God is a Consuming Fire

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take away their love of riches, but not their riches—to purge them of the disgust of sin, but not of the pleasure of sin. Some of them equate goodness with indifference to evil and think that God is good if He is broad-minded or tolerant about evil.

Like the onlookers at the Cross, they want God on their terms, not His, and they shout, “Come down, and we will believe.” But the things they ask are the marks of a false religion: it promises salvation without a cross, abandonment without sacrifice, Christ without his nails. God is a consuming fire; our desire for God must include a willingness to have the chaff burned from our intellect and the weeds of our sinful will purged.

The very fear souls have of surrendering themselves to the Lord with a cross is an evidence of their instinctive belief in His Holiness. Because God is fire, we cannot escape Him, whether we draw near for conversion or flee from aversion: in either case, He affects us. If we accept His love, its fires will illumine and warm us; if we reject Him, they will still burn on in us in frustration and remorse.

Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul: Timeless Wisdom on Finding Serenity and Joy by the Century’s Most Acclaimed Catholic Bishop.

The Good Fight

The New Testament calls upon us to take action; it does not tell us that the work of sanctification is going to be done for us. . . . We are in the ‘good fight of faith’, and we have to do the fighting. But, thank God, we are enabled to do it; for the moment we believe, and are justified by faith, and are born again of the Spirit of God, we have the ability. So the New Testament method of sanctification is to remind us of that; and having reminded us of it, it says, ‘Now then, go and do it’.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 6: The New Man (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1972), 178.

Is it in You?

This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Gatorade is inside of them, it naturally pours out. This resonates with what Scripture teaches. God promises an internal change that takes place in those who believe, and then godly actions pour out of us as a result. That makes us ask: if the actions aren’t naturally pouring out … is God in you?

David Lomas, The Truest Thing about You: Identity, Desire, and Why It All Matters (David C Cook, 2014).

The Middle Voice

One old definition [of the middle voice]… is that the middle is used when a subject is affected by the action of the verb; when the verb somehow transforms, reshapes the subject… It is the middle voice that captures the strange ways activity and passivity dance together in the religious life; it is the voice that tells you that I am changed when I do these things and that there is something about me that allows these happenings to happen; and yet it is the voice that insists that there is another agent at work, another agent always vivifying the action, even when unnamed

Lauren F. Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis (HarperOne, 2013).

Putting Ourselves in the Hands of the Lord

All that we claim then in this life of sanctification is that by a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Lord, for Him to work in us all the good pleasure of His will; and that by a continuous exercise of faith we keep ourselves there. . . . Our part is trusting, it is His to accomplish the results.

Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Dodo Press, 2008 [1875], p.7.

Course Corrections

A TV reporter became interested in the Apollo trips to the moon—what did they talk about? He was surprised to find how much conversation was devoted to course corrections. Apparently, the lunar spacecraft was off course something like 85% of the time. When I asked a friend who was heavily involved in the Apollo missions if this was true, he told me it was. Once leaving the earth’s orbit, because of limitations of fuel, the spacecraft mostly drifted, unpropelled to the moon. But occasionally, small retro-rockets were fired to correct the course. It’s not a bad description of the Christian walk.

Dave Peterson

Christ Will not Leave You Seeing Walking Trees

R. C. Sproul recounts an unusual healing by Jesus. In Mark 8, when Jesus visits Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to him to be healed. Jesus leads him out of the village, puts saliva on his eyes, and lays his hands on him. Jesus asks him if he can see. The man says, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Christ completes the healing by laying his hands on the man’s eyes, which gives him clear eyesight. 

Sproul’s observation is keen: 

The journey has but one guarantee: Christ promises to go with us and to bring us out the other side. Our Lord finishes what He starts. He does not abort His handiwork in the middle of its creation. He does not leave us staring at walking trees. [1]

So, in our sanctification, like the blind man, we will not be left halfway healed, Jesus will finish the process with us.

1. 1. R. C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification, David C. Cook Publishing, 2012.

William Rowley

The Cure Had Begun

“It would be nice and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.”

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Harper Collins.

End of Construction, Thank you for your Patience

My wife, Ruth…was one of those who could lighten heavy hearts, especially mine. I will never forget when she announced what she wanted engraved on her gravestone, and for those who have so respectfully visited her gravesite at the Billy Graham Library, they have noticed that what she planned for was carried out to the letter. Long before she became bedridden, she was driving along a highway through a construction site.

Carefully following the detours and mile-by-mile cautionary signs, she came to the last one that said, “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” She arrived home, chuckling and telling the family about the posting. “When I die,” she said, “I want that engraved on my stone.” She was lighthearted but serious about her request. She even wrote it out so that we wouldn’t forget. While we found the humor enlightening, we appreciated the truth she conveyed through those few words.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death. Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent. At the end of construction—death—we have completed the process.

Billy Graham, Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2011, p.94).

The Evolution of the Rose

A couple years ago I got to take a tour of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The name is a bit misleading because what they are most known for are their amazing gardens. And so we were on this tour and I got to learn something about the history of roses. And it goes something like this:

There have been roses since we have been on this planet, but the wild roses in Europe, while all different colors and quite beautiful, would only bloom once a year, and so for most of the warm months you would be looking at a bunch of ugly green canes with thorns, no flowers. But then, some botanists in the late 18th century began experimenting by grafting the Chinese wild rose, which was only green, but bloomed all summer, with the European rose, and after a bunch of testing, created what we know to be the modern rose, which blooms from June through October, but not only in green, but in a myriad of colors.

Isn’t that interesting, so roses as we know them are really a modern invention, and because of the grafting of the wild Chinese rose with the roses of Europe, we have this stronger, much more beautiful flower than we ever had before. And that is what Paul is getting at, but instead of it being one wild rose and another, we are grafted into Christ, God incarnate, and our lives should therefore take on a different quality altogether. Where we once lived for ourselves, we now live for God’s glory.

Stuart Strachan Jr.

Perfect Sanctification?

To believe that you have already reached perfect sanctification, R. C. Sproul says you must do one of two things: 1. “reduce the demands of God’s law to such a low level that they can obey them” or 2. “radically inflate their own assessment of their spiritual performance.” [1] Such strategies smack of theft over honest toil. God isn’t fooled.

1. 1.  R. C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification, David C. Cook Publishing, 2012.

William Rowley

Seek First the Kingdom

R. C. Sproul points out that diligence matters in sanctification. We may remember Archimedes’ “Eureka!” moment about specific gravity and Newton’s observation of the falling apple as point-in-time events, but they were really the result of diligent study after years of work. Edison’s discovery of a usable filament was not his first try at creating a light bulb. In Sproul’s words, he “did not have much luck, but much work.” We must diligently seek God in our sanctification:

We are to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We notice that Jesus said that we are to seek these things first. The word that is translated as “first” here is the Greek word protos, which does not mean simply first in a series of many things. Rather, the word carries the force of priority. A more accurate translation of Matthew 6:33 would be “Seek ye first, above all else, the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” [1]

Our own Eureka! moment will not come without seeking first the Kingdom of God. This means work— not works-righteousness to save us, but out of our salvation, diligent, righteous work.

1. 1. R. C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification, David C. Cook Publishing, 2012.

William Rowley

Seeking God Like a Lost Coin

In the Parable of the Lost Coin, the woman who discovers that she has lost one of her ten silver coins doesn’t just hope that the coin will be found. She diligently works at finding it. She lights a lamp and sweeps the house until she finds it (Luke 15:8-10). R. C. Sproul, in Pleasing God, observes that seeking God is not something that just happens: “It involves work. Persistent work. We do not sit back and wait for God to drop that which we are to seek into our laps.” [1] Our sanctification doesn’t just happen effortlessly. We are called to work.

1. 1. R. C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification, David C. Cook Publishing, 2012.

William Rowley

We are (Ultimately) Not Like Sisyphus

R. C. Sproul observes that there are similarities between the sanctification of the Christian believer and the travails of Sisyphus. He was the Greek hero forever doomed to roll a boulder up a hill again and again. After all, our progress in sanctification is slow so that we feel like we are “walking in place, spinning our wheels, doubling our efforts, and gaining no ground. [1]

But however sanctification feels, “All Christians make progress,” Sproul writes, “Progress is made certain by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who refuses to allow us to stand still.” As much as we might like to stop out of fear and regress, “Jesus will not allow us to stay there.” [1]

1. 1. R. C. Sproul, Pleasing God: Discovering the Meaning and Importance of Sanctification, David C. Cook Publishing, 2012.

William Rowley

You Need Nutrition to Grow: Physically and Spiritually

A lack of nutrition in early life can result in stunted growth. Stunting results in lifelong health complications. According to the WHO:

Stunting in early life — particularly in the first 1000 days from conception until the age of two – impaired growth has adverse functional consequences on the child. Some of those consequences include poor cognition and educational performance, low adult wages, lost productivity and, when accompanied by excessive weight gain later in childhood, an increased risk of nutrition-related chronic diseases in adult life. [1]

Tony Evans points out in Kingdom Living that, in the same way, “to grow and develop as believers the way God intended, there must be an unrestricted flow of nutrition as well, which is the grace of God at work in our lives. [2] This justifying and sanctifying grace produces holiness and results in a life in which we “seek to advance God’s kingdom agenda in all we say and do.” [2] If we fail to allow grace to do its work, we will end up as stunted Christians.

1. 1. WHO, “Stunting in a Nutshell”, https://www.who.int/news/item/19-11-2015-stunting-in-a-nutshell.

   2. Tony Evans, Kingdom Living: The Essentials of Spiritual Growth, Moody Publishers, 2022.

William Rowley

100 Pianos

Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine, Moody Press.

The Benefits of Fire

The devastating power of wildfires has never been more apparent as their intensity, size, and frequency has increased dramatically over the last few years in the United States (and elsewhere), causing incredible harm to property, human life, and the environment.

However, wildfires are not themselves altogether destructive. They have long played an important role in the life of American forests, both when naturally occurring and when used by indigenous peoples for forest management. Forest fires benefit the ecosystem by reducing dead vegetation (reducing the intensity of wildfires), creating habitat for plants and animals, killing off diseases and harmful insects, and stimulating new growth. In fact, a policy of fire suppression in the 20th century is partially responsible for the intensity of some recent fires.

The fire of the Holy Spirit is sometimes painful as the parts of us that are opposed to God rebel. But what the fire of the Holy Spirit leaves behind is beneficial for us — we are sanctified — the bad in us is progressively cleared out and new growth in the Spirit is enabled.

William Rowley

By Their Work You have Been Threshed

In this excerpt from a sermon on the Lord’s Supper delivered by Augustine of Hippo to a group of Catechumens, (a Christian believer preparing for Baptism) the great bishop compares the process in which a seed becomes wheat, which ultimately becomes bread, to the process of becoming a baptized Christian. Augustine, following in the footsteps of Jesus, likens the process of sanctification to the threshing of wheat, with the separation of the wheat from the chaff.

Call to mind what this created thing [bread] once was in the field. How the earth brought it forth, the rain nourished it, and ripened it into an ear of wheat and then human labor brought it together on the threshing floor, threshed it, winnowed it, stored it up again, took it out, ground it, added water to it, baked it, and only at that moment made it into the form of a loaf.

Call to mind also: you did not exist, you were created, you were brought together to the threshing floor of the Lord by the labor of the oxen, that is, by those who announced the gospel, by their work you have been threshed.

When as catechumens you had to wait [for your baptism], you were stored up in the granary. You had given your names [put them on a list for baptism], and you began to be ground by fasting and exorcisms. Later on you came to the water, and you were sprinkled, and you were made one. When the fervor of the Holy Spirit came upon you, you were baked and you were made into the loaf of the Lord.

See what you have received. Just as, therefore, you see that the loaf which has been made is one, so you also are to be one, by loving one another, by keeping one faith, one hope, and undivided love.

Taken from Augustine of Hippo, Third Sermon: Sermon Denis 6, 1–3.

The Evolution of the Rose

A couple years ago I got to take a tour of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The name is a bit misleading because what they are most known for are there amazing gardens. And so we were on this tour and I got to learn something about the history of roses. And it goes something like this:

There have been roses since we have been on this planet, but the wild roses in Europe, while all different colors and quite beautiful, would only bloom once a year, and so for most of the warm months you would be looking at a bunch of ugly green canes with thorns, no flowers. But then, some botanists in the late 18th century began experimenting by grafting the Chinese wild rose, which was only green, but bloomed all summer, with the European rose, and after a bunch of testing, created what we know to be the modern rose, which blooms from June through October, but not only in green, but in a myriad of colors.

Isn’t that interesting, so roses as we know them are really a modern invention, and because of the grafting of the wild Chinese rose with the roses of Europe, we have this stronger, much more beautiful flower than we ever had before. And that is what Paul is getting at, but instead of it being one wild rose and another, we are grafted into Christ, God incarnate, and our lives should therefore take on a different quality altogether. Where we once lived for ourselves, we now live for God’s glory.

Stuart Strachan Jr.

End of Construction, Thank you for your Patience

My wife, Ruth…was one of those who could lighten heavy hearts, especially mine. I will never forget when she announced what she wanted engraved on her gravestone, and for those who have so respectfully visited her gravesite at the Billy Graham Library, they have noticed that what she planned for was carried out to the letter. Long before she became bedridden, she was driving along a highway through a construction site.

Carefully following the detours and mile-by-mile cautionary signs, she came to the last one that said, “End of Construction. Thank you for your patience.” She arrived home, chuckling and telling the family about the posting. “When I die,” she said, “I want that engraved on my stone.” She was lighthearted but serious about her request. She even wrote it out so that we wouldn’t forget. While we found the humor enlightening, we appreciated the truth she conveyed through those few words.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death. Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent. At the end of construction—death—we have completed the process.

Billy Graham, Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2011, p.94).

Related Themes

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Accountability

Discipleship

Fellowship

Holiness

The Holy Spirit

Justification

Obedience

Reconciliation

Spiritual Growth

& Many More