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Assurance

How Charismatic are YOU? A Spectrum of belief and practice

December 1, 2011

Today, in the tradition of my previous Arminocalvinist Spectrum, Evolution vs Creationism Spectrum and Spectrum of belief on hell and salvation  I present a “Charismatic-cessationist spectrum.”  For some more background on this issue, and a fairly typical charismatic perspective see my series of posts on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  As usual this may be a bit of a living [...]

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The vital roles of Union AND Fellowship with Jesus

November 30, 2010

This quote from Terry Virgo is just too good not to share.  Many people fail to appreciate the two very distinct yet crucial sources of comfort to the Christian.  They miss the power that is available to us. They miss the transformation God intends us to experience: Unbelievers are under the impression that Christians are [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Ten – Conversion is typically an emotional experience

September 30, 2010

Spurgeon argued yesterday that often feelings come before faith, (having previously denied it!).  In today’s quote after carefully reminding us that not every conversion is a “typical” one he goes on to tell us how he feels the typical conversion occurs: Some men have the light of God; but they cannot tell when the light [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Nine – Spurgeon suggests experience comes before knowledge after all

September 29, 2010

Today’s quote from Spurgeon demonstrates that the man believed two points that many today would disagree with.  Firstly, he argues that intellectual assent to the gospel is insufficient for salvation, indeed that it may make you more worthy of damnation. Secondly, he seems to suggest that experience may well need to come first before faith. [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Eight – High affections are to be desired

September 28, 2010

Jonathan Edward’s great work Religious Affections was introduced to us in yesterday’s quote.  In my mind there is probably no better book written to help us to grasp this vital subject (other than the Bible itself of course!)  We should by now be beginning to understand one of the most fascinating paradoxes, our feelings are [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Five – Learning from outside our comfort zones

September 18, 2010

Longtime readers of my blog may remember the days before I banned comments. If you do, you will remember that I gathered a group of people who seemed to disagree with almost everything I said. I stopped comments because I didn’t have time to deal with everything they were saying, and because I found moderating [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Four – Spurgeon on Sealing and Faith

September 17, 2010

In today’s quote Spurgeon introduces the vital concept of “sealing” or assurance of our faith and relates it ultimately to the line from our hymn: Note also that this sealing does not necessarily come at once with faith. It grows out of faith, and comes “after that ye believed.” We are not in every case [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Three – Spurgeon on how feelings do not produce faith

September 16, 2010

Our third quote in this little series, makes the very important point that however precious our experiences of God might be, a warm glowing feeling inside us never actually produces faith.  Some of my readers might be surprised to know that I wholeheartedly agree. Faith on the other hand, DOES produce feelings, as in the [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part Two – MLJ on why we can’t rely on feelings

September 15, 2010

Regular readers of this blog will know that I sit firmly in the tradition of Piper, Lloyd-Jones, Spurgeon, Edwards, and dare I say it Paul (!), who stresses the vital nature of the experiential side of Christianity. Now, as we begun yesterday, we are looking at the relationship between feelings and faith, initially by sharing [...]

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Faith and Feelings Part One – MLJ on the vital place but unreliability of feelings

September 14, 2010

As promised yesterday, we today begin a series exploring the implications of one line from an old hymn “I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholy lean on Jesus name.” It is my assertion that the writer of the hymn must have known something of the sweet “frames of mind” that Jesus gives us. [...]

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Pascal’s experience of God: something many modern Christians miss entirely

June 13, 2010

One fascinating thing that I quote in Raised With Christ is J. I. Packer’s assertion that Puritans were very unlike Christians today in that they liked to talk about their experiences of God. Today I want to share with you the record of a remarkable experience of God had by Pascal. The following quote is [...]

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SERMON – Building for the Glory of God: Nehemiah 3

October 16, 2008

Last Sunday I preached on Nehemiah 3. You can download the sermon, listen to it right here, download the video via the vodcast or by rightclicking on this download link. or read the edited trancript below. You can Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep [...]

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In Christ’s Blood and Righteousness Alone

May 1, 2008

We need to be reminded again and again that our works are useless when it comes to impressing God. This was something that I was reminded of again at New Word Alive when Terry Virgo preached on grace, as well as in my preparation for a sermon I preached a few days before entitled Work, [...]

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NWA08 – Don Carson on 1 John and Assurance

April 14, 2008

Carson closed the conference with his final talk on 1 John. I was home by this time, but I was able to listen to it over the weekend. You can do the same by ordering CDs from the New Word Alive website. I will share some short notes of it here. Because of his love [...]

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7th Most Read Post – What is a Reformed Charismatic?

February 2, 2008

No. 7 on the list of most-read posts on this blog appeared on November 26, 2005, and endeavored to explain that curious phenomenon—a charismatic Calvinist or “reformed charismatic.” There was a time when we were considered an oddity and people doubted our existence. Now, at least in England, reformed charismatics are on the ascendancy and [...]

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BOOK – Piper on Wright, Conclusion: What is Justification?

November 21, 2007

I have now come to the end of my series responding to John Piper’s new book, The Future of Justification. Here is a list of the previous posts: John Piper, N. T. Wright, and Gracious Discernment John Piper Challenges N. T. Wright on Justification Piper Explains the Classic View of Justification Versus N. T. Wright’s [...]

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John Piper on John Owen and Assurance of Salvation

September 27, 2007

There are few places where one can go to study church history more rewarding than Dr. John Piper’s biographical talks. He has a way of opening up the life of a great hero of the faith and showing us what we can learn from them. I’m finding myself in John Owen’s Communion with the Triune [...]

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