Things are going well in the church at the moment, and I praise God for the growth he is bringing in people’s lives. I am encouraged by what I see and, I am fairly confident, that growth in maturity is being brought about by the Lord. So long as we remember that, there is nothing to worry about. The work is the Lord’s and he will give the increase (whatever that might mean in practice). The danger is when we subtly shift away from knowing that to be true and begin to believe that the work is ours.

I know I am in danger of making myself look particularly foolish writing this. But here goes nothing: everything at church is going pretty well at the minute. Even saying it immediately makes me wonder whether I am like that cartoon dog, oblivious to what is really going on, in that meme where the house is on fire:
Either that, or not oblivious to what is currently going on, just unaware of what is round the corner. No sooner than you voice these things, the rug is pulled from underneath you as if Satan was just standing there waiting, ‘he’s said it! Quick, do the thing now!’ But, whatever, I’m in it now. Everything seems fine and/or actually pretty good, as far as these things go.
The problem, when everything seems fine, is that it is dangerous. In fact, when everything is going brilliantly, it is even more dangerous still. Satan, I am convinced, has no interest in attacking people who are both ineffective nor making inroads for the kingdom. Why bother targeting them? But when people seem to be growing, unbelievers are being saved, if you hate Jesus, you’re going to want to have a go at stopping that, surely.
Then, without putting too fine a point on it, whatever Satan might decide to get up to, we have to contend with ourselves. When everything hard and difficult, it’s pretty easy to rely on the Lord. If you have no money, ministry is difficult, people don’t seem to be growing, you’ve no idea how anyone is going to be saved, nothing seems to be working – but you’re nevertheless committed to this ministry in this area – what else have you got but prayer? Trusting in the Lord is easy then. If we definitely can’t fix it or make it happen, and there’s no pretending otherwise, trusting in the Lord to build the house is nice and easy.
But when you happen to have the money to buy bricks, and employ builders, it looks a bit different. When the house is going up, apparently through various things you’re doing, and people are even coming along and wanting to make that house their home, the Lord can easily take a back seat. Of course, we know – because we have good theology innit – that all this only really happened because God is sovereign and determined it would be so. But it is hard to shake the feeling that if we weren’t doing what we were doing, it wouldn’t have happened. It is hard to think that it wasn’t really us wot did it. It is easy to begin thinking our work, our personality, our efforts did the building. Of course, we pay lip service to the Lord working through means. But the means are so often the thing that attracts our attention and reliance on the Lord seems less important. As long as we keep doing A, B and C, these results will continue to happen.
Read More

Related Posts:

The role of the Church in these chaotic times is therefore to testify, with as much clarity and courage as God will grant, to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who are perishing will cry that this is unloving, but those who are being saved will, by the Spirit’s power, receive this gospel as a fragrance of life to life (2 Cor. 2:16). 

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:8–9)
Our present age is one in which “love,” as we refer to it, has become so distorted as to be hardly recognizable. Acts of flagrant rebellion against God are gleefully sanctioned in the name of love; evil is everywhere celebrated, supposedly, for the sake of love; oppression is promulgated for the cause of love; and lies are disseminated throughout every corner of society under the guise of love. And lest we risk falling into abstraction, what I am referring to here are things like Toronto streets being filled with all manner of public sexual deviance in the month of June, libraries suddenly becoming the favourite haunt of bearded, cross-dressing weirdos, and untold numbers of children being murdered and mutilated each year precisely by those who ought to be protecting them.
There is scarcely a good thing left in the world that we have not perverted under the pretence of “love,” and yet most people are more upset that I referred to drag performers as “cross-dressing weirdos.” Such are the times, I suppose.
Even so, it continues to be true that despite our culture’s myriad distortions of love, love itself remains pure and undefiled.
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Friday, September 24, 2021
When we consider the enormity of our sins, and our hearts begin to sink under the weight of a sense of the guilt that we have incurred, we must remember the eternal purposes of God in the everlasting covenant of redemption. When we begin to have hard thoughts of God, we must fix our eyes on the cross and see the infinitely beloved Son of God hanging on the tree out of the divine love of the triune God for sinners. 

One of the most challenging trials for believers during our pilgrimage through this dark and fallen world is to truly believe and rest in the love that God has for us. Sinclair Ferguson once noted that the experience of so many believers is the internalizing of the thought, “He loves me, He loves me not.” Many believers lack the assurance of their salvation precisely because they focus on the enormity of their sin to the exclusion of the enormity of the love of God for sinners. God’s love superabounds to the salvation of sinners. So how should we think about the love of God toward us who believe, while we acknowledge the reality of sin in our lives?
Much can be said about the love of God toward His people. Distinctions and categories must be drawn. God has a general love for His creation, a covenantal love for the visible church, and a eternal redeeming love for the elect. Scripture distinguishes between God’s love of complacency and His love of benevolence. Then, there are marks of God’s love. For instance, the author of the Proverbs and the book of Hebrews tells us that God disciplines those He loves (Heb. 12:3–11). Spiritual discipline is a mark of the love of God for His children–not of His just punishment which He reserves for unbelievers. That being said, here are a few of the foundational, biblical truths about the love that God has for His people:
The Bible places the love of God for His people at the foundation of every blessing that God freely bestows on us in Christ. Scripture tells us that the triune God has loved us with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3), that His love “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5), that He demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8), and that “greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The love of God leads Him to adopt believers into His divine family, making us sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1). The Apostle John (the Apostle of love) summarized the principle of the love of God toward His sinful people, when he wrote, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
The love of God is something upon which we can never meditate too often. It is the bedrock of our Christian continuance in the faith. If we forget the love that God has for us, we will sink under the weight of the guilt of our consciences and our own desire for legal performance. If we lose sight of the love of God, we will live in servile fear of Him, seeking to gain His approval on the basis of our works. So, what are some ways that we can rightly apprehend the security of the love of God for us, sinful though we be?
Read More