I'll Be Honest, Will You?
I just stumbled upon a new website: I’ll Be Honest, Will You?
There are some great videos there. Here is one of them:
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Communion Journal
Wrestled hard today for communion with God. Yet in all my wrestling I was also denying using the proper means unto that communion. I woke up early, I prayed, I read scripture, I meditated on songs and stories of grace. Yet in all of this I did not attend unto the Spirit of grace who alone can lift our heads to see our Savior. Owen says of this:
These things ought to be explicitly attended unto by us, if we intend our faith, and love, and duties of obedience should be evangelical. … It is, therefore, of the highest importance unto us to inquire into and secure unto ourselves the promised workings of the Holy Spirit; for by them alone are the love of the Father and the fruits of the mediation of the Son communicated unto us, without which we have no interest in them, and by them alone are we enabled to make any acceptable returns of obedience unto God. It is sottish ignorance and infidelity to suppose that, under the gospel, there is no communication between God and us but what is, on his part, in laws, commands, and promises; and on ours, by obedience performed in our strength, and upon our convictions unto them. To exclude hence the real internal operations of the Holy Ghost, is to destroy the gospel.
Now I have been enabled to approve of and delight in God’s means of saving sinners. Whereas before I was feeling sorry for myself that my own patience and efforts in trying to appropriate Christ’s blood we not availing me. Now I am glad that such were denied for in doing so, I would make a mockery of God’s way of salvation and supplant it with my own way.
Questions or Comments?Communion Journal
Yesterday, was able to reflect on recent events with a joy-filled heart. It often seems that much of our time is spent in a state of murmuring (which God calls rebellion) rather than in contentment with what he is doing. It is hard to see the extent of this but by looking back while in communion with God.
Questions or Comments?Communion Journal
Have been struggling after God most of the day today with only small glimpses of success. Monday, I had a day that was extremely filled with sweetness in communion with God, yet I didn’t write anything down from the time. Yesterday as well, found some communion in the book of Job. Yet today is much harder. The reason I’m making sure to write about it is so that I can laugh at my accuser later when God uses this day to my benefit and the benefit of his kingdom. Though my efforts are nothing, God is mighty and faithful to make sure that they are put to good use.
Questions or Comments?Communion Journal
Had a few moments of freedom in prayer this morning and glimpses of God’s glory. Yet prayer and seeking has been more characterized by lifelessness. In a way this coldness (or at least the awareness of it) is a small victory. It has been a long time since I’ve fought for God hard enough to feel the weight of failure therein.
Questions or Comments?Communion Journal
Came to some degree of fervency in prayer this morning. As our situation comes to be less desperate, I tend to pray with less passion. I’m not sure the best way to combat this. This is all the more reason to rejoice that I’ve been able to pray with some freedom this morning.
Questions or Comments?Am I Saved?
I can’t think of a more important question than this one. I hope that this article might be of some assistance to you in answering it.
The correct answer to each question in this list should not be hard to figure out but that is not the point. Instead, use them to search your soul for honest answers. If you put in this effort, I think what you get in return will be well worth the effort.
Lastly, if you need any help understanding what is intended in these questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.
- Do you see Christ as your only hope for salvation from sins?
Saving faith is having “believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son” (1 John 5:10b). True and saving faith not only accepts God’s way of salvation but utterly rejects all other ways. Faith despises the notion that we might somehow work our way into God’s favor. Faith delights that it must rest and trust in God alone. A good way to remember this is to use FAITH as an acronym for: Forsaking All I Take Him.
An example of this type of faith—one that delights in God’s way of saving and rejects all others—can be seen in Brainerd’s conversion story:
My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable, to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that he should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in him; at least to that degree, that I had no thought (as I remember) at first about my own salvation, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as myself.
Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt him, and set him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at his honor and glory, as King of the universe. I continued in this state of inward joy, peace, and astonishment, till near dark, without any sensible abatement; and then began to think and examine what I had seen; and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world, and every thing about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do. At this time, the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency, that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation; was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances, and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before. If I could have been saved by my own duties, or any other way that I had formerly contrived, my whole soul would now have refused it. I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ. (Source) - Do you sin? Are you a sinner?
If so,
Rejoice! To know that you are a sinner is a small miracle. In some very real way, the Holy Spirit has already started a work in you.
If not,
The Bible says that; “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that; “if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Sin is being less holy than God is. Are you as righteous as God? As loving as God? As patient as God? If not, you have a problem because God cannot accept anything less than perfect holiness. No matter how small these shortcoming might seem to you, they are huge to God and soon they will separate you from him entirely.
- Do you hate all of your sins and wish fervently that you could quit them?
If so,
Let your soul be comforted. Do you think it is possible to universally hate sin but by the acting of God in your life? As the Psalmist, you have begun to love God’s standard for righteousness. This is a great sign of conversion. A small caution: do not place all of your assurance herein. Many who know not God will say that they hate sin (yet not with a full view of sin and with full honesty).
If not,
Without sincerity and diligence in a universality of obedience, there is no hope for holiness at all. You are like Saul who lost his inheritance in keeping the best possessions of the Amalekites for himself. Without an absolute hatred of sin as sin, what business do you have cleaning up some particular part of your life? Do you hold onto some sin in tenderness, calling it sweet names? Remember, the sin that you are holding onto, Christ bled and died for the sake of it, so set yourself against it as the Father set himself against his Son as a result of it.
- Is there any sin that you are not willing to forsake if God would grant you the power to forsake it?
This is another way of asking the last question. Say there was a big red button which when pressed would completely eradicate the possibility of you ever sinning again. Is there anything that would make you hesitate to press such a button?
Do you believe God grants saints that power in Christ? Verse List
Have you been making use of it?
If so, you should often be gaining great victories over your sin, which should help provide you with great assurance that you are born of God. - Do you feel that everlasting misery is due to you for the sake of your many sins?
Those that would be free of the filth of sin must labor to feel the shame of it. Ezra (Ezr 9:6) and Jeremiah (Jer 3:25) knew to be ashamed before God. Fill yourself with a due regard for the just penalties of your sin. Do you realize that every moment you are not in hell is a charitable gift from God? This ought fill your soul with all manner of remorse and gratitude. This is true regardless of whether you are a Christian or not. God requires us to abide in this state to the furtherance of his grace in our lives (Eze 16:63). Paul assumes that this shame is a part of the Christian experience (Rom 6:21). How can you expect to achieve victory over sin if you purposely forget what you are commanded to remember (Eph 2:12)? Paul calls himself the chief of sinners and a debtor to all. This is what the Spirit taught Paul and what the Spirit will teach you if indeed you are sealed with him.
- Do you now live in the willful practice of any known sin?
If so,
First rejoice that God has revealed this sin to you. Your heart is not so hardened as to have been completely handed over to your own lusts. Second, confess your sin and your inability to stop. Set faith to work in the promises of God. He knows your sin. He knows you do not have any power over it in yourself. He is a gracious God and will condescend to help you if you turn your plight over to him. Yet for all the hope offered here there is also a warning. 1John 3:9 “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” One of the greatest mistakes men make is to think it is possible to be born again and to continue willfully sinning. These two are incompatible.
If not,
Either you are living in great power or in great ignorance. This can be a hard area: keep a watchful eye on your soul.
- Are you able to turn to God and call him Father even in your sinful state?
It is easy for all humanity to imagine a smiling deity when life is going well. Yet those who dwell in Christ have something more: in the midst of sinning, a Christian can feel the pleasure of God—for he knows that God’s pleasure does not result from sinlessness but from imputation.
- Do you serve God merely (or primarily) to save yourself from damnation?
One born again sees godliness as a high reward in itself. Oh to be holy, oh to be like God, oh to be able to keep his commandments: these are the pinings of a softened heart. Were there no hell and no heaven, a Christian’s desire for righteousness would not be slackened in the least. Think of Christ who we are called to be like. Did he act righteously merely to avoid the wrath of God? If you are not like Christ in this way, be cautioned, it is very unlikely that your heart has been knit to his.
This is one great difference between believers and those that have not faith. Fear of the consequents of sin, with an apprehension of some advantages which are to be obtained by a sober life and the profession of religion, do steer and regulate the minds of unbelievers, in all they do towards God or for eternity; but the minds of believers are influenced by a view of the glory of the image and likeness of God in that holiness, and all the parts of it, which they are called unto. This gives them love unto it, delight and complacency in it, enabling them to look upon it as its own reward. And without these affections none will ever abide in the ways of obedience unto the end. —John Owen
- Do you have a radical habitual holiness so that often you find the work of following God’s law easy when once it was hard for you?
This may be hard to understand. Those who pretend to be Christians try to act like God and through practice eventually find themselves developing habits that seem consistent with righteousness. Christians on the other hand are given a habit with which they are able to act a holiness not of their own making. Pretenders desire some favor with God and so try on moral uprightness to get what they desire. Christians desire holiness itself. This is very related to hating sin as sin. The sinfulness itself is what the Christian hates. Likewise, the holiness itself is what a Christian loves.
As an example: It is not so hard for a Christian to keep the Sabbath because he loves keeping it—it is a joy. That it leads to good results is only icing on the cake, for even if it led to bad results, the Christian would still enjoy keeping it.
Another way to describe it is in connection with original sin, which is also called indwelling sin. Just like indwelling sin whispers sweet calls to the sinner to come and taste of its fruits and drives a man to distraction with various lusts, so too does this habit (aka indwelling grace) prompt a Christian towards righteousness. It gives holiness a sweetness and an appeal. Where many men can spend time day-dreaming about cars or women, a Christian might find himself daydreaming about helping the poor. The mind starts mulling over the things of God. Hence David says that he meditates on God’s law both day and night and that he is consumed with a desire for it.
Owen explains it this way:
There is wrought and preserved in the minds and souls of all believers, by the Spirit of God, a supernatural principle or habit of grace and holiness, whereby they are made meet for and enabled to live unto God, and perform that obedience which he requireth and accepteth through Christ in the covenant of grace; essentially or specifically distinct from all natural habits, intellectual and moral, however or by what means soever acquired or improved.
- Can you say, as David, that you delight in God’s law?
The Hebrews have several words for the roaring of a lion:
- Sha’ag is the lion’s roar in seeking prey (Psa 104:21)
- Naham his cry when seizing it (Pro 19:12)
- Hagah his growl defying any effort to snatch from him his prey (Isa 31:4)
The point is that in Psa 1:2, David compares righteous men to lions who hagah (meditate) on the word of God. The image is that they fiercely guard it while the gnaw on it. Not so the wicked. In Psa 2:1, the wicked hagah (plot) on vanities. Which are you more possesive of, the things of God or the things of this world? What is your default state? What do you spend most of your time thinking about?
If you ask him to, God will help you change from one kind of man to the other. However, if you are like most peope, instead of throwing yourself to God alone for help, you will feel convicted to use your own willpower to try to be more Godly. This seldom works. Only the Holy Spirit can change you from one type of man to the other. Learn to set faith at work in Christ for the conversion process and you will begin to become such a man.
- Can you turn to the fountain that has been opened unto all holiness?
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness (Zec 13.1).”
We defile ourselves every day, and if we go not every day to the “fountain that is open for sin and for uncleanness,” we shall quickly be all over leprous. Our consciences will be filled with dead works, so that we shall no way be able to serve the living God, unless they are daily purged out. … When a soul, filled with self-abasement under a sense of its own defilements, applies itself unto Christ by faith for cleansing, and that constantly and continually, with a fervency answering its sense and convictions, it is in its way and proper course. I am persuaded no true believer in the world is a stranger unto this duty; and the more any one abounds therein, the more genuine is his faith evidenced to be, and the more humble is his walk before the Lord. —John Owen
- Do you despise all this world has to offer as dross and dung in comparison to the riches offered in communion with Christ?
Would you be certain whether you are converted or not? Now let your soul and all that is within you attend. Have you taken God for your happiness? Where does the desire of your heart lie? What is the source of your greatest satisfaction? Come, then, and with Abraham lift up your eyes eastward, and westward, and northward, and southward, and look around you; what is it that you would have in heaven or on earth to make you happy? If God should give you your choice, as He did to Solomon, or should say to you, as Ahasuerus to Esther, ‘What is thy petition, and what is thy request, and it shall be granted thee?’ what would you ask? Go into the gardens of pleasure, and gather all the fragrant flowers there, would these satisfy you? Go to the treasures of mammon; suppose you may carry away as much as you desire. Go to the towers, to the trophies of honour. What do you think of being a man of renown, and having a name like the name of the great men of the earth? Would any of these, would all of these satisfy you, and make you to count yourself happy? If so, then certainly you are carnal and unconverted.”
—Joseph Alleine, A Sure Guide to Heaven - Will you be content for all eternity to dwell on the holiness of God?
Where there is true grace, there is an insatiable desire of more. —Andrew Bromhall
Some wonder if they will be bored in heaven. It is impossible for those who know what Christ tastes like to ask such a question. Some evidence a similar type of ignorance of Christ by being bored here on earth. If you find yourself with nothing to do for several hours, is it possible for you to commune with God during that time and thus be more happy than if you were distracting yourself with games or entertainment? If you willfully refuse to enjoy Christ now, how do you hope to enter into heaven which will be the perfecting of that experience (Joh 17:3)?
- Is there any duty you are unwilling to perform for the sake of Christ?
Is there anything God is not allowed to ask of you? Is there anything he could ask that you would not do? Abraham demonstrated his faith with his willingness to sacrafice his own son. Our faith must be of the same type as his.
- Have you taken the everlasting joy of God for your chief happiness in this life and the next?
Can you truly say, that you have so far taken the everlasting enjoyment of God for your happiness, that it hath the most of your heart, of your love, desire, and care; and that you are resolved, by the strength of Divine grace, to let go all that you have in the world, rather than hazard it; and that it is your daily, and your principal business to seek it? Can you truly say, that though you have your failings and sins, yet your main care, and the bent of your whole life, is to please God, and to enjoy him for ever; and that you give the world God’s leavings, as it were, and not God the world’s leavings; and that your worldly business is but as a traveller’s seeking for provision in his journey, and heaven is the place that you take for your home?
…[If not]…
I much fear that you are yet a stranger to the Christian life. For if you we’re a Christian indeed, and truly converted, your very heart would be set on God and the life to come, and you would make it your chief business to prepare for everlasting happiness; and you durst not, you would not, live in any wilful sin, nor in the neglect of any known duty.
Alas! what have you done? how have you spent your time till now Did you not know that you had a soul to be saved or lost; and that you must live in heaven or in hell for ever; and that you had your life and time in this world chiefly for the purpose of preparing for another? Alas! what have you been doing all your days that you are so ignorant, or so unprepared for death, if it should now find you? If you had but as much mind of heaven as of earth, you would have known more of it, and done more for it, and inquired more diligently after it, than you have done. You can learn how to do your business in the world; and why could you not learn more of the will of God, if you had but attended to it? You have neighbors that could learn more, that have had as much to do in the world as you, and who have had as little time. Do you think that heaven is not worth your labor? —Richard Baxter - Do you feel more loved by God because he makes much of you, or because, at great cost to himself, he frees you to enjoy making much of him forever?
From John Piper:
Is the deepest basis of our joy God’s greatness or our greatness?
Am I more satisfied praising him or being praised?
Am I God-centered because of his surpassing value, or am I God-centered because he highlights my surpassing value?
Would it be heaven to me to see God or to be God?
…The love of God is not God’s making much of us, but God’s saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead people to the only lasting joy, namely, God. Love must be God-centered, or it is not true love; it leaves people without their final hope of joy.
Hopfully, as you have been working though these, one of two things has been happening: 1- Either you have found great comfort and assurance that the God of heaven has implanted in you his Holy Spirit as a seal of your salvation, or 2- you have begun to realize that you have no solid evidence for believing that you have been converted. If this second thing has been happening, please don’t give up hope. Turn to God for mercy. Seek him with all that is in you and he will reveal himself to you (Jer 29:13). If one soul is rescued from presumption into genuine faith as a result of this article, all the work and prayer will be well worth it.
Questions or Comments?
Communion Journal
I woke up today ready to get to work, but I reminded myself to spend a few minutes reading and praying. These few minutes turned into several hours of writing prayerfully.
…
I have been experiencing doubt as a result of so much of the church disagreeing with us about the Christian life. Today, I was refreshed in talking with a man who probably knows almost no reformed doctrine, yet he knew about and worshiped God for almost everything I said. Walking with God is not a foreign concept to people who know him regardless of religious training. If experiencing God is foreign to a church it is not my place to change God’s way of salvation for their sake.
Questions or Comments?1 Chronicles 21
My devotions today where in 1 Chronicles 21. This is the story of the aftermath of David’s pride in taking a census of God’s people. As a result of this sin, God made David choose between 3 woes that were not to be poured out upon David alone but upon the Israelites (1Ch 21:11-12). We see here the seriousness of sin and the sovereignty of God over both Satan (1Ch 21:1) and our own sins (2Sa 24:1), yet we—as David—maintain moral responsibility for our own actions (1Ch 21:8). We see also that sacrifice must cost (1Ch 21:24), as religion that costs nothing is worth nothing (Luke 14:26, Luke 14:33, 1Jo 2:15, Luke 5:11). Yet these are not the particular things wherein I worshiped this morning. Instead I saw God in these:
The Fear of God (1Ch 21:20-21,23)
Ornan, who not only paid homage to David but was eager to donate his own property, was not an Israelite but a Jebusite: a people devoted unto destruction (Deu 20:17). Why was he so willing to help the cause of David? Because the fear of the LORD was upon him. He saw God’s sword and this compelled him to hide and to offer up his own property to his rightful enemy all in the name of appeasing such a God as this. Those who have seen God are willing to go to great lengths to assuage him and promote his causes. Would that God’s own people live up to the example set to us in this man. This is what the man acts like who sees Jesus as this man did.
Assuaged Wrath (1Ch 21:26)
Herein is the gospel thinly veiled: In the very time the wrath of God was pouring out upon the people of God as a result of David’s sin, God turned the force of his anger onto the sacrifice instead. So too with us: As a result of Adam’s sin did the anger of the LORD burn upon all (Rom 5:12), yet Christ in our place was consumed by the fire of the LORD that we might be reconciled to God (Rom 5:18). What a God is our God to hide his work for all to see.
Godly Zeal (1Ch 21:30)
Here we see the haste that the fear of God’s wrath put David to. Likewise, Aaron ran to make atonement for the Israelites (Num 16:47). When the wrath of God is the issue, we must make haste. Eternity is at stake. But what of God’s own law? There was one place alone where God permitted sacrifice to be made (Deu 12:13-14, Jos 22:29). Will God set aside his own law at times such as these? We would do well to remember that symbols are subservient to what they symbolize and thus not pit God against his own law. The altar was a symbol of the unity of worship, and that symbol cannot be made into the thing that opposes the worship which David was restoring. David’s altar, like Moses’ serpent (Num 21:8), was not raised in opposition to God’s law but for the fulfilling of it (Mat 5:17).
A Smiling Face (1Ch 22:1)
Here we see God’s smiling face that was hidden by a frowning providence. In the midst of all the woe and destruction God lays the foundation for his temple which will soon hold his glory. The eternal remembrance of this story will not focus on David’s sin nor on God’s wrath, but in God’s great kindness in giving his people a temple unto his own glory and unto their good. As the temple then was inaugurated by David, so now a cornerstone of the Church has been laid. It too was laid in the midst of sin and wrath. Yet those very things provide a backdrop that highlights the great grace of God in saving such as us. We see here God triumphing over all obstacles to save his people. He triumphs over sin. He triumphs over Satan. Never let us say then that anything is worth our faithlessness. These very things that tempt us to doubt will soon be cause for rejoicing—even our own sin.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. -William Cowper God Moves In A Mysterious Way
Communion Journal
Today, so far, has felt like a series of unfortunate events. My communion with God has definitely been weakened by the exasperation of such. Yet I have been enabled to fight and to cling, to not give up and call the situation hopeless, to not feel sorry for myself or say “woe is me.” I feel instead the might of my sin—knowing that I’m denied no good thing—but wickedly unable to happily praise my savior in delight. Praise God for the ability to wage war and fight in the midst of sin like mine. Praise him more that the fight is not ours, but his—and he is faithful.
Questions or Comments?