Born Again

What do you think of when you hear the phrase "born again"?
It definitely is a phrase that isn't used much outside of the context of religion, namely Christianity. In my recent readings I came across a good perspective on being born again. Thought I'd share:


"Trying to live a Jesus life won't help us get into heaven and it will only discourage us over the long haul if we are not born again... We must be given a new heart. We must be regenerated. We must be converted. We must be changed. The Christian life - the life of faith in God, hope in Christ, and love for others - necessitates, first of all, a life that has been given a supernatural new start by the Holy Spirit. We must be born again."

Kevin DeYoung
The Good News We Almost Forgot page 31

Do our "christian lives" cling and depend on our rebirth?

Hopefully this helps you step back and refocus a bit as it did for me.

battle of unbelief

I'm learning that when I sin, the main culprit is my unbelief. I'm believing that the promises and pleasures of that sinful action are greater than the promises and pleasures that God has for me. It goes all the way back to the adam and eve. They sinned because they didn't believe in God's promise to them - they thought the pleasure of the fruit of the tree would be greater than the pleasure they currently had in their relationship with God. Can you imagine that... that kind of unobstructed relationship with our creator?

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Romans 4:18-25

Thank you God for the gift of salvation by grace through FAITH!
Help me in my unbelief!

Our Story or God's Story

"Our problem is that we think of ourselves as being at the center of our world. We think of our lives as a story and, if we're Christians, God is one of the characters in our story. We look for him when we need him and expect him to be grateful when we serve him. He's a lovely piece of our story, but we still think of it as our story. But it's not our story. It's God's story... We exist to give him glory"

Tim Chester
You Can Change page 106

"But he said to me,
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

sanctified by faith (part 2)

Just to be clear - the majority of the thought behind this series of posts comes from Tim Chester's book You Can Change. It's a great read and I totally recommend it!

Justification and Sanctification are two words and ideas that are often used together, and perhaps sometimes the lines between the two can be a little blurry. While Chester does a good job of defining both, he appropriately makes sure that we don't try to completely separate the two.

"...we shouldn't separate justification and sanctification. They're joined together so that santification follows where justification leads. Underlying both is our union with Christ by faith. We are justified because we're united to Christ, the Righteous One."

Page 56

Our faith in Jesus' total life and death sacrifice on our behalf is what justifies us in God's sight as well as what sanctifies us. It is truly by faith in what Christ has done and by no other means.

"For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous."

Romans 5:19

Is our faith in your own obedience? Is our faith in your own righteousness? In my head I know the answer to these questions, but sometimes I have to stop and ask myself if my actions show this to be true.

sanctified by faith (part 1b)Justification (cont.)

In my last post, I left pondering if justification, like sanctification could be thought of as a continuous process. In hindsight, that may seem like a silly question. First of all, and this is something that I always find I'm asking myself, why does it matter? Maybe the original question deserves some clarification. I was wondering that since sanctification is the continual process of becoming like God - does justification also fall into this same continual process? Are we justified daily? I don't see how that can make much sense - either we are justified, or we are not justified - there isn't really a "justification" process.
I just got done reading a chapter from The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges and appropriately enough he answers this question (kind of cool when a question raised in one book "randomly" gets answered in another). Chapter 9, Right Standing With God, peers into the doctrine of justification. Towards the end of the chapter, Bridges describes it as "A Point-In-Time Event".

"Justification is a point-in-time experience that occurs the moment a person trusts in Christ as Savior... [justification] is a point-in-time event that has eternal ongoing benefit for us... There was a point in time when we trusted in Christ and were by faith united in Him so that His death became our death, His obedience our obedience, His righteousness our righteousness."

Page 100

I'm finding that one time justification is an important concept to grasp hold of (my english teacher's would love that sentence). We (christians) need to realize that by our faith in Christ we are justified - apart from "the law" - which basically means apart from anything that we have merited or earned. God's word is pretty clear on what we have earned.

sanctified by faith (part 1a)what is santification?

At the end of Chapter 3 of You Can Change, Tim Chester does a great job of laying out an explanation of justification and sanctification. These next couple posts will relate to those pages (55-57), so that I can absorb what is being communicated and evidenced here.

What's the difference between justification and sanctification? Justification is probably a little easier to define since 'justify' or 'justified' is more commonly used day to day. However, sanctification, at least from my perspective, isn't as well defined and understood. I can't remember the last time I used it in a sentence or conversation.

Chester puts it pretty plainly, so I won't put much effort into redefining it:

• Justification is being made right with God.


• Sanctification is becoming like God.

"God counts me right with him solely because of what Christ as done outside of me without any change on my part. Sanctification, however, takes place within me. It's all about me changing. Justification is a change of my status in God's sight; sanctification is a change of my heart and character"

Tim Chester
You Can Change, pg.56

It would appear that being sanctified is a continual and on-going process. We are never totally like God, and we can only hope to move closer in that direction through the help of the Holy Spirit. I wonder though if justification can be thought of in the same manor - is justification a continual process, or is it a one time occurrence?

approaches to pop culture

Desiring God 2006 National Conference Q&A


Check out Mark Driscoll's/John Piper's response (11:00-19:00) to the question:
To Piper, the question is asked: "How do you stay relevant by - not totally, but by and large - avoiding pop culture?"

To Driscoll, the question is asked: "How do you stay faithful in transforming, rather than (being) transformed by taking part more in pop culture?"

Driscoll says -
"Those who are culturally relevant without being biblically faithful tend to be 'relevant heretics' and that's not our objective. Those who are faithful to scripture and removed from culture can sometimes be 'irrelevant orthodox' and our goal would be 'relevant othodoxy'"
and then proceeds to reference 1 Corinthians 9 -

"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings."

- 1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Well put sir.

repent of our confidence in the flesh

"We need to repent not only of our sin but also of our "righteousness" when we think of it as our righteousness, which we do to prove ourselves and which we think makes us better than other people."

- Tim Chester
You Can Change pg.45

Its a crazy and counter-intuitive idea that I need to "repent of any righteousness of my own that comes from the law, so that in it's place [I] could receive the righteousness from God that depends on faith".