What Does It Mean to Abide in Christ?
We are called, as part of the abiding process, to submit to the pruning knife of God in the providences by which He cuts away all disloyalty and sometimes all that is unimportant, in order that we might remain in Christ all the more wholeheartedly.
The exhortation to “abide” has been frequently misunderstood, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But Jesus makes clear that it actually involves a number of concrete realities.
First, union with our Lord depends on His grace. Of course we are actively and personally united to Christ by faith (John 14:12). But faith itself is rooted in the activity of God. It is the Father who, as the divine Gardener, has grafted us into Christ. It is Christ, by His Word, who has cleansed us to fit us for union with Himself (John 15:3). All is sovereign, all is of grace.
Second, union with Christ means being obedient to Him. Abiding involves our response to the teaching of Jesus, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you” (John 15:7). Paul echoes this idea in Colossians 3:16, where he writes, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” a statement closely related to his parallel exhortation in Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.”
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The Wise Virgins Were Prepared Because They Trusted and Rested in the Bridegroom
Saving Faith receives the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation and it rests in Him alone for salvation. He who has saving faith is satisfied with Christ and looks nowhere else for the way of everlasting life. Saving faith does not look to Mary or Paul or any other Christian now living or that ever has lived. Saving faith is built on nothing less and nothing else than Jesus blood and righteousness. When the bridegroom came and the virgins were called to the feast the wise virgins did not rise in shame or in fear, they rose in faith and eagerly went to the marriage feast of the lamb.
Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise…
Matthew 25:1-2 NKJV
Have you considered what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ? The word faith appears more than 200 times in the authorized version of the Bible and yet it is a word that is regularly misunderstood.
The 86th question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks this question: What is faith in Jesus Christ? If one cannot be saved without faith in Jesus Christ, surely every Christian will always have this answer in his heart. The Bible’s answer, summarized in the answer to question 86 is:
Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the gospel.
The wise virgins knew something of Jesus Christ. They knew something of His Word and His gospel. Faith begins with knowledge, with understanding. We cannot believe in Him whom we do not know. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God… The catechism addresses this aspect of faith at the conclusion of the answer even though logically it comes first. Faith comes first by hearing and therefore knowing the Word of God. But faith does not end with knowledge… even the demons have a knowledge of God.
The wise virgins went further than knowledge in their faith and so must we. They also received the Lord Jesus Christ as He is offered in the Scripture. They agreed with, believed, or assented to the Word of God concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. They didn’t just know of Him through hearing, they cried out like Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of living God”.
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Is Your Chief End to Glorify and Enjoy Yourself?
Written by Andrew J. Miller |
Friday, January 12, 2024
Making your life about your family is good, but dependent on people who change and die. Making your life about serving others, in the vein of Gandi or Mother Theresa, is better than being curved inward but entails you always resting on your own strength, with no promise of results. Our lives must be God-oriented, for our hearts are restless until they find rest in him (Augustine).Ever since the garden of Eden, sin has been cast as freeing and God’s law as enslaving. Today it’s endemic; sin is glamourized in sitcoms, on magazine covers, on YouTube, in Hollywood, by the influence of peers, and of course, in our own hearts—idol factories as they are (as John Calvin put it). Part of the insidious nature of the world’s influence is that most people involved in this are so ignorant of God’s Word that they don’t realize they are glamorizing sin—and neither do those who listen or watch. Subtly, generations have grown up consuming media like MTV and Tiktok that glorify and excuse sin. We have been taught that the American Dream, or to put it another way, our “chief end,” is to glorify ourselves and enjoy the world until we die.
Part of the danger to our souls in this is that Christianity is cast not only as untrue, but as repressive. I remember my wife coming home from work when I was in seminary and telling me how one of her coworkers spoke disparagingly about “all the rules” in Christianity. It seemed quite a mischaracterization because for us, Christianity is about grace—the so-called “rules” shape our gratitude to God and show us our guilt—which in turn deepens our thankfulness for God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ. Still, the devil’s lie continues to find purchase—and Christianity is cast as the opposite of fun, cast as an obstacle to the dream of personal peace and affluence here and now.
The earthly results are devastating even apart from the eternal consequences; a recent Harvard Education report noted that “Nearly 3 in 5 young adults (58%) reported that they lacked ‘meaning or purpose’ in their lives in the previous month. Half of young adults reported that their mental health was negatively influenced by ‘not knowing what to do with my life.’”[i] In other words, there is great need to recover a biblical view of human purpose, expressed so well in the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
Immediately any naysayers lamenting that Christianity makes life dull are challenged here: human beings are not only to glorify God, but to enjoy him. And not just for a moment, but forever. The Bible is full of exhortations to joy in God. As Romans 14:17 puts it, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And a few sentences later, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13).
The Bible in fact presents man’s enjoyment of God as not only surpassing earthly pleasures, but as enduring despite earthly deprivation.
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Former Georgia OPC Pastor Pleads Guilty to Sexually Assaulting a Ugandan Minor on Missionary Trip
Eric Tuininga, 44, of Milledgeville, Georgia, pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places before Chief U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell. Upon entry of his guilty plea, Tuininga was taken into custody pending his sentencing. Tuininga faces a maximum 30 years in prison to be followed by a term of supervised release up to life and a maximum $250,000 fine.
MACON, Ga. – A former pastor from Georgia who was conducting missionary work in Uganda when he sexually assaulted a girl under the care of his church has pleaded guilty to his crime in federal court today [2/2/22].
Eric Tuininga, 44, of Milledgeville, Georgia, pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places before Chief U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell. Upon entry of his guilty plea, Tuininga was taken into custody pending his sentencing. Tuininga faces a maximum 30 years in prison to be followed by a term of supervised release up to life and a maximum $250,000 fine. In addition, Tuininga will have to register as a sex offender upon his release from federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system. Sentencing has been scheduled for May 3, 2022.
“Eric Tuininga used his trusted position as a pastor to sexually assault a young Ugandan girl in his care. This was a challenging case, but law enforcement worked diligently to ensure that Tuininga did not escape justice for his crime overseas,” said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office, along with our national and international law enforcement partners, will do everything in our power to catch child predators and hold them accountable for their crimes.”
“Tuininga was supposed to be someone that could be trusted, but instead he abused that trust and victimized a child,” said Special Agent in Charge Katrina W. Berger, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama. “HSI and its law enforcement partners will continue to utilize every resource available to identify, arrest and prosecute those who prey upon children.”
According to court documents, a U.S. citizen affiliated with the U.S.-based Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) operating in Mbale, Uganda, contacted U.S. Embassy Kampala American Citizen Services (ACS) in June 2019, to report that Tuininga, who was working as one of the group’s ministers, was having sex with Ugandan female minors as young as 14-years-old who were under the care of the organization. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS) agents in Kampala, Uganda, opened an investigation into the allegations. Finding Tuininga had already returned to his home in the Middle District of Georgia, the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Child Exploitation Unit, Atlanta, continued the investigation.
Federal agents identified a Ugandan minor who was 14-years-old in March 2019 when Tuininga had sex with her as he was working as a pastor with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Tuininga now admits that he came to know the victim in his capacity as a religious leader and that the victim would often visit the OPC church, including a religious compound, overseen by Tuininga. Tuininga also now admits that he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with the child.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, HSI-Child Exploitation Unit with special assistance from U.S. Department of State, DSS agents in Kampala, Uganda.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alex Kalim and Katelyn Semales are prosecuting the case.
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