Our actions in and reactions to the quotidian life are far better indicators of our philosophical and theological tenets than any creeds we confess or theological systems we espouse.

The way to get your kids to want to eat vegetables is not by promising desert afterward or by threatening to punish them, but by making tasty vegetables. Similarly, the best way to get yourself or anyone else to want to pray, read the Bible, go to church, or interact with the living God in any other way is not by holding up promises of worldly rewards (comfort, friends, money, success, etc.) or threats of punishment (failure, disappointment, depression, eternal torture in hell, etc.); but by giving yourself and others a healthy helping of the gospel of our gracious and loving God himself - “Taste and see that YHWH is good!” (Ps. 34).  The savor of his love makes all other foods taste bland.

You wouldn’t be so surprised by your sin if you didn’t think so highly of yourself.

- Steve Brown

An idol is something you rely on instead of God for your salvation. One of the religious idols is your moral record: “God accepts me because I’m living a good life.” I’m a Presbyterian, so I’m all for right doctrine. But you can start to feel very superior to everyone else and think, God is pleased with me because I’m so true to the right doctrine. The right doctrine and one’s moral record are forms of power. Another is ministry success, similar to the idol of achievement. There are religious versions of sex, money, and power, and they are pretty subtle.

- Rev. Tim Keller, author of Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, from an interview with Christianity Today (complete interview at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/november/1.71.html)

Quote quoted from here.

So you feel distant from the Lord, cold, and unmotivated by the gospel. You would not openly say that you disbelieve what God says in his Word, it’s just that your life and actions show that you don’t believe it wholeheartedly - like the man in the mirror in James 1:22-25, you assent to its teachings but walk away unchanged in any deep way that will affect your future behavior or thoughts. You know that you need to avail yourself of the “means of grace”, to read the scriptures more, have them preached to you more, and to preach to yourself, to participate in the Lord’s Supper, to come to the Lord in prayer and ask for the grace to change and to grow.

But what do you do when you can’t even bring yourself to do these things? What do you do when you know that the only reason you come to church and take communion is because you are more afraid of what other people think and say than what God thinks and says and you don’t want them asking questions or criticizing or offering lame advice?

What do you do when you feel like the Bible has nothing new or helpful to say (or at least not to you - like maybe you’re not the intended audience), and most of the time you can’t do anything to make yourself read it, or at least read it with attentive hopefulness?

What do you do when it seems like your prayers are nothing but echoes into a big dark empty room, or maybe a room filled with the members of someone else’s family all crowded around someone else’s loving father, and you can no longer even bring yourself to open your mouth to speak to him for fear of somehow confirming your suspicions.

What do you do when people tell you what you need is just to pray more and read the Bible more, but you have run out of all motivations to do so (even the wrong motivations, like trying to make yourself and others think that you’re better than you really are)?

What do you do when you know that your biggest problem is that you don’t love and fear God enough (if at all), and that fact (and its very recognition) has effectively eviscerated your impulse to do anything else for the right reasons?

What do you do when the sluggard of Proverbs 26:14-16 and Israel as described in Jeremiah 2:25 both sound like you?

What do you do when the Bible tells you to change, and then also says that there’s nothing you can do to change yourself? Do you sit and wait? Do you do whatever you can do and hope that God will maybe give you the grace to do more?

Please, give me your thoughts, responses, and counsel.

I have been rather discouraged lately with the distance that I feel between myself and the Lord and with my unwillingness to follow Him. Today I went back to one of my favorite books, The Letters of John Newton, and was encouraged by his letter entitled, How to keep close to the Lord, and I thought I’d post it here in case others might wrestle with the same things. I particularly appreciate the humility with which Newton addresses this subject.

How to keep close to the Lord

Dear Madam,

You would have me tell you what are the best means to be used by a young person, to prevent the world, with all its opening and ensnaring scenes, from drawing the heart aside from God. It is an important question; but I apprehend your own heart will tell you, that you are already possessed of all the information concerning it which you can well expect from me. I could only attempt to answer it from the Bible, which lies open to you likewise. If your heart is like mine, it must confess, that when it turns aside from God, it is seldom through ignorance of the proper means or motives which should have kept us near him, but rather from an evil principle within, which prevails against our better judgment, and renders us unfaithful to light already received.

I could offer you rules, cautions, advices in abundance; for I find it comparatively easy to preach to others. But if you should further ask me, “How shall I effectually reduce them to practice?” I feel that I am so deficient, and so much at a loss in this matter myself, that I know not well what to say to you. Yet something must be said.

In the first place, then, I would observe, that though it be our bounden duty, and the highest privilege we can propose to ourselves, to have our hearts kept close to the Lord; yet we must not expect it absolutely or perfectly, much less all at once: we shall keep close to him, in proportion as we are solidly convinced of the infinite disparity between him and the things which would presume to stand in competition with him, and the folly, as well as ingratitude, of departing from him. But these points are only to be learned from experience, and by smarting under a series of painful disappointments in our expectations from creatures. Our judgements may be quickly satisfied that his favour is better than life, while yet it is in the power of a mere trifle to turn us aside. The Lord permits us to feel our weakness, that we may be sensible of it; for though we are ready in words to confess that we are weak, we do not so properly know it, till that secret, though unallowed, dependence we have upon some strength in ourselves, is brought to the trial, and fails us. To be humble, and, like a little child, afraid of taking a step alone, and so conscious of snares and dangers around us, as to cry to him continually to hold us up that we may be safe, is the sure, the infallible, the only secret of walking closely with him.

But how shall we attain this humble frame of spirit? It must be, as I said, from a real and sensible conviction of our weakness and vileness, which we cannot learn (at least I have not been able to learn it) merely from books or preachers. The providence of God concurs with his Holy Spirit in his merciful design of making us acquainted with ourselves. It is indeed a great mercy to be preserved from such declensions as might fall under the notice of our fellow-creatures; but when they can observe nothing of consequence to object to us, things may be far from right with us in the sight of him who judges not only actions, but the thoughts and first motions of the heart. And indeed could we for a season so cleave to God as to find little or nothing in ourselves to be ashamed of, we are such poor creatures, that we should presently grow vain and self-sufficient, and expose ourselves to the greatest danger of falling.

There are, however, means to be observed on our part; and though you know them, I will repeat the principal, because you desire me.  The first is Prayer; and here, above all things, we should pray for humility. It may be called both the guard of all other graces, and the soil in which they grow.   The second, Attention to the Scripture.  Your question is directly answered in Psalm 119:9.   The precepts are our rule and delight, the promises our strength and encouragement: the good recorded of the saints is proposed for our encouragement; their miscarriages are as land-marks set up to warn us of the rocks and shoals which lie in the way of our passage. The study of the whole scheme of Gospel-salvation, respecting the person, life, doctrine, death, and glory of our Redeemer, is appointed to form our souls to a spiritual and divine taste; and so far as this prevails and grows in us, the trifles that would draw us from the Lord, will lose their influence, and appear, divested of the glare with which they strike the senses, mere vanity and nothing.   The third grand means is, Consideration or Recollection; a careful regard to those temptations and snares, to which, from our tempers, situations, or connections, we are more immediately exposed, and by which we have been formerly hindered.   It may be well in the morning, ere we leave our chambers, to forecast, as far as we are able, the probable circumstances of the day before us.   Yet the observance of this, as well as of every rule that can be offered, may dwindle into a mere form. However, I trust the Lord, who has given you a desire to live to him, will be your guard and teacher. There is none teacheth like him.

I am, &c.

It’s a real test of what you are as a preacher and minister whether you’re better at showing people their own sin or at showing people Jesus Christ; and the former is far easier than the latter because most of us are much more familiar with our sin than we are with the riches of the glory of the gospel. Which means that, even in the Reformed world, our ministry can be very subjectively oriented and not Trinitarian centered and Christ centered.

- Sinclair Ferguson (from a class lecture at WTS)

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you , opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

- Henry David Thoreau

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

- Horace

It is impossible to be loyal to your family, your friends, your country, and your principles, all at the same time.

- Mignon McLaughlin

I wish you therefore to take time; and if you have a desire to enter into the Established Church, endeavour to keep your zeal within moderate bounds, and avoid everything that might unnecessarily clog your admission with difficulties. I would not have you hide your profession, or to be backward to speak for God; but avoid what looks like preaching, and be content with being a learner in the school of Christ for some years. The delay will not be lost time; you will be so much the more acquainted with the Gospel, with your own heart, and with human nature; the last is a necessary branch of a minister’s knowledge, and can only be acquired by comparing what passes within us, and around us, with what we read in the word of God.

- John Newton

from 5/30/99 entry:

Remember:

• Don’t ever give your children money at church to put in the offering dish. They will lose the significance of the act.
• Also, don’t force them to tithe. Tithing is a voluntary act. Simply set a good example.

from 5/30/99 entry:

At what point should a child be accepted as a full church member?

Perhaps adult members should be responsible for (and held accountable for) passing on the teaching of church doctrine as the child matures. Then, when it is clear that they appreciate the significance of being a member, they could be given full membership.