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To finish reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones' classic work, Spiritual Depression, I am trying to read a couple chapters a week in conjunction with my morning devotional time. In my reading this morning, he wrote this (I don't agree with all of what he says, but the focus on making Christ the object of our affections when we are tempted to discouragement and despair is very helpful):
Better still, let me put it like this. If you want to be truly happy and blessed, if you would like to know true joy as a Christian, here is the prescription — 'Blessed (truly happy) are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness' — not after happiness. Do not go on seeking thrills; seek righteousness. Turn to yourself, I turn to your feelings and say: 'I have no time to worry about feelings, I am interested in something else. I want to be happy but still more I want to be righteous, I want to be holy. I want to be like my Lord, I want to live in this world as He lived, I want to walk through it as He walked through it. You are in this world, says John in his First Epistle, even as He was. Set your whole aim upon righteousness and holiness and as certainly as you do so you will be blessed, you will be filled, you will get the happiness you long for. Seek for happiness and you will never find it, seek righteousness and you will discover you are happy it will be there without your knowing it, without your seeking it.
Finally, let me put it in this way: 'Do you want to know supreme joy, do you want to experience a happiness that eludes description? There is only one thing to do, really seek Him, seek Him Himself, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you find that your feelings are depressed do not sit down and commiserate with yourself, do not try to work something up but — this is the simple essence of it — go directly to Him and seek His face, as the little child who is miserable and unhappy because somebody else has taken or broken his toy, runs to its father or its mother.
So if you and I find ourselves afflicted by this condition, there is only one thing to do, it is to go to Him. If you seek the Lord Jesus Christ and find Him there is no need to worry about your happiness and your joy. He is our joy and our happiness, even as He is our peace. He is life, He is everything. So avoid the incitements and the temptations of Satan to give feelings this great prominence at the centre. Put at the centre the only One who has a right to be there, the Lord of Glory, Who so loved you that He went to the Cross and bore the punishment and the shame of your sins and died for you. Seek Him, seek His face, and all other things shall be added unto you.
The past couple of days I've been doing a fair bit of reading in the recently published book, Pierced for Our Transgressions. It is an important book because of it is a clear and definitive defense of the penal substitutionary work of Christ on the cross.
I'll have more comments when I finish the book (hopefully tomorrow a.m.), but for now was particularly struck by an extended section where the authors discussed the work of the triune God in salvation. There is much here for meditation and reflection:
God the Father gave his Son to save rebellious, God-hating people, knowing that he would be despised and rejected by those he had made, that he would be a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. He spared sinful people from condemnation, death and punishment, but he did not spare his own beloved Son, with whom he was well pleased.
God the Son gave himself, willingly undertaking the task appointed for him by his Father. He veiled his glory in a human body, experienced every temptation we face without succumbing to any, and lived a perfect human life. Yet he took our sin and guilt upon himself and died a cursed death, suffering in his human nature the infinite torment of the wrath and fury of his Father. After three days he was vindicated in his resurrection before being exalted to his heavenly throne. From there he rules his kingdom, awaiting the day of his glorious appearing when every eye shall see him, every knee bow before him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God the Holy Spirit, having been sent by the Father and the Son, now works in our hearts through the proclamation of the gospel to convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment, to draw us to Christ in repentance and faith, and so to unite us to Christ that we may share in every blessing he has won for us.
God the Holy Trinity thus turned aside his own righteous wrath against sinful humanity; endured and exhausted the curse of the law that stood against us; cleansed us of our sin and clothed us in Christ's righteousness; ransomed us from our slavery to sin, the world and the devil by paying our debt, cancelling the devil's power of accusation against us, and liberating us to live new lives empowered by the Spirit; triumphed over all evil powers by punishing evil in the person of the Son; and reconciled us with himself by removing the barrier of sin and enmity between us; in order that we may stand blameless and forgiven in his glorious presence, credited with the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as adopted children of God, gazing upon his face for all eternity.
God vindicated his truthfulness by remaining faithful to his promise that sin will be punished; he manifested his justice by punishing sin and acquitting righteousness; he glorified his name by exalting his Son and placing all things under his feet; and he demonstrated his love by dying for sinners and reconciling to himself those who were once his enemies.
C. J. Mahaney, who himself has written a book or two about the cross (The Cross-Centered Life and Living the Cross Centered Life) today posted his list of favored books on the cross.
I concur with his choice of Stott's book, and am looking forward to beginning to read this weekend Pierced for Our Transgressions — if the reviews I've read are indicative, it will probably be on my list as well.
To Mahaney's list, I'd also add the following books:
- Leon Morris, The Atonement (also published in slightly different forms under the title, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross).
- J. Dwight Pentecost, Things Which Become Sound Doctrine — it's brief, but provides a good synthesis of cross-themes, like grace, regeneration, imputation, substitution, redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation, among others.
As I pursue thinking about the significance of the cross on my sabbatical, all those books are on the shelf behind me, along with Jerry Bridges' The Great Exchange, J. C. Ryle's, Regeneration, Frederick Leahy's The Cross He Bore, and John Piper's The Future of Justification.
Pray that as my mind is filled with the cross of Christ, that my life will be more cross and Christ-centered.
I'm always on the lookout for good new books. Sometimes it can be a daunting task to walk into a bookstore and try to determine which book is worth reading and which is not.
Al Mohler has begun a new feature called "The Reading List" on his web/blog site. I have always found him to be an excellent resource for thinking Biblically about cultural events. This book review list should be equally helpful. It's worth bookmarking in your RSS reader and perusing regularly.
Jerry Bridges has been writing thought-provoking, challenging, stimulating, exhorting books for believers in Christ for about 25 years.
Several of his books have been at the top of my "recommended reading" books for many years:
And in the past couple of months, he's written another book that is sure to remain on that reading list for years to come: Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate.
The book was written because of his observation that
…the concept of sin among many conservative Christians has been essentially redefined to cover only the obviously gross sins of our society. The result, then, is that for many morally upright believers, the awareness of personal sin has effectively disappeared from their consciences. But it has not disappeared from the sight of God. Rather, all sin, bot the so-called respectable sins of the saints, which we too often tolerate, and the flagrant sins of society, which we are quick to condemn, are a disregard for the law of God and are reprehensible in His sight. Both deserve the curse of God. [p. 22]
So what kinds of sin does he address as being overlooked as insignificant?
- ungodliness
- anxiety and frustration
- discontentment
- unthankfulness (even in difficult circumstances)
- pride (evidenced in moral self-righteousness, pride of correct doctrine, pride of achievement, and an independent spirit)
- selfishness (with our interests, time, and money, producing inconsiderateness)
- lack of self-control (with our eating an drinking, temper, finances, television and hobbies)
- impatience and irritability
- anger (ultimately, towards God)
- weeds of anger (resentment, bitterness, enmity & hostility, grudges)
- judgmentalism (over differing convictions and doctrinal disagreements, producing a critical spirit)
- envy and jealousy (and their related sins of competitiveness and a desire to be controlling)
- sins of the tongue (like gossip, slander, lying, and harsh words, sarcasm, insults, and ridicule)
- worldliness (in relation to money, vicarious immorality, and idolatry)
I approached this book with anticipation, selecting a few things from that list that I thought might be of some help to me. Yet as I read, I found in each chapter insights that convicted me of lazy attitudes and sloppiness towards sin. And in the discussion of each sin, he is careful to offer hope (chapter six — "Directions for Dealing with Sins" — offers a six-fold direction to apply to all subtle sins), and to also deal with the sin at a root level, not just superficial circumstance or action (e.g., anger is ultimately not just anger, but anger and discontentment with God, and must be confessed as anger against Him).
In spite of the number of topics addressed, the book is very readable devotionally (21 chapters, 181 pages) — reading one chapter a day along with one's regular Scripture reading is very doable. In fact, the brevity of the book is related to my only mild criticism of it — it's too short! Often after concluding a chapter I would find myself thinking, "tell me more — I need to hear more of the Biblical truth on this subject!" Yet the book's brevity also makes it accessible to virtually every believer in Christ.
In the plethora of new books being continually published, this is an important one, worthy of being read by any follower of Christ wanting to initiate serious confrontation of sin in his life. If you were to read only one book this next year, should this be the one? I'm not sure — there are many worthy candidates. But if you were to read only five books this next year, should this be on the list? Absolutely.
Philip Pullman has an agenda. He is not merely attempting to tell a good story, but he is attempting to tell as story in a creative way that will be appealing to children, and lead them away from an interest and trust in Christ.
Before going to see this movie, or allowing your children to see the movie or read any of Pullman's books, familiarize yourself with His intentions with His works. A number of helpful resources are availalble:
In his recent book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Mark Dever begins by asking the question, "why don't we evangelize?" Part of his answer is that we don't plan to evangelize. And to that he offers 12 steps to take to counteract that mindset:
- Pray (for opportunities)
- Plan (to put ourselves in positions to share the gospel)
- Accept (that this is our job)
- Understand (that not having the spiritual gift of evangelism doesn't mean we don't have the duty to evangelize)
- Be faithful (to share the gospel)
- Risk (by obeying, even when uncertain of the response)
- Prepare (by knowing the gospel…)
- Look (for opportunities)
- Love others (because you will give the gospel to those whom you love)
- Fear (God, who is our merciful redeemer and savior)
- Stop (blaming God and excusing ourselves on the basis of His sovereignty)
- Consider (what God has done for us in Christ)
You know how to read. I know that. But sometimes a little guidance on how to get control over that growing stack of books on your night stand (or wherever your favorite place to stack things is) would be helpful.
Here are six tips from Al Mohler:
- Maintain regular reading projects.
- Work through major sections of Scripture.
- Read all the titles written by some authors.
- Get some big sets and read them through.
- Allow yourself some fun reading.
- Write in your books.
To that, I would also add, don't be afraid to leave a book unfinished. If it's not worth the time to read, then don't read it. No one will give you a test on whether or not you finished. It's fair to walk out of bad movies, and it's appropriate to leave inadequate books uncompleted.
Read all of Mohler's comments.
Having books and resources at our disposal is a good and blessed gift from God.
But at times it is overwhelming to consider what to read and what to give our attention to the most.
In previous generations, the question was not "do I have enough time to read?' but, "do I have enough to read?" To those who had a slender apparatus (few books), Spurgeon gave advice that was good then and good now too —
The next rule I shall lay down is, master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them, masticate them, and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times, and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it; “As the dogs drink of Nilus.” Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading. Books maybe piled on the brain till it cannot work. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. They gorge themselves with book-matter, and become mentally dyspeptic.
