daddy4ms

I finished reading Why the Reformation Still Matters by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester a few weeks ago.  There is a previous blog post with quotes from first 5 chapters of the book.  Today's post includes quotes from Chapters 6-11. For them (the Reformers) there was an important difference between union and communion. Communion with Christ--meaning the actual enjoyment of Christ--is something that fluctuates in believers...Union is the foundation of communion...union with Christ is a fixed and therefore stable thing, the solid foundation on which we can know lasting joy. (117) our sin cannot be removed from our hearts simply by our trying harder or scrubbing ourselves clean: the Spirit must transform us through the gospel. That is how the new life of the Spirit begins, and this is how it grows...The gospel, then, cannot be treated simply as a message for unbelievers, as the doorway into the Christian life; in order for Christians to grow they must be kept in the sunshine...

Christ Alone. To God Alone Be the Glory. Here are quotes from the final chapters of The Pastor's Justification by Jared C. Wilson: Jesus Christ alone is the hope, treasure, joy, and purpose of pastoral ministry...Let everything be a means to this end: the treasuring of Christ and the enjoying of his glory. Because only Jesus transforms, the focus and message of our ministries must be only Jesus. The exclusivity of Christ is not just a test of Christian orthodoxy; it is a test of Christian orthopraxy. Faith is not our rock; Christ is our rock. We do not get faith by having faith in our faith or by looking to faith, but by looking to Christ. Looking to Christ is faith...If we start qualifying our faith, we destroy the gospel...Far too often we are prone to look to the quality of our faith, the quality of our conviction of sin, the quality of our evangelical repentance, the quality of our love for the brethren for confirmation of our justification, forgetting that it is Ch...