Though in eternity they will be separate, right here and now on Earth, the two you’s are indeed the same entity. So be careful about blaming all your sin on the “flesh you” which is not you, but someone else. No, the person that sinned was YOU, not someone else. Whereas God is a trinity, three persons in one, the Christian is two. Even more, whereas God’s persons all act in perfect unity, the Christian is paired with his sinful nature, which is at war with his righteous nature. This righteous nature was established with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who continues his sanctifying work, helping our righteous nature to become ever more dominant over our sinful nature. For it will be the sum of our righteous nature that will be resurrected in glory in heaven. So our eternal self is the righteous nature. The sense in which the opening statement is true is when considering the eternal identity; the Christian is his righteous nature. So how often are you yourself, that being the person you will be for all eternity? And how often are you not yourself, that being the person who will no longer exist, having been burned away as chaff in the purifying fire? Be wary that if you see the latter more often than the former, this might evidence that you are not actually saved but instead are confusing the inherent outward battle between good and evil with the Christian’s inherent inward battle between Spirit and flesh.

It is from this duality that we can understand that the Christian does not lie, meaning his righteous nature, which should be dominant over his sinful nature, does not lie. This will translate into vigilance against sin beforehand and confession of sin afterwards. In his vigilant state, the Christian identifies temptation and flees from it (2 Tim 2:22). But in a moment of spiritual weakness or sloth, the sinful nature rears its head, causing the man to sin. But a resurgence of the dominance of the righteous nature will induce brokenness, humility, repentance and confession. As a wise man named Tom Short once said, “A person is no longer a liar, when he starts telling the truth.”

To those that find themselves in the precarious position of seeing their sinful nature more dominant than their righteous nature, take heart that God’s greatness is shown in our weakness (2 Cor 12:9) and that God is faithful to complete the work he has begun in you (Phil 1:6), if he has indeed begun it. Be wary of false repentance and a false salvation. Who and for what are you trusting for your salvation? Moreover there should be evidence in your life of your salvation; Jesus called this fruit (John 15:1-2). Paul remarked that the fruit of the Spirit is not necessarily physical but in the character of the Christian–namely “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Can you or those around you see this kind of character growing in your actions?

This is the same sense in which we read passages like 1 Cor 6:9-11. This does not simply apply to lying, but to acts of sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, theft, greed and drunkenness. It applies to every kind of wrongdoing. Were it not so, no man, Christian or otherwise could receive admittance into heaven and by theological extension, salvation itself, for we all sin, Christian and otherwise. We all fall short everyday. Hopefully less and less, but still we do. We cannot, do not hold God in proper regard every moment. That alone is idolatry. And yet we trust in the blood of Christ to wash us clean, so that God might not see our sin, but his Son’s payment on our behalf. This is our praise to God, forever and ever. Amen!

…

If you want to know whether God is the God you have faith to believe Him to be, then go through your Jordan alone.

…

If you remain true to what you learned with Elijah, you will get the sign that God is with you.

…

Put into practice what you learned with your Elijah, use his cloak and pray. Determine to trust in God and do not look for Elijah any more.

~ My Utmost for His Highest, August 11

It’s difficult for a human being to imagine the beauty of Jesus. The scriptures even state that Jesus had nothing to look at that would attract us to him. And yet men flocked to his leadership and sought his advice and looked in faith for the power of God errupting from him. Women, children, the poor in spirit, and the ill in health saw his kindness and knew no man could express compassion as this man unless he was God.

God’s infinite and innumerable qualities are not not necessarily expressed physically, as God is spirit. However, his metaphysical traits have left an imprint on our physical world. As a very fuzzy picture even in its best form: we see his goodness in the care of a mother for child, his faithfulness in the seasons, his might in indomitable mountains. Thus, God uses the rest of the Creation, which we as feeble human beings can more easily comprehend, to send his communiqués concerning the truth (in part) of who he is.

I feel I might see it best in a life near it’s end when it has been spent in it’s entirety for the things of God. For me, a hero (after Jesus) is one Helen Roseveare. A missionary doctor to the Congo, she left family and home and endured much to honor and love and make Jesus known. I have listened to her speak, and the way she talks about loving Jesus makes me want to treasure him as much as she does. When someone adores “the beauty of Jesus Christ” or says that our Lord “is beautiful”, it is more difficult for me to directly understand what this means. These  people, who have poured out their lives for the love of a Savior and long only to be with him when he comes or calls them home, impart to me (still imperfectly) one of the best reflections of the beauty of our Lord.

These and the like things doth the Lord Christ continually declare, proclaim, plead, and urge on the souls of sinners; as it is fully declared, Prov. i. 20—34. He doth it in the preaching of the word, as if he were present with you, stood amongst you, and spake personally to every one of you. And because this would not suit his present state of glory, he hath appointed the ministers of the gospel to appear before you, and to deal with you in his stead, avowing, as his own, the invitations that are given you in his name; 2 Cor. v. 19, 20.

John Owen, MEDITATIONS AND DISCOURSES CONCERNING THE GLORY OF CHRIST.

Lately I have been pondering the practical difference between knowledge and wisdom, especially concerning biblical teachings. In America, quite possibly more than anyone at any time in history, we have more access to knowledge . I can google Michael Jordan’s age or read an overview of the Peloponnesian war on Wikipedia. I could inundate myself with sermons spoken to the Church around the world this weekend—much more information than I could ever absorb. And yet as noble a goal as this might be, it would be for nothing if it did not change the way I live. This is the boundary where knowledge becomes wisdom, where information informs action. This is the point of the verse in 1 Corinthians 13:2.

I will probably recall the teaching I heard this morning for two weeks or so, and after that when someone makes a related point. And in most ways, this is ok, expected even. We are human; our minds do not record every jot and tittle. But unless it has left some residue behind, a motivation or mentality that affects my life, then there was really no point in wasting that time listening to it in the first place. I get no brownie points for attendance, no completion points for proving I was listening by pointing out my favorite part of the teaching. No. The single measure of the worth of a teaching is its ability to affect an increase in love of God and neighbor. Notice the two sides of this proverbial coin: the teachings must be exhortational enough to affect its listeners, and the Church must be teachable enough to receive it. The American Church seems to lack more of the latter. I see this coming from a religious mindset, that church is the building where by attendance I get kudos from God and neighbor. That is the reversal. Teachings should benefit our neighbors by increasing our love for them, but instead listening to a teaching benefits our standing in the sight of our neighbors.

This is one particular reason I have appreciated the fact that my mid-week Discipleship Team has been working through many of the discussion questions posed from the Sunday teachings in Genesis. Not only do the questions touch on a profound understandings of the nature of our existence, but also we get to revisit the teaching several days later in an interactive discussion of how these truths should practically change our lives. Even more than that, we need accountability and transparency to exhort and encourage one another on a daily basis in the things that God wants to change in our lives.

Don’t be a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Instead be what God created you to be: one who is conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ, of whom it is said in 1 Corinthians 15:45 was not just a living person as was Adam, but a life-giving Spirit. Living things live off of death, using plants and animals as food, shelter, clothing, etc. But Jesus Christ was and is a life-giving Spirit, raising us from the death of our trespasses and renewing us in the promise of eternal life.

Thank you Mr. Lewis, for asking people to pay the same compliment of confidence to their Creator that we give acquaintances. Everyone is busy accepting and not judging people, but we reject and judge God, even when he has given reasonable evidence of our necessity of confidence in him and in the fact that he rewards those who seek him earnestly.

Lord, I want to know that my life will count for something. Please take away any desire for fame I might have, I want to be famous with you, and to lift up your fame with my life. Lord, I need your help to think beyond my life. Help me have your vision for where you want [me], as well as all the people at K-state you’ve allowed me to help lead. Help me to see what their life could be and help and encourage them to get there by your power at work with us.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. …so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. ~ I Corinthians 2:2-3

Galatians 1

v6 – Have I turned to another gospel? Am I relying on  my own acceptability and right-ness and abilities and NOT solely on Christ and what he has accomplish?

v7 – Am I disturbed and troubled because of this false and distorted gospel?

v9 – As I have been believing and promulgating to myself this false gospel, am I accursed?

Lord, I repent for believing this distorted gospel I have preached to myself, please save me from myself, renew a right spirit within me. I have been focusing on myself and my own lack of ability instead of focusing on you and what you want to do through me.

A devious slitherer
A pernicious subversion
So totally subtle
Its coils surround

Slipping in unnoticed
Distracting my heart
Suffocating the truth
Drying up the fruit

A great hunter is needed
To capture these weeds
To tame the reptile
And kill forever this fallacy

Free me to know
To live unhindered
By entanglements
Strangling with ferocity

Remove this distortion
Let the blood of your life
Be restored to my eyes
Mortify the old deception
That robs the joy of you

(I later entitled the above stanzas as “Free me from the coils”)

¹⁵We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; ¹⁶yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

I take this passage to mean this: that if verses 15-16 are not true (i.e. that justification is through faith in Christ ALONE), then our gospel becomes “Jesus and ______” (here it was circumcision). Then our justification comes from Jesus AND just a little bit of obedience to the law. But the law ONLY serves to reveal our SIN! (Romans 3:19-20).

Thus, trusting a gospel of anything more than justification by faith in Jesus alone results with us still in sin….because as in Romans 2:17-29 it is NOT fulfilling the law in letter, but the inward transformation of the heart that counts to God…but all of our hearts are evil and deceptive (Jeremiah 17:9).

Therefore, anyone who attempts to be justified in Jesus AND something is still in sin (this is verse 17), in addition, they also make “Christ then a servant of sin”! Because they append faith in Christ to a list of rules they can never hope to obey fully with their unregenerate heart, and Christ and his work results in “saved” people who are still in sin.

This is specifically why Paul also brings up our death with respect to the law in Romans 7 in terms of marriage…we cannot be married to Christ until we have completely died to the law, which his death enables. Moreover, we trample the glory of Christ, his work, and his brilliant purpose to redeem us if we make our gospel “Christ plus something”…following such logic, Christ would have died for no purpose.

This understanding is why I believe Paul is so confident, not in himself…but in the gospel of grace that was revealed to him when he said in chapter 1:

¹Paul, an apostle— not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

and later:

¹⁰For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
¹¹For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. ¹² For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

A man-made gospel inherently winds up putting responsibility on us to fulfill some kind of law, but Christ has enabled us to die to the law, and let Christ live in us to glory of God. What a brilliant purpose indeed!

Though I could recount the expressions of theologians and secularists alike, I would like to burden your mind with the conclusions of a man vehemently opposed to scriptural truth. I do this with the hope that would we take seriously the result of letting any part of God’s truth be swept under the rug.

In an article on Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog for the promulgation of his gospel of natural selection, Russell Grigg of CMI carefully illuminates the pulpit from which this self-taught 18th century scientist and scholar speaks concerning the undermining effects of attempting to embrace naturalism alongside biblical truth. Grigg explains that

Though Darwin was careful not to say it, the Origin ultimately meant that man was not created, but was merely a developed ape. ‘But without the promise of Heaven or the fear of Hell, why should we live a good life?’⁹ Darwin had hoped to avoid all such controversy. Not so Huxley, who earlier had written to a colleague, ‘After all, it is as respectable to be modified monkey as modified dirt’.¹⁰ Thus, Darwin needed a champion as much as Huxley needed a cause, and soon Darwin was claiming Huxley as his ‘warmest & most important supporter’,¹¹ and ‘my good and admirable agent for the promulgation of damnable heresies’.¹²

Huxley, unlike many contemporary compromising theologians of the day (and our day), said:

‘I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?’¹⁷

Huxley added that ‘the Universality of the Deluge is recognised, not merely as a part of the story, but as a necessary consequence of some of its details.’¹⁸ And then, with regard to the attempts to say the Flood was only a local event, he wrote, ‘A child may see the folly of it.’¹⁹

Huxley similarly wrote, concerning 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 [‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’], that

‘If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?’

Huxley’s final judgment recognizes that with regard to those who attempt to mythologize Creation that ‘the position they have taken up is hopelessly untenable’.

As we read and discover truths to stand on and commands to obey from God in his word, let us not be blown by culture into the thinking that God didn’t mean for all of his word to be accurate and truthful. Some of it is parable and some poetry, but let’s not leave our brains at the door when we come to the table and attempt to say that  God’s documentary of human life is “only meant to be instructional.” If the events of the Bible are put forth as real events, it is meant that we receive them plainly as history, or even the secularists will mock us for attempting to straddle fact and fiction with a foot in God’s truth and the other in the compromises of the world.

HT: All the quotation links are from the original article by Russell Grigg.

Additional reference for the importance of the foundation of a literal Genesis can be found here.

Want to change the culture? Then alter the moral compass of the next generation of thinkers and lawmakers.

After all, the public education system wants to let people have their own beliefs as long as they keep them to themselves? Right? The following are a contingent of quotes about the stated goals of individuals closely tied to and involved with public education in the last seventy years.

John Dewey, the father of the modern public education system, had the following statements on his ideas for public education:

“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution…. Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child’s fitness for social life…”

“I believe, therefore, that the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities.”

“There is no God and no soul. Hence, there are no needs for props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or permanent absolutes …. Teaching children to read is a great perversion and a high literacy rate breeds destructive individualism … the child does not go to school to develop individual talents but rather are prepared as “units” in an organic society …. The change in the moral school atmosphere … are not mere accidents, they are the necessities of the larger social evolution.”

In 1933. Harold Rugg, president of the American Educational Research Association and author of fourteen Social Studies textbooks, said in The Great Technology:

“Through the schools of the world we shall disseminate a new conception of government– one that will embrace all of the collective activities of men; one that will postulate the need for scientific control and operation of economic activities in the interest of all people.”

In 1936, the National Education Association stated the position from which it has never wavered:

“We stand for socializing the individual.”

Willard Givens, long ago executive secretary of the National Education Association (NEA):

“An equitable distribution of income will be sought…the major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order.” (in a report presented at the 72nd annual meeting of the NEA in 1934.)

In 1956, “Dr. George S. Counts expressed the real purpose of Dewey’s ‘progressive education’:

“…in school activities, in the relations of pupils and teachers and administrators, the ideal of a cooperative commonwealth should prevail… All of this applies quite as strictly to the nursery, the kindergarten, and the elementary school as to the secondary school, the college, and the university.”

“You will say, no doubt, that I am flirting with the idea of indoctrination. And my answer is again in the affirmative, or, at least, I should say that the word does not frighten me.”

The British Humanist Association, Marriage and the Family published in 1969,

“Some opponents of humanism have accused us of wishing to overthrow the traditional Christian family. They are right. That is exactly what we intend to do.”

William Glasser, a psychiatrist, writing on Schools Without Failure in 1969 said:

“We have to let students know there are no right answers, and we have to let them see that there are many alternatives to certainty and right answers.”

In 1972, NEA president Catherine Barrett said

“We are the biggest potential political striking force in this country, and we are determined to control the direction of education.”

“Those two complementary philosophies fueled the vision of NEA leaders who sought a Utopian world, freed from Biblical constraints and ruled by humanist politicians and taught by progressive educators. Parental rights and religious freedom would be swallowed up by the surpassing rights and rules of the greater community — the controlled collective.” (commenting on this quote by Blumenfeld “Those who rose highest in the public schools establishment and the NEA were those most strongly committed to secularism and statism.”

John J. Dunphy wrote in the January/February 1983 edition of The Humanist,

“The battle for mankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom. The classroom must and will become the arena of conflict between the old and the new, the rotting corpse of Christianity and the new faith of humanism.”

In the Humanist Review magazine it was observed that,

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

Texas Federal District Judge Melinda Harmon 1996 said,

“Parents give up their rights when they drop the children off at public school.”

NEA specialist Paul Haubner tells us,

“The schools cannot allow parents to influence the kind of values-education their children receive in school; ….that is what is wrong with those who say there is a universal system of values. Our goals are incompatible with theirs. We must change their values.”

The following are the stated views of the NEA on several key issues:

Diversity: “Funds must be provided for programs to alleviate race, gender and sexual orientation discrimination and to eliminate portrayal of race, gender and sexual orientation stereotypes in the public schools.” (A-13, 1996)

Abortion: “The NEA supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom….” The NEA “urges the implementation of community-operated, school-based family planning clinics that will provide intensive counseling by trained personnel.” (I-12, 2003)

“Work with the school district to develop or expand school policy and curricula, including accurate portrayals of homosexuals, lesbians, and bisexuals throughout history, and to ensure respect for diversity, including homosexuals, lesbians, and bisexuals.” (i.e. In 1999, the then-director of communications for GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) stated that “we’re going to raise a generation of kids who don’t believe [the claims of] the Religious Right.”)

“Allegiance to a nation is the biggest stumbling block to the creation of international government. National boundaries and the concept of sovereignty must be abolished. The quickest way to do this is to condition the young to another and broader alliance. Opinion favorable to international government will be developed in the social studies curriculum in the public schools.”

The general body of the public education system in America has not attempted to cover their tracks: they want the moral transformation of every youthful individual who frequents the elementary and high school playgrounds and track fields. The values that the founders of this system intended to plant in young minds include godless humanism, one world government very much like biblical eschatological predictions, and a transformed thinking, discernment, and self-government. They want a people so concerned with “diversity and tolerance” (in their mind, and materialistic hedonism in their actions) that actual truth has no room to stand but is forced into a dormant, infertile state. And the prospect of this circumstance is often masked by a façade of intellectualism, the progeny of minds completely devoted to previous listed ideals which have been surreptitiously embedded throughout public “social training”. A partition of a Huxley-esque horror scenario.

It should be known that I appreciate many public school instructors, and what they are trying to do, but I also believe that the system itself is bent toward the aforementioned trend of goals. Some good even in the goal to eliminate race and gender stereotypes can be read in the above. Not all educators are out to “indoctrinate youth”, but this is a stated goal of the system, and it is happening. The university system in particular seems to be focused on exporting “socially trained” and “well informed” persons who are often, in my estimation, being ingrained with perspectives resulting  in choices which damage and set adrift real purpose in, and enjoyability of, their lives. I’m just a little dismayed at an entire culture touting “diversity” that is specifically intolerant of those who honestly seek truth and development of  real, compassionate tolerance toward fellow man.

I have regularly and stolidly espoused my views on schooling children at home, or at least that parents be very involved with what is being absorbed by the sponge-like minds and hearts of your youth. (Such expression on this topic may be illegal soon, much less the decision on instructional methods). Many of my  relations, including close friends, do not find this agreeable. I would commend the above objectives of “diversity” and “social training” of the educational system to your pondering, and exhort you to ask yourselves whether your objectives for the future moral and educational ontogeny of your legacy are similarly aligned.

HT: The quotes above are a subset of a compilation made by Charity LEAH in Rochester, NY.