“We become like what we worship… If it’s God you become like him. If it’s not, then you become like something on the earth. That means you become spiritually lifeless.”
GK Beale
“Those who make them [idols] become like them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalms 115:8, ESV)
So sorry to hear this, Pastor. I am praying for you and your family. I can relate to what you’re going through. I find comfort in knowing that in these cases God has seen fit to take them home to be with Him before us.
“Jesus… said to them, ‘Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.’” (Mark 10:14, ESV)
Ladies, you need to be babymaxxxxing...especially later in life.
Women who had a child after the age of 40 were FOUR TIMES more likely to live to 100.
Pregnancies massively increase progesterone, the most healing female hormone.
@elonmusk I like one post on x and then 90% of what I get after that are 100 more posts about the same thing. I think this is supposed to keep me engaged. Instead it just makes me want to close the app.
"A filial fear of God and of fatherly displeasure, is worthy of the believer, being a fruit of faith, and of the spirit of adoption; but a slavish fear of hell and wrath, from which he is delivered by Christ, is not a fruit of faith, but of unbelief." ~ Marrow Men
It was a pleasure to sit down with my friend @grcastleberry a few weeks ago to talk about the active obedience of Christ. I hope our conversation is a blessing to you.
When we are preaching on the necessity for Christians to keep God's good law (which we must), if we imply that it is up to the Christian to provide that holiness under the threat of not seeing the Lord, then we have confused the law and the gospel, and misunderstood both.
"If we could speak of God only in the very terms themselves of Scripture, it would follow that no one could speak about God in any by the original language of the Old and New Testament.
/1
This isn’t an off handed comment from Piper. He has taught and defended this distinction for decades: justification is by faith alone, but final salvation/glorification is not. He made it explicit in his 2017 Desiring God article (“we are saved through that fruit and that faith”) and doubled down in the 2018 Ask Pastor John podcast (“We are justified by faith alone but we are not ultimately saved by faith alone”). The same framework appears in his teaching as far back as 2006.
If “through” applied to works concerns you when someone says “because of,” it should here too. Ephesians 2:8 uses that exact preposition for the instrument of salvation: saved by grace “through” faith. Scripture does not apply it to fruit.
I appreciate the detailed reply.
My point is specifically about Piper’s language on final salvation. He says we are “saved through that fruit and that faith” at the last judgment and also states “we are not ultimately saved by faith alone.”
Even if the fruit is non-meritorious and produced by grace, the phrasing makes the sanctifying fruit instrumental (“through that fruit”) in final salvation/glorification. If it’s purely evidential and guaranteed by perseverance, why not just say the fruit confirms genuine faith rather than that we are saved through it?
I would love to hear your response to this.
My response would be that if you believe, as Piper states, that works (or “sanctifying fruit”) play an instrumental role in securing final salvation, then you are not consistently holding to justification by faith alone. You have introduced a second instrument alongside faith. Faith alone is the instrument that unites us to Christ from first to last. While that faith will always produce good works, those good works contribute nothing to salvation at any point or in any sense. They only confirm that the faith is genuine/living.