What Can I Do To Repay My Debt?

It is a question we all wonder at one time or another: What can we do to repay the debt we owe to Christ? What can we do for the One who has done so much for us? What cost would be sufficient and what length of service would be adequate?
James Edmeston once pondered this in the form of a poetic prayer and concluded that there is nothing we can do for “earthly years are all too few” and “earthly treasures all too few.” His poem, titled “Gratitude,” is worth reading and lifting as a prayer to the Lord.
What can I, my Saviour, do,
To repay the debt I owe?
Earthly years are all too few,
Earthly treasures all too low!Shall I cease with men to dwell,
Every mortal love resign;
Hide me in some hermit’s cell,
And feast in solitude on thine?Shall the sun of noontide day,
And the lamp of middle night,
Witness how I praise and pray,
Ceaseless as the moment’s flight?Shall I labour for thy poor,
For the souls whom thou hast bought;
Pain and poverty endure,
To afford thy children aught?Shall I fly to spread thy name
In the lands of heathen night?
Shall I court the martyr’s flame,
And seal my faith with suffering bright?Shall each talent thou hast given
Wholly consecrated be,
And rise, like incense, up to heaven,
Offered gratefully to thee?Vain to pay the debt I owe,
All the service I can do!
Earthly good is far too low,
Earthly years are far too few!
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Your Church Needs To Reclaim a Culture of Care
This article is written by Dale Johnson and is sponsored by The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC). Dale is the author of The Church as a Culture of Care and Executive Director of ACBC. ACBC is hosting their Annual Conference O Church Arise: Reclaiming a Culture of Care this October in Charlotte, NC. (See below for a coupon code!)
Your church is God’s ordained center for care.
The post-fall world is filled with desperate and broken people, the very people God intends to care for through His church.
We see this pattern clearly in the early church. Sinners are confronted; sufferers are consoled. The power and presence of the Holy Spirit comforts and corrects God’s people. Believers are consistently reminded of the benefits of God’s Word and the fellowship of the saints to care for the weary, wounded, or wayward soul (2 Corinthians 1:3-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:18).
Within the fellowship of the church, ongoing discipleship draws men and women to walk more closely with Christ, and sacrificial kindness and grace can restore the suffering. The church is best positioned and equipped to bear the burden of soul care (Galatians 6:1-2).
Your church may not yet thrive in soul care, but all churches are called to be a culture of care.
I realize that churches are full of sinners, who can and do sin against each other. Far too many churches have a culture that has harbored or hidden the carnage of sin, instead of being a haven of restoration from sin’s destruction, failing to live out the charge of John 13:34-35.
But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss the necessity of the church. Instead, we need to repent and return to the purposes and design God established in order to see true restoration.
We need to hear the call of Christ to restore the brokenhearted back to the fullness of life abundant in Christ, who restores the soul (Ephesians 4:11-16, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
Your church offers the only true answer for the care of souls.
God has not given any other institution the responsibility to minister to the problems of life (Hebrews 13:17, Colossians 1:28). The Bible presents a comprehensive approach to soul care where Jesus is at the center of restoration (2 Timothy 4:1-5, James 5:13-16).
So many of the troubles we face in life are vexations of the soul as we wrestle with the realities of our own mortality, purpose, meaning, and value. God has given his church the responsibility to steward souls by providing context for our human experiences and hope for true restoration in Christ. The Bible explains our human experiences better than any human wisdom.
May we be found faithful to love as Christ, shepherd as Christ, care as Christ, and mend the brokenhearted as Christ, to the praise of his glory.
Your church can grow together in the pursuit of care.
ACBC is committed to calling and equipping the church to grow as a culture of care.
One way we do that is through our Annual Conference. There’s still time to get signed up for this year’s conference in person or online. Use code CHALLIES to save 10%.
We’re also offering a deeply discounted group rate and additional resources for churches with a group of 10 or more who will watch the conference together. Check out the Group Watch option. -
A La Carte (May 27)
Good morning from somewhere between Tirana and Munich as I make my way home after a thoroughly enjoyable conference and worship service in Albania. What a blessing to be able to praise the Lord in a nation that for so long seemed to be unreachable. The Lord is good!
Today’s Kindle deals include some good picks published by Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: A Deadly Foe of Spiritual Growth)“If we’re honest, we would have to admit that we would rather criticize others by means of sinful gossip and slander than go to them in a forthright and loving manner. We would rather dole criticism out than have to be subject to it ourselves. Our aversion to criticism often comes from the fact that we have far more sinful pride alive in our hearts that we would ever want to admit.”
This is a helpful one from Larry Taunton for those who are convinced that Jordan Peterson is a valid teacher of the Bible (or either a Christian or almost a Christian). “Peterson catapulted to fame, not as a religious teacher where he is utterly lost, but as one who offered a biting critique of a Western culture that has come off the rails and practical advice to young men who desperately needed it. To the delight of sensible people everywhere, he is mocked mercilessly. But that is what Peterson does when it comes to the God of the Bible. Worse, he contorts historic biblical meaning to fit his own humanistic agenda.”
Reagan Rose describes what he understands as the keystone habit for the Christian.
“Though burnout is often associated with one’s vocation, you don’t need to be in the working world to experience its symptoms. Worldly counsel advises us to practice self-care: take a break, take a walk, take a vacation. While there’s nothing wrong with those things, my experience binging on Netflix to escape the pain of my life told me otherwise. The more I justified my actions believing ‘you deserve a break today’ the smaller my heart became—angry, resentful. I became bitter, not better.”
Amy follows in R.C. Sproul’s footsteps as she addresses a very common (and very understandable) question.
I’m sure you’ve seen that now-infamous portrait of King Charles. I appreciated Chris Green’s thoughts on it—especially since, unlike most of us, he has actually seen it.
Obviously physical mortality will be my final end, just as it has been for everyone else, but I’m seeing there is lots more I’ll need to die to before that.
We have only one thing to do—to obey Christ. In whatever way His will is made known to us, whether in His word, through our own consciences, or in His providences, we have but to accept it and do it.
—J.R. Miller -
One of the Most Urgent Biblical Commands for Our Day
One of the most urgent biblical commands for our day—and perhaps for any day—is to speak the truth in love. Different people at different times tend to overemphasize one of the two factors and underemphasize the other so that some lean away from truth while others lean away from love. But the Lord expects that we will do both without competition or contradiction. “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way…” he says (4:15). This verse tells us that there is a thing we must do and a way we must do it. There is both an action and an attitude.
The thing we must do is speak truth, or maybe a little sharper, we must confess truth. Paul has just written about “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,” and this tells us that what we need to confess is what is true about Christ. He—his person, his work, his gospel—is to be the content of our speech, of our confession. We need to know it, believe it, guard it, and speak it to each other.
The way we must do it is in love, which means we need to acknowledge that truth can be spoken well or badly. We can confess what’s true, yet in a way that brings harm instead of blessing. We can say what is true, yet still sin as we say it. And so our calling is to speak truth in love or, to turn it around, to lovingly speak what is true.
As is so often the case in the Christian life, there is peril on both sides. On one side we can be all about the truth, but cruel and unkind. We can derive joy from fighting and busting others down. On the other side, we can be all about love, but spineless and weak. We can refuse to address even the greatest weakness or sin. Neither extreme will do and neither extreme is superior to the other. Nothing but the divine balance pleases God.
To speak truth in love means taking the time to know other people and to understand them. It means taking the time to know where they are at in their lives and in their spiritual maturity. It means taking the time to ask good questions, to listen carefully, and to prayerfully consider the right truth for the right time.
The way you speak truth in love to a person who has been a Christian for weeks may be very different from a person who has been a Christian for decades. The way you speak truth in love to a person who has just lost their job may be very different from a person who has just gotten a big raise. The way you speak truth in love to someone who has just committed an offense in ignorance may be very different from a person who has committed an offense in full knowledge of their sin. All truth is true, but truth can be spoken in ways that are appropriate or inappropriate, fitting or unsuitable, in ways that build up or in ways that tear down. So much depends on circumstance.
Maybe someone has exhibited a sinful behavior and you are frustrated and angry about it, so you hastily quote a Bible passage that calls them to repent. But you don’t account for them being a new Christian or being in a time of deep grief. That doesn’t excuse their sin, but it might explain it. What you said might be true, but you have said it out of anger instead of love. You have added your sin to their sin. “Do you see a man hasty in his words?,” asks Solomon. “There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Or maybe someone tells you, “This week I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.” And you pipe up to say, “But the Bible says ‘do not be anxious about anything.’” Those words are true, but it is unloving to offer a trite solution to a complex problem. It is unloving to speak harsh truth to a heavy heart. Solomon says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
The challenge ever and always is to hold truth and love together and never to emphasize one at the expense of the other. We trust this is possible because God is truth and God is love. He is the source of both, and in him there is never the least competition or contradiction between the two. Our calling, then, is to imitate him, to be equally truthful and loving, to regard the two as the closest of companions and the best of friends.