"But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."-Paul the Apostle, Romans 6:17-18
"Man is a wonderful creature, he is mind, he is heart and he is will. Now one of the greatest glories of the Gospel is this, that it takes up the whole man. ....It is because we fail to realize that, that many of our troubles arise. We are partial in our response to this great Gospel.
....The heart is always to be influenced through the understanding--the mind, then the heart, then the will. ...I have known evil-living men to find false comfort, to their own damnation, in the fact that they could still weep and be moved emotionally in a religious meeting. 'I cannot be all bad or else I would not respond like this', they have argued. But it is a false deduction--their emotional response was produced by themselves. Had it been a response to Truth their lives would have been changed. We must never approach the heart or the will directly. Truth is received through God's greatest gift to man, the mind, the understanding. .....But God forbid that anyone should think that it ends with the intellect. It starts there, but it goes on. It then moves the heart and finally the man yields his will. He obeys, not grudgingly or unwillingly, but with the whole heart. ....O may God make us balanced Christians, men and women ...obeying from the heart the form of doctrine which has be delivered unto us."-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure" 1965.
2 comments:
That is an interesting quote, and I completely agree, but I have a funny story. In my own life, it was the word "decision" that cracked open the door to exploring the Doctrines of Grace. I was "giving my testimony" to a Christian brother, and related when made a decision for Jesus. He took a half-step back, paused, then said You decided? It sounded filthy as it was repeated back to me. Thanks be to God for his irresistible grace and unconditional election, and that the Holy Spirit regenerated this depraved man (me) before any utterance of submission took place.
Good testimony Craver. God does have great grace for us as we come into the light from being dead in a dark and sinful realm.
He surely allows for error, and yet it's good for us to speak out and have the very best truth we can understand as we share the Gospel, and the Church shines the Gospel light in a dark world.
Satan will be relentless in his subtleties and half-truth schemes.
Thanks for stopping in my good friend. Jesus is awesome isn't He! Have a good rest of the week.
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