Living the Cross Centered Life - review

Living the Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney helps us to know and experience a life where the cross of Christ is at the heart. An easy book to read, and one that will hopefully reorient your life towards the gospel.

For a taste, Mahaney on legalism:

A legalist is anyone who behaves as if they can earn God's forgiveness through personal performance. ... Thomas Schreiner writes that "legalism has its origin in self-worship. If people are justified through their obedience to the law, then they merit praise, honor, and glory. Legalism, in other words, means the glory goes to people rather than God."

That's how serious legalism is. The implications are staggering, because legalism claims in essence that the death of Jesus on the cross was either unnecessary or insufficient. It says to God, in effect, "Your plan didn't work. The cross wasn't enough and I need to add my good works to it to be saved." ...

Legalists assume that godly practices and good works somehow contribute to their justification. But God's Word is clear: "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight." (Romans 3:20 ESV) None of us earn God's approval and love by our good works. None of us can add to the finished, complete work of Jesus on the cross. He paid the price of our sins. He satisfied God's wrath. ...

Not one of our good spiritual activities adds to our justification. We're never "more saved" or "more loved" by God. Our work is motivated by the grace God has poured out in our lives. (excerpts from pp 112-120)

New Cora photos

New photos of Cora are available. You can find them here.

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life - review

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith is a guide for Christian living written in 1870. This book, which was a gift, came recommended to me by at least two people that I respect as believers in Christ. Even with such commendation, I had a hard time with this book. It seemed disjointed and at times I wondered if Smith had talked herself in a circle. I applauded parts; others I didn't. My apologies to fans of Smith.

The book had some points I did enjoy, however. Here is a lament on Christian service done simply by our own power:

I was expected to visit the sick, and pray beside their beds. I was expected to attend prayer-meetings, and speak at them. I was expected, in short, to be always ready for every effort in Christian work, and the sense of these expectations bowed me down continually. At last it became so unspeakably burdensome to me to live the sort of Christian life I had entered upon, and was expected by all around me to live, that I felt as if any kind of manual labor would have been easier; and I would have infinitely preferred scrubbing all day on my hands and knees to being compelled to go through the treadmill of my daily Christian work. p 192

While Smith goes on to talk about how joy in service comes through yielding to Christ and taking pleasure in being used by the Lord, I enjoyed her honesty.

2 Kings 19 - The Lord Reigns

Assyria taunts
Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’
2 Kings 18:35; 19:10-13 (ESV)

Hezekiah prays
Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.
2 Kings 19:17-19 (ESV)

The Lord demonstrates His plan and His power
Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins ... For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
2 Kings 19:25, 34 (ESV)

And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. ... Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat.
2 Kings 19:35-37 (ESV)

Without a firm understanding of the Lord's sovereignty, our emotional stability would rise and plummet as we read the morning paper. Notice that the ultimate goal of Hezekiah's prayer was the glory and renown of the Lord, not simple relief from imminent danger. When we know that the Lord really does rule from on high and that the events of this world happen according to His greater plan, there is a confidence to pray for the Lord's glory, even in the most difficult of situations.



* Note on the relief: In an attack in Babylonia (indicated by the date palms), the Assyrians have built a siege ramp against the walls, which they attack with a battering-ram. An enemy archer is being killed beside the palm-tree that has been felled, and there are headless corpses around the city. This relief is found at the British Museum in London.