While we recognize God’s sovereignty in salvation, this longing to see one generation follow another in knowing God motivates the training and instruction of our children. Psalm 78 captures it: “Things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders he has done. He established a testimony … which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and teach to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commands” (vv. 3–6). Because we long for our children to know the grace we have known, we declare God’s mighty acts to the next generation (Ps. 145). We teach God’s ways so that our sons and our son’s sons will follow God (Deut. 6).

We want our children to have faith in God. But what does it mean to have saving faith? Starting with Martin Luther and further explicated by Philip Melanchthon and others who followed them, Reformed theology has traditionally used a threefold definition of faith as notitia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). Our major confessions of faith show this understanding. The Westminster Confession of Faith 14.2 maintains that saving faith joins believing in God’s Word, accepting Christ’s claims, and “receiving and resting on Christ alone” for all that salvation provides.

How does this impact shepherding our children? We must always set before them the gospel truth. Every family should have some intentional and structured times in which the children are taught about what the Scriptures contain. We must faithfully urge them to believe the things we have taught. Some basic apologetics will inevitably be essential as we persuade them to believe the truth.

None of this will be enough unless they entrust themselves to Jesus Christ. If they are to be partakers of eternal life, they must trust in this Jesus Christ who saves. Our children must receive Him, turn to Him, hold fast to Him, and rest in Him alone for salvation. Ultimately, the work of the Holy Spirit must transform our children into people who rest in Christ alone for salvation. Our role is to bring them the gospel and urge them to embrace Christ the Savior.

I used to tell my children about the man who watched a tightrope walker crossing Niagara Falls pushing a wheel barrow. After seeing the feat performed repeatedly, he was asked by the performer, “Can I walk across the falls pushing this wheelbarrow.” “Yes,” was the answer (notitia). “Do you believe that I can do it again?” “Yes” (assensus). “Would you jump in the wheelbarrow and let me push you across?” (fiducia). This is the question of trust.

Our children must know that Jesus is the Saviour who died for sinners. They must believe that He will save sinners who come to Him. But to cross from death to life they must believe that Jesus is their Saviour. They must get into the wheelbarrow. What they will find is that He is willing and able to get them safely to the other shore.

 Ted Tripp

If there is much to cast down the child of God, there is more to lift him up. If in his path to glory there are many causes of soul-despondency, of heart-sorrow, and mental disquietude, yet in that single truth—God comforts the disconsolate—he has an infinite counterbalance of consolation, joy, and hope. That “God comforts those that are cast down,” His own truth declares. It is in His heart to comfort them, and it is in His power to comfort them. He blends the desire, deep and yearning, with the ability, infinite and boundless. Not so with the fondest, tenderest creature. The sorrow is often too deep and too sacred for human sympathy to reach. But what is fathomless to man is a shallow to God.

I have said, that it is in the heart of God to comfort His people. Everything that He has done to promote their comfort proves it. He has commanded His ministers to “speak comfortably” to them. He has sent forth His word to comfort them. He has laid up all comfort and consolation for them, in the Son of His love. And in addition to all this, He has given them His own Spirit, to lead them to the Divine sources of “all consolation” which He has provided. Who could comfort the disconsolate but God? Who could effectually undertake their case but Himself? He only knows their sorrow, and He only could meet it.

There is not a moment in which God is not bent upon the comfort of “those that are cast clown.” All His dealings with them tend to this—even those that appear adverse and contrary.

Does He wound?—it is to heal. Does He cause deep sorrow?—it is to turn that sorrow into a deeper joy. Does He empty?—it is to fill. Does He cast down?—it is to lift up again.

Such is the love that moves Him, such is the wisdom that guides Him, and such too is the end that is secured in the Lord’s disciplinary conduct with His people. Dear reader, it is in God’s loving heart to speak comfortably to your sorrowful heart. Let but the Holy Spirit enable you to receive this truth in simple faith, and your grief, be its cause and its degree what they may, is more than half assuaged.

Not a word may yet be spoken by the “God of all comfort,” not a cloud may be dispersed, nor a difficulty be removed; yet to be assured by the Divine Comforter that the heart of God yearns over you, and that consolation is sparkling up from its infinite depths, waiting only the command to pour its tide of joyousness into your sorrow-stricken bosom, and it is enough.

Yes, I repeat it—for every reiteration of so precious a truth must still be but a faint expression of its magnitude—it is in the loving heart of God to lift up your disconsolate soul from the dust. Listen to His words—there is melody in them such as David’s harp spoke not when its soft and mellow strains soothed the perturbed spirit of Saul—”I, even I, am He that comforts you.” Mark with what earnestness He makes this declaration. How solicitous does he appear to impress this truth upon the heart—that to comfort His own tried saints is His sole prerogative, and His infinite delight.

– Octavius Winslow

1. “All sins are equal in the sight of God.”

Well, no. It is true enough that every sin is worthy of God’s eternal wrath. It is true enough that if we have broken part of the law we have broken the law (James actually says this.) It is true enough that unjust anger is a violation of the commandment against murder (Jesus actually says this.) None of this, however, means all sins are equal in the sight of God. To say that because all sins deserve eternal wrath means they are all equal is like saying that all numbers over 100 are equal. The truth is that Jesus said of the Pharisees that while they rightly tithed their mint and their cumin, they neglected the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23). No sin is weightless, but some weigh more than others.

2. “Hell is the absence of God.”

Well, no. If God is omnipresent, and He is, is there anywhere He can not be? David understood this, and thus affirmed, “If I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there” (Psalm 139:8). Hell isn’t the absence of God, but the presence of His wrath. God is there, but His grace, His kindness, His peace are not. God is the great horror of hell.

3. “Jesus saves us from our sins.”

Well, no. It is absolutely true that Jesus saves us. When we face trouble, He is the one we should be crying out to for deliverance. But the great problem with our sins isn’t our sins, but the wrath of God. The trouble I need to be delivered from is the wrath of God. Hell is not my sins, but the wrath of God. We don’t need to be saved from our sins. We need to be saved from the wrath due for our sins.

4. “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”

Well, not if your name is Esau. Okay, there certainly is a kind of universal love that God has for all mankind. And certainly all those who repent and believe will be blessed. And certainly God calls all men everywhere to repent. But it is also true that God has prepared vessels for destruction (Romans 9:22). Being prepared for destruction likely wouldn’t be considered “wonderful” by anyone. We don’t know God’s hidden plans, and thus should preach the gospel to all the world. But we shouldn’t, in so preaching, promise what He hasn’t promised.

5. “Money is the root of all evil.”

Well, no. Actually this one is wrong on two counts. First, the text (I Timothy 6:10) tells us that it is the love of money, not money, and that it is all sorts of evil, not all evil. If money were the root of all evil, all we would need to do to bring paradise on earth would be to have no more money. If money were the root of all evil, the problem would be out there, rather than in our hearts. Sin is not an it problem, but an us problem.

The devil isn’t lazy. He will take the breaks we give him. Myths and half-truths are perfect opportunities for us to miss who we are, who God is, and how He reconciles His own to Himself. Perhaps were we more faithful to His Word, we might just be more faithful.

– R.C. Sproul Jr.

True Christians have discovered that God, in Christ, offers them grace, mercy, pardon, peace, life, and love. This is revealed in the gospel, or “good news” of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 1:2–4). And true Christians have experienced how much they need these things; indeed, how the heart cries out for them in prayer (Ps. 84:2).

Prayer identifies the desires of the heart and expresses them to God. It can be silent or spoken. It can be as simple as “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13) or as detailed as the high-priestly prayer of Christ (John 17), in which He poured out everything He wants God the Father to give to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It can even take the form of a song. The Psalms are called “the prayers of David” (Ps. 72:20).

Christian prayer embraces God’s will as revealed in Scripture for its rule or guide. The goal is to ask for things in harmony with what God wants for us. God’s covenant promises, sealed with the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 11:25), are the surest foundation for prayer (2 Cor. 1:20). When divine and human wills agree according to God’s rule, prayer will surely be answered (1 John 5:14–15).

Christian prayer develops as believers come to trust in Christ more and more for all they need or are called to do, even to know how to pray or to ask for grace to keep on praying. We have no claim on God but must rely entirely on the merit and prayers of Christ and the indispensable aid of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26). That is why Christ commands us to “ask in my name” (John 15:16; 16:24).

Christian prayer is also part of our repentance from sin. In prayer, we confess our sins, asking God to forgive those sins and to provide the strength we need to forsake them and kill them. From God’s perspective, a sin truly confessed is a sin forgiven (Ps. 32:5). What’s more, the same God who forgives sin cleanses from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Finally, Christian prayer is an act of worship (Ps. 65:1–2). As we come to know God in Christ, we are moved to praise Him as Almighty God and our Father in heaven. As we experience God’s work in our daily lives, we learn to thank Him for the many good and perfect gifts He offers us as mercies from His fatherly hand (James 1:17). We also learn to rejoice in trials, hardships, loss, and sorrow, since these come to us not by chance but according to God’s will to accomplish His purpose for us (Rom. 8:28, 29).

We have much to learn to have a truly healthy prayer life. Pray for grace to open your heart to the Word and Spirit of God to receive the counsel of these meditations with a teachable mind and a moldable conscience. Begin now by praying for an understanding heart and grace to grow in the knowledge of Christ.

– From the Introduction of DEVELOPING A HEALTHY PRAYER LIFE, 31 MEDITATIONS ON COMMUNING WITH GOD, by James W. Beeke and Joel R. Beeke (Highly recommended – Pastor John)

by Eric Alexander

Paul tells us that the Father’s motive in exalting Christ to the highest place and giving Him a name that is above every name is “the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11). If we have any other end in view, then quite simply we will labour without the blessing of God.

Zeal for the glory of God as the controlling motive of our thinking and working will deeply affect at least four areas of our life in the evangelical church. They are worship, evangelism, unity, and church growth.

Worship

What makes worship in heaven so remarkable and so different is that there is only one desire among God’s people there, and that is to bring glory to God and to the Lamb (see Rev. 4:11; 5:11–14). Our worship here on earth is intended to be a preparation for that pure and perfect worship in the glory. Yet, I suspect that in our concern to make our worship acceptable to those who come to our churches, we are more interested in their acceptance than God’s pleasure. The one quality that equips us to worship God in spirit and in truth is a hunger for His glory.

Evangelism

If you ask members of an evangelical church what the motives for evangelism are, they will almost certainly respond with two accurate and acceptable answers. One would be the Great Commission, and the other would be the condition of the lost who are without Christ. But neither of these is the ultimate motive. The ultimate motive is that throughout the world there are places where God is being robbed of His glory: in our own street, at our place of work, in professions and governments — wherever we turn it is true that men and women have “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Rom. 1:18–32). ]

Unity

The reason Jesus brings together in John 17 the glory of the Father and the Son and the unity of the disciples in the church is that the motive deriving from the former is the only effective way of securing the latter. Unless our entire motivation is set on fire by an overwhelming desire for the glory of God — all wills bowing in the same direction, all hearts burning with the same flame, all minds united by the same obedience — we shall never know the unity for which Jesus prays.

Church Growth

How is God most glorified in the growth of the church? Not primarily by growth in numbers but by growth in depth and in quality — growth in the knowledge of God.

So we really do need to allow that question to haunt us: “Are not zeal for the glory of God and a desire for the salvation of men, so far as we know our own hearts, our great motives and chief inducements in seeking this ministry?” God help us in the last day to reply, “They were.”

by Eric Alexander

I am notoriously bad at remembering anniversaries, and last year it was quite a surprise to discover that 2008 marked the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination to the Christian ministry. Not that the occasion was other than memorable. Indeed it was a very special day for many reasons. But I am bound to say that the truly unforgettable part of a moving service was one of the statutory questions put to me by the presbytery: “Are not zeal for the glory of God, and a desire for the salvation of men, so far as you know your own heart, your great motives and chief inducements in seeking this ministry?” I had to answer, “They are.”

For the past fifty years that question has haunted me, especially as I have climbed the steps of various pulpits to preach, or attended the ordination service of others, or as I have reviewed the year each 31st of December. Abraham Kuyper, that extraordinary Dutch theologian who became the prime minister of his country, points out that the Reformation slogan is not just Deo gloria, but soli Deo gloria. It is a passion for the glory of God as the sole motive of everything.

Now in recent years I have been troubled by the tendency in the evangelical church to be more taken up with methods rather than motives. So I frequently hear of conferences where brethren meet to share insights into new and better methods by which we may fulfil our ministry. I’m sure they are very valuable, and I hope I am not so naïve as to think that methods are unimportant in God’s work. But I have almost never heard of a conference where brethren have met together before God to ask each other: “In all honesty, what are the compelling motives that determine the direction of my ministry?”

Yet Jesus laid great stress on motives: “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). Looking back over His ministry He says, “I have glorified you by finishing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4). The glory of the Father was the terminus of everything for Jesus. There was nothing beyond this. And He means it to be so for us.

That is why it is such a serious thing to rob God of His glory. He will not share that glory with another just because He cherishes His own glory above everything else and is jealous of it; it is the motive of everything He does (Isa. 48:11). Paul tells us that the Father’s motive in exalting Christ to the highest place and giving Him a name that is above every name is “the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11). If we have any other end in view, then quite simply we will labour without the blessing of God.

(Next Week: Part 2)

By Cotton Mather

Our continual apprehension of God, may produce our continual satisfaction in God, under all His dispensations. Whatever enjoyments are by God conferred upon us, where lies the relish, where the sweetness of them? Truly, we may come to relish our enjoyments, only so far as we have something of God in them. It was required in Psalm 37:4, “Delight thyself in the Lord.” Yea, and what if we should have no delight but the Lord? Let us ponder with ourselves over our enjoyments: “In these enjoyments I see God, and by these enjoyments, I serve God!”

And now, let all our delight in, and all our value and fondness for our enjoyments, be only, or mainly, upon such a divine score as this. As far as any of our enjoyments lead us unto God, so far let us relish it, affect it, embrace it, and rejoice in it: “O taste, and feed upon God in all;” and ask for nothing, no, not for life itself, any further than as it may help us, in our seeing and our serving of our God.

And then, whatever afflictions do lay fetters upon us, let us not only remember that we are concerned with God therein, but let our concernment with God procure a very profound submission in our souls. Be able to say with him in Psalm 39:9, “I open not my mouth, because thou didst it.” In all our afflictions, let us remark the justice of that God, before whom, “why should a living man complain for the punishment of his sin?” The wisdom of that God, “whose judgments are right:” the goodness of that God, who “punishes us less than our iniquities do deserve.” Let us behave ourselves, as having to do with none but God in our afflictions: And let our afflictions make us more conformable unto God: which conformity being effected, let us then say, “‘Tis good for me that I have been afflicted.”

Sirs, what were this, but a pitch of holiness, almost angelical! Oh! Mount up, as with the wings of eagles, of angels: be not a sorry, puny, mechanick sort of Christians any longer; but reach forth unto these things that are thus before you.

Cotton Mather, (February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728), was an influential New England Puritan minister, prolific author of more than 450 books and pamphlets

One would think that Christians would live in constant expectation of Heaven. But the fact is, often we are too wrapped up in our present existence to give it much thought.

In his classic devotional book titled The Saint’s Everlasting Rest, English Puritan pastor and author Richard Baxter (1615-1691) wrote:

‘Why are not our hearts continually set on heaven? Why dwell we not there in constant contemplation? …Bend thy soul to study eternity, busy thyself about the life to come, habituate thyself to such contemplations, and let not those thoughts be seldom and cursory, but bathe thyself in heaven’s delights.’

A. Heaven Will Be The Saint’s Eternal Home.

“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17)

B. Heaven Will Be A Place Of Eternal Health.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:53)

“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1)

C. Heaven Will Be A Place Of Eternal Happiness.

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”” (Revelation 21:4)

D. Heaven Will Be A Place Of Eternal Holiness.

“But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Revelation 21:27)

THE CONSCIENCE is the automatic warning system by which we become aware of spiritual and moral danger and by which we sense our guilt. It is the innate ability to sense right and wrong. It entreats us to do what is right and to refrain from doing what is wrong. The Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote in the 17th century that it is ‘the soul reflecting on itself.’ It is privy to all our secret thought and motives.

J I Packer defines it as ‘practical moral reason, consciously exercised, growing in insight and sureness of guidance through instruction and use, and bringing inner integration, health and peace to those who obey it.’

The Bible declares that everyone has a conscience (Rom 2:14-15) and that we are to purse a good conscience, stressing that if the mind is defiled it cannot accurately inform the conscience, so conscience cannot warn the person (Titus 1:15). It warns against anything that would defile the conscience (1 Cor 8:7), the dangers of a calloused conscience (1 Cor 8:10), a wounded conscience (1 Cor 8:12) and of a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2).

Joseph Addison Alexander wrote this helpful poem about the conscience:

Calvin’s first rule of prayer was to enter into it with a full awareness of the One to whom we are speaking. The key to prayer is a spirit of reverence and adoration: “Let the first rule of right prayer be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God.”

Calvin wrote of how easy it is for our minds to wander in prayer. We become inattentive, as if we were speaking to someone with whom we are easily bored. This insults the glory of God: “Let us know, then, that none duly prepare themselves [sic] for prayer but those who are so impressed with the majesty of God that they engage in it free from all earthly cares and affections.”

Calvin’s second rule of prayer was that we ask only for those things that God permits. Prayer can be an exercise in blasphemy if we entreat His blessing for our sinful desires: “I lately observed, men in prayer give greater license to their unlawful desires than if they were telling jocular tales among their equals.”

Calvin’s third rule of prayer was that we must always pray with genuine feeling. Prayer is a matter of passion: “Many repeat prayers in a perfunctory manner from a set form, as if they were performing a task to God … They perform the duty from custom, because their minds are meanwhile cold, and they ponder not what they ask.”

A fourth rule of prayer from Calvin was that it be always accompanied by repentance: “God does not listen to the wicked; that their prayers, as well as their sacrifices, are an abomination to them. For it is right that those who seal up their hearts should find the ears of God closed against them.”

Calvin said a humble submission is required: “Of this submission, which casts down all haughtiness, we have numerous examples in the servants of God. The holier they are, the more humbly they prostrate themselves when they come into the presence of the Lord.”

If I can summarize Calvin’s teaching on prayer succinctly, I would say this: The chief rule of prayer is to remember who God is and to remember who you are. If we remember those two things, our prayers will always and ever be marked by adoration and confession.

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