rest on the death of Christ

What a year it has been.

Come what may next year, for I have a Redeemer who has been and will be holding me securely for ever.

"The true looking of faith, I say, is placing Christ before one's eyes and beholding in Him the heart of God poured out in love. Our firm and substantial support is to rest on the death of Christ as its only pledge." - John Calvin

(HT: Of first importance)

every word I say...

to follow through with every word I say, help me God. and be gracious to me.

[edit: fixed Engrish error. thanks John.]

Wishful thinking is not faith

The SMH posted this article today: We believe in miracles and UFOs.
Faith, or being religious described in the article didn't sound like faith at all though, it was more like wishful thinking. And that's how people generally think of Christian faith as well I suppose.
The following paragraph from the report shows clearly that what most people hold as faith is nothing but a wishful thinking.

Some beliefs seem to be contradictory. While 56 per cent of people believe in heaven, only 38 per cent believe in hell, and belief in God is much more popular than faith in the devil, with only 37 per cent of respondents believing in Satan.

One should mark the Archbishop Peter Jensen's comment on the findings.

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, said the poll results showed the religious instinct was universal.

"That faith is important or very important to at least half of the population is what we have always suspected - an 'iceberg effect' that people may not necessarily speak up about their faith but it is very significant to their lives," he said.

The fact that the Christian faith was in the clear majority among believers was "no cause for triumphalism".

"I would reflect rather on why this is not translating into church membership."

There was no denying that increased numbers of people described themselves as non-believers, but this was no boon to the atheist cause, he said.

"The decline of Christian faith does not lead to lack of religious belief; it just opens the way for superstition."

Read the article here.

Lines I like from 'Out of the Silent Planet'

'What are you so afraid of, Ransom of Thulcandra?' [Oyarsa of Malacandra] said. - p.152

Men are fearful beings until they come to know and trust Lord Jesus Christ. But not many of them know the reason for their fear or even the fact that they are fearful.

We think that Meleldil would not give it up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange counsel and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra. But of this we know less than you; it is a thing we desire to look into. - p.154
I wish to hear of Thulcandra and of Meleldil's strange wars there with the Bent One; for that, as I have said, is a thing we desire to look into. -p.156
[After Ransom answered the question above from Oyarsa] 'You have shown me more wonders than are known in the whole of heaven.' -p.182

Indeed the deeds, love, grace of Lord Jesus is more wonderful than anything else, everything else altogether in this whole universe. I love the way it is described and praised here.

Sermon on the Mount: Nice words from Jesus?

The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees' will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.
- Philip Yancey, from The Jesus I never knew, p.144

He will save his people from their sins.

He will save his people from their sins. - Matt 1:21

How sweet His words to this sinner's ears!

Read the whole thing.

Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards: #44

44. Resolved, that no other end but religion, shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. Jan.12, 1723.

I suppose that word "religion" or "religious" ought to be translated to our modern phrase, "devotion to God"?

(Source: A Puritan's Mind)