We’re a people who look back

In Psalm 52, David expresses his hope in God’s unending love: “The steadfast love of God endures all the day” (v. 1). When threatened by violent enemies, his confidence for his future welfare is not placed in his own hands, and it is not left in the hands of others—no, David’s confidence is in the fact that God will always work for His good, to satisfy him in God. 

Perhaps more surprisingly, however, is the fact that David’s hope for future blessing from God is ultimately rooted in the past. David is sure about the future because God has secured it in the past. So he writes:

“I will thank you forever because you have done it” (v. 9). 

This is the pattern for a Christian’s hope today. I have hope (unbreakable confidence) that God will work for my joy and satisfaction in God when I wake up on mornings like today because of the finished work of Jesus. Salvation has been accomplished at the cross. Jesus didn’t pay for the possibility of my joy with His own blood—no, He purchased my eternal satisfaction in God once for all by His life and death.

I’m savoring and trying to marinate my heart in this truth, expressed by John Stott in The Cross of Christ as he quotes James Denney: 

“The work of reconciliation [of making peace between God and man], in the sense of the New Testament, is a work which is finished, and which we must conceive to be finished, before the gospel is preached… Reconciliation… is not something which is being done; it is something which is done. No doubt there is a work of Christ which is in process, but it has as its basis a finished work of Christ” (p. 196).

Stirring it is to stop and ponder that everything God is doing in me, today, and in my life, is happening because I have been reconciled to God at the Cross. Christ meant what He said when He cried, “It is finished!” 

Hark the voice of love and mercy, 

Sounds aloud from Calvary! 

See, it rends the rocks asunder, 

Shakes the earth and veils the sky!

“It is finished, it is finished,” 

Hear the dying Savior cry. 

“It is finished,” O what pleasure,

Do these charming words afford. 

Heavenly blessings, without measure, 

Flow to us from Christ the Lord.

 

Bearded Friendly Blogging in the Land of Lincoln

In the desire to honor a long line of men who wore facial hair proudly and honored Christ with their bold proclamation of His gospel, this blog is whole-heartedly bearded friendly. We honor the preaching of such men as Charles Spurgeon and George Muller when we wear the beard, and wear it proudly. So, for all those who lug their beard into the pulpit with grandeur and the doctrines of grace (minus Lincoln, maybe, but it’s Lincoln!), this one goes to you. 

George, doing preachers of the gospel right around the world; Muller invented the Emerging haircut!

 

Spurgeon, classic. He didn’t invent the beard, but I think he invented preaching. 

Sibbes, my man! Not so sure about the hat.

Perkins, the innovater! 

And of course, Lincoln, who invented the beard. Or re-invented it. 

Wear the beard. Preach Christ. Help people see the infinite worth of the character of God in the substitutionary death of Jesus.