But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:5-10

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7

I continue my preparation for leading Sunday school 15SEP, where our focus will be 1 John 1:5-10 and DesiringGod.com's Look at the Book video series for 1 John.  Today, I listen to a DesiringGod.com podcast episode entitled Is Sanctification the Pursuit of Perfection? which explores 1 John 1:5-10 as well as other text.  A listener calls in asking about two questions (1) how can a believer balance a pursuit of holiness while also moving past failures to be holy, and (2) is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection?  

John Piper starts with question (2) - excerpts from his response:

• In this life, we will not achieve perfection but scripture shares that we are commanded to be perfect (Matthew 5:48, 22:37, 2 Corinthians 7:1, James 1:4).
• Our victory over sin in this life is incomplete (James 3:2, Philippians 3:12)
• In response to whether we should pursue perfection, we should strive for something that only He can achieve, knowing that we will stumble and that ultimately we will be perfected in the presence of God (face to face).
• In our pursuit of perfect holiness in the presence of Christ, let us seek to be as holy as a justified sinner can be.

On question (1):

• We enjoy our salvation when our holiness remains imperfect as described by 1 John 1:6:-9; walking in the light is essential to show that we are being (process) cleansed and during this process we will continue to be sinful; confession allows us to bridge our failures and move forward - regular sincere confession of sin.  
  

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My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are Light and Truth and You give me the Holy Spirit, Your Word, the church, and my brothers and sisters in Christ as a means to not only save me but to assist me and give me power and strength to pursue holiness.  Thank You Jesus!  I am not deserving of all of these blessings - my cup overflows.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please continue to heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo. Help us lead Zach and Dsutin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Hebrews 12

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14

I continue to lean on DesiringGod.com's Solid Joys daily devotion, which today looks at how we must fight for holiness, which John Piper defines as a practical matter as "believing the promises of future grace" as the source for all good works that we do in service of a God we love.  Piper sees this as a critical battle, hoping that we avoid Christ's words from Matthew 7:23 and Romans 8:13 where He admonishes those who never truly believed in Him and instead lived according to the flesh (vs the Spirit). This path leads of course to damnation.  On the other hand, if we believe in the sanctifying power of grace to provide all that we need, we demonstrate ourselves to be fully reliant on God.  Piper points us to 1 Peter 4:11, Romans 15:18, and 1 Corinthians 15:10 as examples of text that support how we can fight for holiness and maintain complete reliance on Him. Piper wraps this devotion by sharing: "[m]oment by moment, grace arrives to enable us to do “every good work” that God appoints for us. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8)."   See also this post from DesiringGod.com. Seek and fight for holiness!

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My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are so good to me, and You give me Your Word, the Holy Spirit, the church, etc. so that I can arm myself for the fight for holiness. Thank You Jesus!  Without You and the blessings You provide - I am unable to save myself from the prince of this world - Satan.  I am undeserving of how You save, provide, and protect.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus.  Help me overcome and turn from such sin and turn towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day. 

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hebrews 13

 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39

I continue my study of Hebrews, and today my focus is Hebrews 13:1-6, and and I am assisted in my understanding by the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary Series for Hebrews. The commentary outlines five divisions for this text:

I. Love toward Saints: Enduring in Brotherly Affection (13:1): Here the commentary emphasizes how the text seeks to have believers see other believers as family - brothers and sisters...in Christ.  Thus, in v1 we are encouraged to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

II. Love toward Strangers: Showing Hospitality (13:2)

III. Love toward Prisoners: Remembering the Imprisoned and Mistreated (13:3)

IV. Hold Marriage in Honor (13:4) 

V. Hold Money Loosely (13:5-6): The commentary writes here how is "a call to live out the tenth commandment. Of the Ten Commandments, the tenth—do not covet—is perhaps the most difficult for us to fully comprehend, even though it tells us specifically what we should avoid coveting: our neighbor’s wife, our neighbor’s animals, or our neighbor’s belongings."  The text wraps with why we can be content with what we have - "[t]he source of our contentment is not the security and comfort we get from owning enough things; it’s that we serve a God who takes care of us. We serve a God who will never leave or forsake us. God himself has promised....[Hebrews 13:6] reflects the same confidence in God’s abiding character that the apostle Paul displays in Romans 8:31-39."

Broadly speaking, the commentary shares how chapter 13 addresses "personal and practical concerns in order to encourage people in the faith and exhort them to grow in holiness."

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My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are an awesome God who loves me and who is full of grace, compassion and abounding love - thank You Jesus! I am not deserving of Your grace, compassion, and love.  My sin is great and it continues...daily.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me turn from and overcome my sin and turn towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Leviticus 19-20

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 1 Corinthians 15:10

This morning, I continued my study of Leviticus using the Christ-Centered Exposition series commentary for this book - continuing chapter seventeen - Holiness and Love - covering Leviticus 19-20, looking specifically at the second theme for the chapter - A Definition from God's Word.  Here, the commentary seeks for us to understand holiness as, quoting Jonathan Edwards, "sweet and ravishingly lovely...[not] a melancholy, morose, sour, and unpleasant thing."  The commentary than moves to explicitly define holiness as "a condition of our hearts created by God, and a way of behaving lived by us."  We must first understand that "our natural state [is for us to be] sinners, separated from God, and without hope in this life or the next."  We are then referred to the following verses in scripture:

• Ephesians 2:3, 8 - believers (and all of humanity) are born sinners, then by grace saved (not of our own doing) and given faith
  
• Romans 3:24 - we are justified by His grace (again not of our own doing)
  
• 1 Peter 5:10 - it was God who called us to faith and He restores, confirms, strengthens, and establishes us
• John 17:17 - God sanctifies us by His Truth (Word)

Over the course of a believer's life and journey with Christ, it is God alone who sanctifies us and makes us more like Him - more holy. He alone causes heart and life change/transformation. The commentary then encourages to look at Philippians 2:12-13 and 1 Corinthians 15:10.  In these verses, we see that as God moves in our hearts, we begin to behave and act in ways that are more like Him. 

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My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are an awesome God who loves me and who sanctifies me and creates new life in me, over and over again as You do this in me over the course of my entire life as a believer. Thank You Jesus for giving me a heart of flesh and for the blessings that follow.  I am not deserving of such blessings.  I sin...every day....harshness towards others and worry, etc. Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.

And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Chapter 41: Pages 586-595

And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:27

This morning, I continued John Piper's book Providence (purchased from Amazon Kindle Store) with Part 3 "The Nature and Extent of Providence", moving to Section 8 "Providence Over Christian Living" - moving to chapter forty-one "Blood-Bought Zeal for Good Works".

Here, in my view, perhaps through repetition or time to digest, among the chapters so far where he describes how God has providence over Christian living, Piper writes how through Christ's death on the cross, "the wholehearted pursuit of holiness" is not just promised, but also purchased.  In other words, here Piper describes the "effectiveness of the death of Christ in securing for us the life change demanded from us."  Jeremiah 31:31-34 is used to show how forgiveness of sins is the foundation for the heart change necessary for obedience.  Similarly, Ezekiel 11:19-21, 36:27 express the same process of how God causes sanctification and the resulting obedience.  We are then encouraged to look also at Colossians 1:21-22 and Philippians 1:9-10 to see how we are reconciled to God so that we can achieve our pursuit of holiness. Moreover, this pursuit of holiness is described by Piper as a progressive, imperfect blamelessness in Philippians 2:14-15 - it does not happen in a "big-bang" on our final day.  It's not just Paul who writes about how God equips us for holiness and obedience, but Peter and the author of Hebrews as well.  Piper provides 1 Peter 2:24-25 as an example of how we are ransomed from "futile ways" to live "to righteousness" and Hebrews 9:13-14 of how "dead works" are cleared away for us to pursue "a life of service to the living God."

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My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are an amazing God who has circumcised my heart, gave me a new heart, wrote Your laws on my heart and mind and caused me to pursue holiness - thank You Jesus!  I am blessed...but not deserving. I continue to sin.  Please forgive me Jesus and help me overcome and turn from my sin towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

2 Corinthians 7

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. v10

Paul writes the church in Corinth expressing some level of regret over a previous letter - a "severe" letter where Paul points out their sin - addressed to them (see also 2 Corinthians Background and Setting - MacArthur Bible Study Commentary (for purchase)). While he might have had some level of regret, he is more concerned over the Corinthians spiritual state and he was glad to hear of their repentance (v9).

Paul then makes a distinction between Godly and worldly sorry - writing that "earnestness, eagerness to clear yourselves, indignation, alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done"(v11).  It is an utter distaste of sin - as God hates sin so should we and this should drive us to pursue holiness.

John Piper helps us further understand this distinction.

My Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are an awesome God who loves me and who seeks to mold me to be more like You - thank You Jesus for Your patience and compassion for me...and Your concern for me.  I am not deserving of such love.  I am selfish and often neglectful of my relationship with You Lord.  Please forgive me!  Help me turn from such sin and turn towards You.  Help me love You with all of my heart, soul, and mind and love others as You love me.  Help me grow in my faith.  Give Lisa and myself wisdom and strength.  Please heal Lisa of her cancer and from the side effects of chemo.  Help us lead Zach and Dustin to You Jesus and for them to choose You as their Lord and Savior.  Please provide Godly friends and spouses to Zach and Dustin.  Help me serve You, my family, my church, and others.  Help me understand, be obedient to, and apply Your message for me today and every day.