Month: February 2010

I need to remember these

“Today, true mortification is all but lost between the rigid, stubborn frame of spirit which is earthly, legal, harsh, critical, consistent with wrath, envy, malice, and pride, on the one hand, and pretences of liberty, grace, and I know not what, on the other.” – John Owen (The Mortification of Sin, abridged)

I liked the “I know not what” part. Having a sense of the certainty of something, but not knowing exactly… I like that he said that.

“Let a man pretend what he will, little concern over sin is a serious offence to the grace and mercy of God!” – John Owen (The Mortification of Sin, abridged)

“Others are hardened in their own sin by persuading themselves that they are in just as good a condition as the unmortified professor. They see their [the unmortified professor’s] zeal for religion, but it is not accompanied by righteousness. They view their worldy and selfish lives. They see them talk spiritually but live vainly. They hear them mention communion with God, and yet they are in every way conformed to the world. They see them boast of forgiveness of sins, and yet never forgive others. Thus, as they see the stain of sin in the unmortified professor, they harden their own hearts in their unregeneracy.” – John Owen (The Mortification of Sin, abridged)

Death To Performance – Some reflection

In the previous post I did a recap of the event.

I went to the Death To Performance event because when I first saw it, I thought, “yes, I see that struggle in myself”. That is, the struggle to perform and be accepted and thinking through what that breeds in me. I do not want to live and die on, or for, my performance and abilities. BUT, I do want to live and die on, or for, God’s ability and performance. That is what living a Gospel centered life is about. So that is why I went.

The overarching takeaway for me was sanctification. I am going through a class at church that is dealing with sanctification, as well as reading books on it, and the Lord is continually working it in my heart.

One of the things that bothers me is that we trust God to justify us, that is, we call on Jesus to save us, and He truly does… and He truly begins a good work… and He will truly continue that work. But so many times we do not trust God to set us apart. That is, there is no evidence of our faith for sanctification. Faith without works is dead.

So on the one hand, people feel the need to perform and they become steeped in legalism and “do not touch, do not taste, do not handle” or on the other hand, people say God will change me in time, I trust Him to do it… and yet there is no evidence of that trust.

The Bible is very clear that “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.“ – Romans 8:13. So, just as in salvation, we must be saved, but we cannot do it, so in being set apart, we must be set apart, but we cannot do it. We must “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Therefore we come to be set apart the same way we are saved. We pray for it… we believe and receive… by faith… and there is evidence of that faith.

So then we can see why Jesus gave us the example to pray in John 17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” If God is already doing the work in the disciples why would Jesus pray for the work to be done… because that is our trust, that is our faith… we are partnered in it. Paul continually prayed for the sanctification or the set apartness or the enlightening or the understanding of all the churches that he ministered to. David prayed for his own set apartness:
“Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” – Psalm 119: 36
“Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.” – Psalm 19:13

Just as we pray, “Lord save me”, so we must pray “Lord set me apart, sanctify me”. I am afraid that too many times, myself included, we are comfortable at the pace of our sanctification… or the pace being slow… we are ok with the level of sin… and do not realize that having less sin in our life is so much better than having more. We are not often enough staggered by sin’s oppositeness to all that is good and all that is from God.

Wisdom is needed from God on being set apart and dwelling with others at all different levels in their own walk with Jesus and not being self righteous, or legalistic… but the fear of merely appearing that way, should not hinder one from yielding to the sanctifying work of the Spirit in one’s own life. That is what I love about Jesus. He hung out with fishermen and tax collectors and was perfectly holy and set apart… and in that, sometimes the consciences of others cannot help but be pricked.

In the end, the performance is all of God. So we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God working in us both to will, and to do for His good pleasure. Then when we are given any crowns we are going to cast them right back at the feet of Jesus because it was Him doing the work all along… He graciously asks us to join in.

“For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.” – Colossians 1:29

Welp. At the conference, I received a copy of John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin. So, I shall soon see what he had to say on the subject.

Death To Performance – Recap

So. Yesterday I went to a conference called Death To Performance, and I am going to hereto set forth some of that which I received. The one day conference had four speakers and I had heard of it through Ray Ortlund Jr.’s blog. Also speaking were Jamie George, Ed Stetzer, and Scott Thomas.

The first session was by Ed Stetzer. Ed speaks so fast that you must really use your energy to keep up with him… and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, I hear very quickly and my mind has plenty of time to think other thoughts (or use it to digest what is being said)… but in the case of Ed, there is no extra time, as one must focus because his connected thoughts are coming quickly. Very quickly. He spoke on the difference between moralism and the Gospel and how moralism is a universal problem that we deal with in differing degrees in different areas. Example, everyone in the South thinks they are saved or Christian… so, as Ed put it, they need to get saved from their idea of salvation and they need to get saved from their idea of Christian. His text was Philippians 1:3-6, focusing on verse 6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He expounded on God beginning the work in the believer, God continuing the work (in “the middle”), and God completing the work.

Next.

Session two was by Jamie George. Jaime is a storyteller. I appreciated his way to speak the truth through his own experience and be authentic. I can see myself, and my walk with the Lord, when I hear him speak of the faith and trust and growth and tests that the Lord has brought into his life. His text was John 12:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He spoke of how God brings death about in our life through the process of sanctification by the power of His Spirit. One thing he said really stood out to me: Don’t be a terrible receiver. We have to receive grace. He gave examples of pastors or childrens workers who serve and serve and serve, but who do not receive. He spoke of how we become performance oriented but never receive truth.

Next.

The third session was led by Ray Ortlund Jr. His text was Luke 18:9-14, verse 9: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:”. He spoke on the deceitfulness of sin and pride… and how “those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” didn’t believe that they were trusting in themselves… they were thanking God for their righteousness. One of the most profound things that he said, for me anyway, was that we read this passage and we see how the pharisee was self righteous and thanking God that he is not like the tax collector. Then we think to ourselves “I don’t do that, I am not like that pharisee” and BOOM, we are undone. Pride is so subtle. Humility in the believer is so stunned at one’s own guilt and sin, that one is not comparing themselves to others anymore. God gives grace to the humble. God opposes the proud… we do not want God as our opponent.

Next.

Session four was by Scott Thomas. I took a lot of notes in this session and I thought Scott did an excellent job of summing up the day and purpose of the conference. He gave visual representation of a performance based lifestyle and mission versus a gospel centered lifestyle and mission. Being performance centered has its goal as success (which has goals), it is based in abilities in order to achieve productivity and predictable outcomes. The difference is that being gospel centered has its goal in exaltation of Christ, it is based on the incarnation (and incarnational living), which causes risk and generosity. The picture was more involved than that, and he expounded it better than that, but that is the basic framework. A couple bits of wisdom: 1) measures of success in your life feed your ego and the desire to be performance centered and it is a fight to reject that model. 2) Our culture is saturated with us only accepting others if we feel they are successful and thereby feeling that we must be successful in order to be accepted, which causes us to be performance based and produce for our own recognition and acceptance and pride. We can accomplish nothing and God get glorified… that is, we can go out to fight a battle, God fights it, and He gets all the glory and we did squat. Point: how many elder boards can a pastor say to them “we didn’t do anything but God was glorified” and it be ok? Slim.

That was my recap. The next post has some of my thoughts and thinkings and whys I wents.

Dude, go and live

I recommend you go and check out www.comeandlive.com

They have some really good music for you… for FREE. Yes, I said free. It is all free.

An album that I highly recommend you getting is the Ascend the Hill album. There are certain parts to songs on that album that I listen to over and over again. I even made a clip to listen to over and over again. Here it is for your enjoyment. It is only a minute long:

[audio: https://timothymallon.com/blog/audio/ascend_edit.mp3]

You Blow Me Away
You’re beautiful, so wonderful, You’re glorious You are.
So marvelous, so majestic, so powerful, You are Jesus.
You’re beautiful, You’re wonderful, You’re glorious, You are.
So marvelous, so majestic, so powerful, You are.
You’re beautiful, You’re wonderful, You’re glorious You are.

I love to relish in this truth about Jesus.