Getting ready for Jesus’ return is not a matter of working out the exact date; Jesus told us that was impossible. It is about just getting on with the job God has called us to do. Just ask yourself again each day: how I can live for my Lord today? How can I love God and his people well with the opportunities I have been given?

If you want to get fitter and stronger, it takes time. Going to the gym once for three hours won’t do it. Neither will going for a 5km run and then never running ever again. The key is to do with regularity. Even small amount of exercise, done regularly and often, will lead to you getting fitter and stronger. It is a process, something that you need to have as part of your everyday life.
When you have been working on your fitness and strength for some time, you are ready for all kinds of things. If a friend asks you to help them move house, you can physically do it. If you need to go for a hike, you will be capable of doing it. The regular work has meant you are always ready for physical tasks.
Why are we thinking about exercise? After all, this is not one of those fitness blogs! I think the process of working on our physical fitness has some useful connections to working on our spiritual health.
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Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
We can easily become outraged over the sins of others–as David did when Nathan the prophet told him the story of the poor man’s stolen ewe lamb–while harboring sin that is every bit as egregious as that which we denounce. This is the very reason why our Lord used the figure of the speck and the log (Matt. 7:3-5). It’s quite difficult to want to involve ourselves in every controversy or to seek to correct every error when we remember the indwelling sin with which we are personally engaged in warfare every single day or our lives until Christ comes again. 

Part of the pernicious underbelly of the internet is that many allow themselves to be drawn into controversies about which they have no need to involve themselves. For many years, I too wanted juicy details about whatever controversy was swirling around in evangelical and Reformed circles. To my shame, I have either initiated or been on the receiving end of innumerable conversations that began with the statement, “Did you hear what just happened to so and so. . .?” So much of this belong to the realm of gossip rather than to the sphere of sanctified concern or justified probing. As Jerry Bridges has rightly noted, “Behind all of our gossip, slander, critical speech, insults, and sarcasm is our sinful heart. The tongue is only the instrument that reveals what’s in our hearts.” So what are we to do if we are to live informed lives without allowing ourselves to be drawn into foolish controversies in which we have no responsibility from God to involve ourselves? Here are a few helps: 
1. Remember the Sphere of Your Calling from God
When the Lord drew me to himself in saving grace, He implanted in me a burning desire to preach the gospel. I believe that my conversion and my call to ministry occurred simultaneously. That being said, I was not called to pastor the universe. I was called by God to pastor specific local churches as specific times in my ministry. This means that my priority must be for the care of the needs of the people whom God has entrusted to me in the local church I serve. Just as Augustine referred to spheres of moral proximity, when answering the questions about caring for the welfare of those in need, so there is a moral proximity for pastors and people to care first and foremost for the spiritual needs of the people in the same body. 
Of course, this does not mean that the sphere of responsibility stops at the local church. I happen to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. This means that it is my responsibility to concern myself with the spiritual condition of the churches in our denomination. However, within the PCA, we have regional Presbyteries that take precedent to the national court. If I neglect my responsibility to serve on committees and to care to the best of my ability for the spiritual health and wellbeing of the churches and ministers in our Presbytery because I want to give the better part of my time and energy to denominational controversies, then I am failing to fulfill the role to which God has called me. After giving ourselves to the care of the local church, we are to give ourselves first and foremost to the wider regional expression of our denominational affiliations. 
This is not to say that ministers are not called to care for the wider church. It is right and good for ministers in the PCA to serve on denominational committees and agencies. It is important for pastors to labor for the peace and purity of the denomination at large. However, even within this sphere, great caution is needed. Many thrive on controversy.
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When we begin to understand the depth of our depravity and sin and recognize the wrath we justly deserve from God, we will be filled with gratitude, joy, and wonder at such a great salvation we have in Christ our Savior: Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! (Ps. 100:4)

Charles H. Spurgeon once stated, “Humility is to make a right estimation of one’s self.” Here are twelve good reasons to grow in humility.
1. Humility enables you to rejoice in and submit to your sovereign Creator.
A humble heart willingly and joyfully submits to God in all things because he is the Creator and we are his creation:

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (Prov. 19:31)
Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. (Eccles. 5:2)
All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2)
All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Dan. 4:35)
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44)
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15)
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Heb. 11:3)

2. Humility enables you to respect others.
A humble heart keeps you from thinking that you are better than your neighbor and reminds you that everyone has immeasurable value, as all people are God’s image-bearers:

Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Rom. 13:7)
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phil. 2:3-4)
Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Pet. 2:17)
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Pet. 5:5)

3. Humility enables you to recognize your sinfulness.
A humble heart is acutely aware of the truth that we all fall short of God’s holy standard:

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” [Isa. 6:5)
[Peter] fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8)
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 3:23-24)
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)

4. Humility enables you to forgive others.
A humble heart helps you to always be mindful of God’s forgiveness to you in Christ and your subsequent duty to forgive others who have sinned against you:

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12)
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. (Matt. 18:21-22)
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Eph. 4:32)
Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Col. 3:13)

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