The Hole in Our Holiness: special price and video clips

WTS books is offering a great price still on Kevin DeYoung’s newest book The Hole in Our Holiness.

Desiring God also features some short video clips of Kevin discussing various aspects of this book and its application to our lives. There are more but here are a few:

• The Most Neglected Theme in Sanctification
• The Many Motivators For Personal Holiness
• Extraordinary Holiness Through Four Ordinary Means
• How Far Is Too Far Before Marriage?

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Remember you are still in a battle!

Terry Enns says it well:

You are still in a battle with sin.  The end of the story has been written — Christ wins — but we are still in the process of living out the final pages of that story, fighting the lingering battles, which is why Paul says things like “no longer walk like the Gentiles” (4:17) and “lay aside the old self…” (4:22).

The war is over, but there are still battles being fought as history winds down.

Don’t assume that just because Christ has won that there is no more battle.  There is.  John Stott was right:

“…there will be no cessation of hostilities, not even a temporary truce or cease-fire, until the end of life or of history when the peace of heaven is attained.”

If you do not feel an occasional bullet zinging past your face or the sharp cuts of shrapnel from a nearby grenade, then beware.  A Christian who does not feel the pains of war is one who is no longer on the front lines and has retreated and given up.  Generally the pain you feel from the battle with sin is not an indication you are not a believer, but is in fact evidence that you are a believer, because someone who has killed his conscience and ignores the Spirit does not feel those pulls.

You are in a spiritual battle.  Be aware of the wartime realities.  Watch for the enemy’s deceptive attacks.  Purposefully put on God’s armor of salvation and Word and fight in God’s strength.

Read more here!

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Pursue holiness!

I am listening to Jerry Bridges’ classic The Pursuit of Holiness.  In the first chapter, Jerry identifies three misunderstandings regarding holiness: 1) we have substituted “victory” for “obedience”  2) we don’t take personal responsibility for personal holiness and 3) we don’t view sin seriously rather we tend to classify sin–some as serious, some as not. . . and our own sin always falls in the latter category.

Regarding taking personal responsibility for our sin, Paul Tautages points out that “the late James Montgomery Boice observed that Christians are lazy and unwilling to persevere on the hard road of godliness. Instead, we tend to look for the easy way out. As a result, spiritual growth is often lacking. Boice suggested three ways in which we try to avoid the struggle against sin.

1. We tend to seek out formulas, simple recipes for spiritual success. Slogans such as “Let go and let God” or “Just let Jesus take control” are attractive to our spiritual slothfulness.
2. We are prone to look for a new experience, a charismatic-type of “second work of grace” that immediately transforms us from being a defeated Christian to a victorious one.
3. Total avoidance of the struggle against sin is a common response.”

Paul points out that the language of Scripture employs the language of active self-discipline in regard to our sanctification:  pursue, strive, discipline, apply yourself diligently. . . “In other words, the Christian life is a call to a disciplined warfare against sin—a struggle to resist temptation and simultaneously apply God’s practical righteousness—a battle that will last until the day of the Lord Jesus, when “we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).”

 

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You don’t have to sin!!!!

Mark Altrogge begins a post:

Oh but doesn’t it FEEL like we have to at times? Like when you’re tempted to lust.  Or when somebody gets in your face and accuses you unjustly.  Or when that guy behind you lays on his horn the second the light turns green? Or when your kids do something for the 875,000th time when you’ve told them not to?

How can any human being possibly not sin at times like these? Impure thoughts, rage, worry, envy and other temptations feel so strong they feel like they’re just, well….us.  They feel so strong that we have no other choice but to give in to them.  Or do we?

I preached from 1 Peter 2:24 on Sunday which tells us that Christ “bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.”  I cross-referenced this passage with Romans 6:5-11 and shared many of the same truths that Mark does in his article “You Don’t Have to Sin (Even When It Feels Like You Will Explode If You Don’t) which I now urge you to read.

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Suffering is better than sin!

David Murray:

You have a choice.

Option 1: The tiniest sin imaginable, a sin that would bring you tremendous wealth and other material pleasures.

Option 2: The greatest suffering imaginable, for rejecting that one tiny sin.

Your selection, please. Or maybe you want to read this first.

In his sermon on Moses’ choice of Christ’s reproach instead of the pleasures of Egypt (Heb. 11:25), the Puritan Thomas Manton argues that the healthy Christian will choose the greatest affliction before the least sin. He then gives a number of reasons “why the greatest affliction is better than the least sin.”

1. In suffering the offence is done to us, but in sinning the offence is done to God; and what are we to God?

2. Sin separates us from God, but suffering and affliction doesn’t, and therefore the greatest affliction is to be chosen before the least sin.

3. Sin is evil in itself, whether we feel it or no; but affliction is only evil in our sense and feeling.

4. Affliction brings inconvenience upon the body only, and the concerns of the body; but sin brings inconvenience upon the soul.

5. An afflicted state is consistent with being loved by God; but a sinful state is a sign of God’s displeasure.

6. Affliction may be good, but sin is never good.

7. There is nothing that debases a man more than sin.

8. Afflictions come from God, but sin from the devil.

9. Affliction is sent to prevent sin; but sin must not be committed to prevent affliction.

10. The evil of suffering is for a moment, but the evil of sin is forever.

11. In sufferings and persecutions we lose the favor of men, but by sins we lose the favor of God.

12. To suffer is not in our choice, but to sin, that is in our choice. Afflictions are inflicted, sins are committed.

13. An afflicted man may die cheerfully, but a man in sin cannot.

14. Sin is contrary to the new nature; but affliction is only contrary to the old nature

15. When you deliberately choose sin, it will within a little while bring greater affliction.

Still want to stick with your choice?

Read Manton’s full explanation here (Vol. 14, 450-454), or access the 22 volumes of his Collected Works in different online formats here.

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Why holiness matters now

“If you dislike a holy God now, why would you want to be with him forever? If worship does not capture your attention at present, what makes you think it will thrill you in some heavenly future? If ungodliness is your delight here on earth, what will please you in heaven, where all is clean and pure? You would not be happy there if you are not holy here. Or as Spurgeon put it, “Sooner could a fish live upon a tree than the wicked in Paradise.”

~Kevin DeYoung~The Hole in Our Holiness (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2012) p. 15

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Holiness requires personal responsibility

“I ask. . .whether it is wise to speak of faith as the one thing needful, and the only thing required, as many seem to do now-a-days in handling the doctrine of sanctification?—Is it wise to proclaim in so bald, naked, and unqualified a way as many do, that the holiness of converted people is by faith only, and not at all by personal exertion? Is it according to the proportion of God’s Word? I doubt it. . . .Surely the Scriptures teach us that in following holiness the true Christian needs personal exertion and work as well as faith.”

–J. C. Ryle, Holiness, p. xi

Will you personally exert yourself today to fight against sin?

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Need some good news to start the week?

There’s good news.

And then there is the best news.

This is the best news about the good news (from Romans 6).

• How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (v. 2)
• Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (v. 4)
• For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; (vv. 5-6)
• for he who has died is freed from sin. (v. 7)
• Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (v. 11)
• Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (vv. 12-13)
• For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (v. 14)
• But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (vv. 17-18)
• But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. (v. 22)

–Terry Enns at Words of Grace

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Sin rarely seems bad at first

“We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in its true colours, saying, “I am your deadly enemy, and I want to ruin you for ever in hell.” Oh, no! sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss; and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words. The forbidden fruit seemed good and desirable to Eve; yet it cast her out of Eden. The walking idly on his palace roof seemed harmless enough to David; yet it ended in adultery and murder. Sin rarely seems sin at its first beginnings. Let us then watch and pray, lest we fall into temptation. We may give wickedness smooth names, but we cannot alter its nature and character in the sight of God. Let us remember St. Paul’s words: “Exhort one another daily, lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb. 3:13.)

Ryle, J. C. (1889). Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (10–11). London: William Hunt and Company.

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Holiness: for your benefit and others

“I need to grow in holiness not just for my own sake but out of love and concern for those around me. If I love the people in my church, I will grow in holiness for their sake. I am prone to think that holiness is an individual pursuit, but when I see sanctification as a community project, now it is more of a team pursuit. I am growing in holiness so that I can help others grow in holiness, I am putting sin to death so I can help others put sin to death. My church needs me and I need my church, and this is exactly how God has designed it.”–Tim Challies

Read more in this short article “Sanctification is a Community Project”

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