cross and my conquered sin is my empowered will.
So I say it again, the link between the cross and the conquered sin in my life is my Holy-Spirit-empowered will.
AVOID. Say NO! within five seconds. TURN to something magnificent, like Christ crucified. HOLD the pure thing in the mind until the temptation is gone. ENJOY the greater pleasure of the blood-bought promises of God. MOVE on to meaningful Christ-exalting activity.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34).
(katergazesthe)
Work to kill your sin, and will to kill your sin, and do it with fear and trembling because God Almighty—Maker of heaven and earth, Redeemer, Justifier, Sustainer, Father, Lover—is so close to you that your working and willing is His working and willing.
Now at that moment the temptation for anger, self-pity, blaming, and sullenness was as dangerous to my soul as a sexual temptation.
28: “Baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person” (28.3).
the assertion that infants of believers “are to be baptized” (28.4).
Each of us has blind spots, which others see more clearly than we ourselves, and some of them are more owing to circumstantial factors than to willful or recalcitrant attitudes toward God and Scripture.
First, I saw that every baptism recorded in the Bible was the baptism of a person who had professed faith in Christ.
The “household baptisms” (mentioned in Acts 16:15, 33 and 1 Cor. 1:16) are exceptions to this only if one assumes that the “household” included infants.
for example in the case of the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:32), by saying that Paul first “spoke the word of the Lord . . . to all who were in his [the jailer’s] house,” and then baptized them. This looks like Luke’s way of showing that a person needs ...
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“You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead”
This text frightens many Baptists away because it seems to come close to the Roman Catholic notion that the rite, in and of itself, saves (baptismal
According to Peter, baptism is “an appeal to God.” That is, baptism is the cry of faith to God.
Baptism is the outward appeal of faith to God in the heart.
The argument says it is possible that these passages from Colossians and 1 Peter have relevance only for the missionary setting where adults are being converted and baptized.
to be engrafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament baptism is appointed.
This is the root difference between Baptists and Presbyterians on baptism.
Satan’s design is the destruction of faith (Job 2:5; 1 Thess. 3:5), but God’s design is the deep cure of our soul,
Like Job, Paul recognized his thorn in the flesh as a “messenger of Satan” (2 Cor. 12:7) but designed by God for a gracious purpose: “to keep me from being too elated [conceited].”
God has made plain to us one of the purposes for which pastors must suffer.
“The afflictions of a Christian minister are designed by God to achieve the comfort and salvation of his flock.”
No pastoral suffering is senseless. No pastoral pain is pointless. No adversity is absurd or meaningless. Every heartache has its divine target in the consolation of the saints, even when we feel least useful.
“That was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”
For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward
Poor, that our people might be rich. Weak, that they might be strong.
It raises the question about the way in which deep emotions can be expressed in public.
First, Lamentations is a deeply emotional book. Jeremiah writes about what means most to him, and he writes in agony.
chapters 1, 2, and 4 are each divided into twenty-two stanzas (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet),
After reading Lamentations, we can no longer believe that unpondered prayers are more powerful or real or passionate or heartfelt or genuine or alive than prayers that are thoughtfully and earnestly (and painfully?)
This is a plea for passion in the pulpit, passion in prayer, passion in conversation. It is not a plea for thin, whipped-up emotionalism. (“Let’s all stand up and smile!”)
Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world.
“We agree to abstain from the use and the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.”
legalism is present whenever a person is trying to be ethical in his own strength, that is, without relying on the merciful help of God in Christ. Simply put, moral behavior that is not from faith is legalism (Rom. 14:23).
They are blood brothers in God’s sight because both reject the mercy of God in Christ as a means to righteousness and use either morality or immorality as a means of expressing their independence and self-sufficiency and self-determination.
the erecting of specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of Scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for membership in a local church. This is where unbiblical exclusivism arises.
legalism means treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor. On the other hand, it means erecting specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of Scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for local church membership.
Let us not be deceived by outward appearances. Satan “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14).
Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world.
The consumption of food and drink
itself no basis for judging a person’s standing with God
“We engage to abstain from all drugs, food, drink, and practices which bring unwarranted harm to the body or jeopardize our own or another’s faith.”
That’s what this chapter is about, namely, the correlation between the condition of the body and the condition of the soul.
Eating, exercising, and sleeping are more spiritually relevant in the ministry than we may think.
Jonathan Edwards “carefully observed the effects of the different sorts of food, and selected those which best suited his constitution, and rendered him most fit for mental labor.”
