The Danger of Sin

Recently, I've been rereading John Owen's The Mortification of Sin.  John Owen (1616-1683) was a masterful Puritan theologian who wrote many books that not only exegete Scripture, but also provide valuable insights into the human heart.  Yesterday, this passage on the danger of allowing a sin to remain in your heart jumped out at me.

"Sin will grow a light thing to thee; thou wilt pass by it as a thing of nought: this it will grow to, and what will be the end of such a condition?  Can a sadder thing befall thee?  Is it not enough to make any heart to tremble, to think of being brought into that state wherein slight thoughts of sin, slight thoughts of grace, of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the law, heaven and hell, should come all in at the same season?  Take heed; this is that thy lusting is working towards; even to the hardening of the heart, searing of the conscience, blinding of the mind, stupefying of the affections and deceiving of the whole soul."

How I Am Applying the Second Prayer

This, then, is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be Your name,

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10

The Lord's Prayer contains a tremendous request:  "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  In heaven, the angels always do God's will obediently and joyfully, honoring God through their obedience.  God's saints are called to the same obedience.

Actually, the prayer that we call "The Lord's Prayer" could also be called "The Disciples' Prayer."  Jesus is teaching his disciples how they should pray--what they should pray for.  So, it is our duty to pray that God's will be obeyed.  

This is a very similar prayer to the second prayer of 2 Thessalonians.  I generally pray an expanded version of the Lord's Prayer twice during my prayer times.  I use the requests of the Lord's Prayer to sort my requests into categories.  I do this simply to keep my brain and my prayers focused.  Prayer for sanctification fits very well into the category of God's will being done.

I found it easier to pray for sanctification than thank God for the work He has already done.  For one thing, my friends and I discuss our requests more often than our praises.  I was more equipped to pray this prayer than the first prayer.  

While I was praying this morning, I remembered a word picture about prayer that I read online once.  It described God as being like a sprinter, ready to run at the start line but waiting for the gunshot before he begins.  In the same way, God, who delights in blessing His children, waits for our prayer before he will bless us.  May we never fail to pray that God's will be done and that He sanctify us.

The Second Prayer of Second Thessalonians

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.    (2 Thess. 1:11-12, ESV)

The second prayer of 2 Thessalonians is related to the first prayer.  Just to review, the first prayer was thanksgiving for sanctification.  The second prayer is related: supplication for sanctification."

Paul and his companions (the we in verse 11) asked God to give power to the Thessalonians--power to be holy.  By doing this, they modeled for all Christians the attitude of a godly Christian.  Paul does not explicitly command the Thessalonians to pray this prayer, but I believe this prayer is a Christian duty.  As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."  If we are to be imitators of Paul, for one thing, we should pray the same prayers that he prayed--including this one.

Why are to we pray for sanctification?  Well, verse 12 says that this prayer glorifies God and those whom are sanctified by God's gracious giving of the Holy Spirit.  This prayer honors the great Sanctifier, who gives power to be holy.  It also, when the Lord answers this prayer, allows us to "become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire" (2 Peter 1:4).  This is an important prayer!  Let's not miss out on God's sanctifying power because of our laziness in prayer!

Let me conclude with an exhortation.  (Note: I am not a pastor nor am I an expert in biblical exegesis, but I believe this is a correct application of what God is saying in these verses.)

Let us, as often as we can, pray for ourselves and our brothers: that the Lord would give us His power to be holy and worthy of His calling.

Psalm 94 and Abortion

I read Psalm 94 today, and had an unshakable thought that, "This psalm was written about abortion."  

Verse 6 reads, 

They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless.

  

Verses 20-21 say, 

Can wicked rulers be allied with you,

those who frame injustice by statute?

They band together against the life of the righteous

 and condemn the innocent to death.

  

Abortion is condemning the innocent to death.  It is taking the life of the righteous.  The United States government has "framed injustice by statute" by legalizing abortion.  But this psalm does not end without hope.  Psalm 94 does not end with unjust rulers trampling over the lives of the innocent; it ends with the LORD restoring justice and taking vengeance on the wicked.  

Verses 22-23 read,

But the LORD has become my stronghold,

and my God the rock of my refuge.

He will bring back on them their iniquity

and wipe them out for their wickedness;

the LORD our God will wipe them out."

Let us pray for the end of abortion.  Only God can wipe out this evil from the land.  If we pray, I believe that the rock of our refuge will answer our prayers and end abortion.

Applying the First Prayer

In the last post, I said that Christians are commanded by 2 Thessalonians to thank God for their brothers' sanctification.  So on Wednesday, I attempted to do this for 15 minutes (though I think I'm going to aim for 5 minutes a day most of the time).  I have to be honest--it was the most humbling prayer time I have ever had.  Thirty seconds into my prayers, I realized that I couldn't see God working in my brothers' lives.  Not that He's not changing their hearts, but I have pridefully focused on myself.  In doing so, I have deprived myself of the joy of rejoicing with my brothers and sisters.

So, I have decided to make two adjustments to how I spend time with my friends.  First, I will focus on them.  This seems obvious, but I've found that this is harder than it sounds.  Second, I am going to flat-out ask my friends this question: "What has God been doing in your life?"

The Prayers of 2 Thessalonians (Part 1)

I have been studying 2 Thessalonians for a few days now, and the theme that has struck me the most is prayer.  Four times, Paul exhorts the Thessalonians (and all Christians) to specific prayers.  Twice he urges Christians to thanksgiving and twice to supplication.  In the next four posts, I will cover each of these prayers.

(1)  Thanksgiving for Sanctification

 

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your stead fastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.  (2 Thess. 1:3-4)

The first prayer of 2 Thessalonians is thanksgiving for sanctification.  We learn in verse 4 that the Thessalonian church is enduring persecutions and afflictions.  But in the midst of their trials (and perhaps because of them), their faith is growing and their love for one another is increasing.  Paul sees this not as a work of the Thessalonians, but of God .  He says, "We ought always to give thanks to God."  What I take from this is that when a Christian sees his brother growing in Christ, he should thank the Lord for His sanctifying work.  And this prayer is not meant to be prayed every so often, but always.  So, the first application I get from 2 Thessalonians is: 

Christians should, in their daily prayers, thank God for His work in their brothers' lives.  

Why I Haven't Blogged in Quite Some Time

Over the past few months, God has been growing me up into the image of Christ, but I came to the realization a few months ago that, frankly, I wasn't qualified to preach to other people because (1) my knowledge of God's Word was not sufficient and (2) I was not applying God's Word to my life and really fighting my sin.  I am slowly achieving greater success over my sin, but there is still a long way to go.  I've decided to begin posting again, however, and the first post should be coming up soon.  I'm studying 2 Thessalonians right now, and I'll be covering the four prayers Paul exhorts us to.

Murder or "Selective Reduction"?

I linked from Al Mohler's very excellent blog (here) to an op-ed by Dan Neil, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times.  In this op-ed, Neil writes on a topic very personal to him: abortion.  Specifically, his wife's abortion.  While all abortions are horrible, Neil's case highlights a shocking, gruesome development in the bloody story of abortion.  You see, Neil and his wife didn't accidentally get pregnant; nay, they went to great lengths to have children.  When in vitro implantation of five embryos into his wife's womb resulted in four fetuses, they should have seen it as a gift from God.  But rather than keep all four, they decided to "selectively reduce," or kill two of their children.  They had two boys and two girls on the way; they chose to keep the girls.  

The most startling section of Neil's column is the third paragraph, which begins, "We don't feel guilty.  We don't feel ashamed.  We're not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses--at 15 weeks' gestation--was a medical imperative."  To really understand the moral gravity of this situation, imagine if the fetuses had been allowed to stay for just fifteen more weeks.  By then, it being a multi-child pregnancy, the babies would be born.  If Neil and his wife killed the boys then, we would label them murderers.  A public confession similar to the one he writes in column would inspire visceral hatred from nearly everyone.  To kill an infant with pre-meditation and no remorse would perhaps bring capital punishment upon the Neils' heads.  Yet a difference of fifteen weeks in this case makes all the difference.  Our generation faces a choice: we may continue the shockingly evil customs of our parents' generation, or we may fight for truth and justice in an unjust, unmoral world.

The Astonishing Waiting of the Thessalonians

In 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10, Paul says, "Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us.  They [residents of Macedonia, Achaia, and the surrounding regions] tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath (NIV, italics added).  Eugene Peterson puts it this way in the Message: "They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son."  If we are waiting expectantly for Jesus's coming, our mindsets, actions, and words will be very different than those of the world.  In the secular, idol-worshipping Greek world, people were amazed at the faith the Thessalonians had in Jesus's coming back.  May we have the same faith and the same influence on our world.

Strangers In The World

I was reading 1 Peter 1:1 a minute ago, trying to understand what the KJV calls "strangers."  After looking at several translations, I discovered the amazing truth in this verse.  The NIV says, "To God's elect, strangers in the world."  Strangers in the world is a wonderful description of God's elect.  This is not our home.  We are in a foreign land.  The NASB calls us "aliens, the KJV "strangers."  The message is clear.  We must be ambassadors to the world showing the greatness of God's world in the fallen world.