Fullness of joy!

Fullness of joy!

("Solitude Sweetened" by James Meikle, 1730-1799)

"In Your presence there is fullness of joy! At Your
 right hand are pleasures forevermore!" Psalm 16:11

In this present life I may have some tainted pleasures;
but in eternity, I shall always have pure delights and
holy raptures!

In this life I may have at times a measure of health;
but in eternity, I shall always have perpetual vigor!

In this life I may have some acres of ground; but in
eternity, I shall always have an unbounded inheritance
in the heavenly Canaan!

Here, I may have fine clothing of silk; there I will
have robes of righteousness and garments of glory!

Here I may have a beautiful house; there
I will have a house not made with hands!

Here I may have bread to eat and water to drink;
there I will have the hidden manna and the river of life!

Here I may have a portion of the good things of time;
there I will have the glorious treasures of eternity!

As to spiritual things, in this life I may have some
communications of grace; but in eternity, I shall
have eternal glory!

Here I have freedom from the reign of sin; there
I will have deliverance from the presence of sin!

Here I have glances of heaven by faith;
there I will have immediate vision of glory!

Here I have God in His ordinances; there I will
have uninterrupted communion with Him!

Here I have some experience of His love;
there I will have all the transports of eternal
assurance and everlasting bliss!

Here I have access to the throne of grace;
there I will have continuous attendance at
the throne of glory!

Here I often sin against God; there
I shall never offend His holy heart!

A Sight of Sin and a Sight of Jesus

"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn." -Zech. 12:10

"One eye looking at self and one eye looking at Christ will so regulate the experience of the soul, so accurately adjust its moral compass, as to preserve the balance between presumption and despair; leading to a humble, holy, watchful walk as it regards sin on the one hand, and to an assured, happy, hopeful sense of pardon, acceptance, and glory on the other. No fact in Christian experience is more certain than this, that sin is never properly seen until Christ is known; and that Christ is never fully known, until sin is seen in its existence, guilt, and power. It is a sense of our vileness, guiltiness, and condemnation that takes us to Christ; and when we see Christ, and accept Christ, and enter into believing rest in Christ, we then have the deepest conviction of the greatness, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and at the same moment the most assured conviction of our full and eternal deliverance from its guilt, tyranny, and condemnation. This harmony of tint- the blending of light and shade- sin and Christ- forms one of the loveliest and most impressive pictures of the many which illustrate the history of the Christian's life." Winslow

Should we call our Paschal celebrtion "Easter"?

Doug Wilson answers the question.

http://www.canonwired.com/featured/easter-origins/

The Glorious Life & Death of Jesus Christ

By John Owen

The Glory of Christ as Our Mediator

Jesus Christ is God and man in one and the same Person. There are in His one Person two distinct natures: the one being eternal, infinite, immense, almighty, the form and essence of God; the other, having a beginning in time, finite, limited, confined to a certain place. This is our nature, which He took on Himself when He “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

The Apostle Paul said, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”

(1 Timothy 2:5). The difference between God and man was caused by our sin and apostasy from Him, and it could result in nothing but the utter ruin of humanity. A mediator was needed or mankind would cease forever. This mediator could not be God. A mediator represents multiple parties, and God was one of the parties (Cf. Galatians 3:20).

As for created beings, there was none in Heaven or Earth able to undertake this office. For “if one man sins against another, God will judge him. But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him?” (1 Samuel 2:25). By assuming our human nature into union with His divine nature, Jesus Christ became in every way fit to assume the office of mediator.

In Christ’s assumption of our nature as His own, we see the highest evidence of God’s care toward mankind. He who was eternally in the form of God—equally participant of the same divine nature with God the Father—so humbled Himself in this assumption of our nature as to make Himself of no reputation in this world. It is with reference to this that a great promise concerning Christ is given to the church: “He will be as a sanctuary” (Isaiah 8:14). He is an assured refuge to all who go to Him. To sin-distressed souls, He is a refuge in all spiritual distresses and sorrows. Are we perplexed with temptations? Are we bowed down under the oppression of any spiritual adversary? One view of the glory of Christ is able to support us and relieve us.

What will He not do for us—He who thus emptied and humbled Himself, who so infinitely lowered Himself from His glory in the assumption of human nature to become the mediator on our behalf—will He not relieve us in all our distresses? Will He not do all we stand in need of that we may be eternally saved?

Nor have we any ground to doubt His power, for in becoming a man, He lost none of His power as God omnipotent.

The Glory in Christ’s Death

The glory of Christ was also displayed when He suffered as our Savior. Victory, success and triumph with great glory belonged to this role, but first there were sufferings required of Him. “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26).

We might here look on Him as under the weight of the wrath of God and the curse of the law, taking on Himself and His whole soul the utmost of evil that God had ever threatened to sin or sinners. We might look upon Him fighting against all the powers of darkness, the rage and madness of men, suffering in His soul, His body, His name, His reputation, His goods, His life. We might look on Him praying, weeping, crying out, bleeding, dying—in all things making His soul an offering for sin.

What shall we say to these things? That God spared not His only Son, but gave Him up unto death (Romans 8:32) and all the evils included in it, for such poor, lost sinners as we were; that for our sakes the eternal Son of God should submit Himself to all the evils that our natures are liable to, and all that our sins had deserved, that we might be delivered!

How glorious is the Lord Christ on this account in the eye of believers! When Adam had sinned—thereby eternally ruining himself and all posterity—he stood ashamed, trembling, as one ready to perish forever under the displeasure of God. Death was what he deserved, and immediate death is what he looked for.

In this state the Lord Christ comes to him and says, “Poor creature! How woeful is your condition! What is become of the beauty, of the glory of that image of God in which you were created? How have you taken on yourself the monstrous shape and image of Satan? Eternal distress lies at the door. But yet look up once more, and behold Me. Come forth from your vain shelter, your hiding place. I will put Myself into your condition and will undergo and bear that burden of guilt and punishment that would sink you eternally into the bottom of hell.” To the same purpose He speaks to convinced sinners, in the invitation He gives them to come to Him.

Thus is the Lord Christ set forth in the Gospel, crucified before our eyes (Galatians 3:1) in the representation that is made of His glory, in the sufferings He underwent to fulfill the task He had undertaken. Let us, then, behold Him as poor, despised, persecuted, reproached, reviled, hanged on a tree—in all, laboring under the wrath of God due to our sins.

What glory is in these things? Are not these the things which caused Jews and Gentiles to stumble and take offense at—those wherein He was appointed to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense? The apostle declares that in the wisdom of the world it was considered foolish to look for help and deliverance by the miseries of another—to look for life by His death (1 Corinthians 1).

But even on the account of these things Christ is honorable, glorious and precious in the sight of those who believe (1 Peter 2:6-7). For even in this He was “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

The Glory of the Resurrected Christ

Christ’s resurrection is where all other parts of His glory are revealed. While He was in the world, all the instances of His glory before had a veil drawn over them. Most people saw nothing of it, and the best saw it only obscurely. On the day when we shall behold this glory, we shall see Him as He is.

This is the glory that the Father granted to Him before the foundation of the world and with which He was invested upon His ascension. He did not leave it behind while He was in the world, but He laid aside the direct evidence and declaration of it until He was “declared to be the Son of God with power,” by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4).

When the sun is under a total eclipse, it loses nothing of its native beauty, light and glory. Yet it appears to us as a dark, useless meteor. When it frees itself from the lunar interruption, it again manifests its native light and glory. So it was with the divine nature of Christ. He veiled His glory by assuming our nature as His own and taking the “form of a servant,” a person of mean and low degree.

But now this temporary eclipse is past, and His glory shines forth in the infinite luster and beauty that belong to the exaltation of His person. And when those who saw Him on earth as a poor, sorrowful, persecuted man, dying on the cross, came to see Him in all the infinite, uncreated glories of the divine nature, it could not but fill their souls with transcendent joy and admiration. This is one reason His prayer for these followers while He was on earth was that they might be where He is to behold His glory; for He knew what unspeakable satisfaction it would be to them forevermore.

The Apostle Peter told the Jews that the same Jesus, whom they slew and hanged on a tree, God had exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior to give repentance to Israel, and the forgiveness of sins (see Acts 5:30-31). If we place any value on His love, if we have any concern in what He has done for and suffered for the church, we cannot but rejoice in His present state and glory.

Let the world rage while it pleases; let it set itself with all its power and craft against everything of Christ. We have this to support us and to oppose all their attempts—what Jesus says of Himself: “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (Revelation 1:17-18).

Blessed Jesus! We can add nothing to You, nothing to Your glory; but it is a joy of heart to us that You are so gloriously exalted at the right hand of God. We long more fully and clearly to behold that glory, according to Your prayer and promise.


John Owen (1617-1683): Called the greatest of Puritan theologians, John Owen was an English pastor, scholar and author, as well as vice-chancellor of Oxford University and dean of Christ Church, Oxford.

Hebrews 10:19

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Hebrews 10:19.

Octavius Winslow:
"In all true prayer great stress should be laid on the blood of Jesus; perhaps no evidence distinguishes a declension in the power and spirituality of prayer more strongly than an overlooking of this. Where the atoning blood is kept out of view, not recognized, not pleaded, not made the grand plea, there is a deficiency of power in prayer. Words are nothing, fluency of expression nothing, niceties of language and brilliancy of thought nothing, and even apparent fervor nothing, where the blood of Christ- the new and the living way of access to God, the grand plea that moves Omnipotence, that gives admission within the holy of holies- is slighted, undervalued, and not made the groundwork of every petition. Oh, how much is this overlooked in our prayers, how is the atoning blood of Immanuel slighted! How little mention we hear of it in the sanctuary, in the pulpit, in the social circle! whereas it is this that makes prayer what it is with God. All prayer is acceptable with God, and only so, as it comes up perfumed with the blood of Christ; all prayer is answered as it urges the blood of Christ as its plea; it is the blood of Christ that satisfies justice, and meets all the demands of the law against us; it is the blood of Christ that purchases and brings down every blessing into the soul; it is the blood of Christ that sues for the fulfilment of His last will and testament, every precious legacy of which comes to us solely on account of His death; this it is, too, that gives us boldness at the throne of grace. How can a poor sinner dare approach with out this? How can he look up, how can he ask, how can he present himself before a holy God, but as he brings in the hand of faith the precious blood of Jesus? Outside of Christ, God can hold no communication with us; all communion is suspended, every avenue of approach is closed, all blessing is withheld. God has crowned His dearly beloved Son, and He will have us crown Him too; and never do we place a brighter crown upon His blessed head, than when we plead His finished righteousness as the ground of our acceptance, and His atoning blood as our great argument for the bestowment of all blessing with God. If, then, dear reader, you feel yourself to be a poor, vile, unholy sinner; if a backslider, whose feet have wandered from the Lord, in whose soul the spirit of prayer has declined, and yet still feel some secret longing to return, and dare not, because so vile, so unholy, so backsliding; yet you may return, "having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Come, for the blood of Jesus pleads; return, for the blood of Christ gives you a welcome. "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

FREE FROM THE LAW

Great Hymn "FREE FROM THE LAW" by Philip Bliss

Free from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus has bled and there is remission,
Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall,
Grace hath redeemed us once for all.

Refrain

Once for all, O sinner, receive it,
Once for all, O brother, believe it;
Cling to the cross, the burden will fall,
Christ hath redeemed us once for all.

Refrain

Now we are free, there’s no condemnation,
Jesus provides a perfect salvation.
“Come unto Me,” O hear His sweet call,
Come, and He saves us once for all.

Refrain

“Children of God,” O glorious calling,
Surely His grace will keep us from falling;
Passing from death to life at His call;
Blessèd salvation once for all.

Video Trailer For “The Greener Grass Conspiracy”

Sounds like a great book......... Video Trailer For “The Greener Grass Conspiracy”

Depression

Here are several excellent...very helpful posts on Depression.

http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/03/talking-freely-about-depression-and-anxiety.html

http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/04/understanding-the-workings-of-depression-and-anxiety.html

http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2010/10/dont-judge-the-depressed.html

http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/04/20-years-of-depression.html