The difference between faith and hope ...

"Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God.  Thus, faith believes God to be true, hope awaits the time when His truth shall be manifested; faith believes that He is our Father, hope anticipates that He will ever show Himself to be a Father toward us;  faith believes that eternal life has been given to us, hope anticipates that it will some time be revealed;  faith is the foundation upon which hope rests,  hope nourishes and sustains faith….hope strengthens faith, that it may not waver in God’s promises or begin to doubt concerning their truth."
(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.2.42).

With thanks to Dan Cruver (Eucatasrophe)

Piper at NWA

"Let death (and suffering) serve you: Say to death, 'DEATH, MAKE MY DAY!'"
blue fish project

Conviction, confession, but 'no condemnation'!

At last night's LIFE group meeting we picked up the thread again of our studies through Romans 5-8 with a reminder that the Christian will still struggle with the lingering presence of forgiven sin while at the same time experiencing a revulsion against its seductive influence in our lives: "what I hate, I do" (Rom 7: 15).

Anyway, as we dipped into Romans 8:1, the conversation turned towards the 'guilt' that we needlessly carry around as believers, a real problem for young Christians and those who don't fully appreciate the security of 'no condemnation' (at all, ever) for those who have been justified entirely by God's grace. Bryan Chapell's counsel is so helpful:

"We won't discover the joy that is our strength for Christian service if we have not claimed the mercy that frees us from all guilt at the cross. Thus, Luther taught that remorse prior to the cross is of God [MG: 'true guilt'], but after true repentance beneath the cross such self-reproach is of Satan [MG: 'false guilt']. Our Adversary wants us to believe that Christ's blood is not sufficient to
cleanse confessed sin. We become susceptible to his lie when we begin to doubt the power of the cross fully to cancel our guilt, for then we will begin to live (and fall) in the strength of our own efforts."

Holiness By Grace (Crossway), p.192.

Ferguson in fine form

I've always appreciated Sinclair Ferguson's ministry. I first came across him at the Queen's CU pre-term conference in the late 70's when he spoke on 2 Corinthians 4 and 5, amazing I still remember it.

He's recently been chatting to CJ Mahaney, an obvious fan. Here's one of SF's quotes they chewed over together.

The glory of the gospel is that God has declared Christians to be rightly related to him in spite of their sin. But our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle character into his work of grace. How easily we fall into the trap of assuming that we can only remain justified so long as there are grounds in our character for justification. But Paul’s teaching is that nothing we do ever contributes to our justification.

Charlton Heston: 1924-2008

"I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses in my career. If that doesn't create an ego problem, nothing does."