day no. 16,627: continual and irreconcilable war

"This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part; whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." — Westminster Confession of Faith, 13.2

The Christian life is one of continual and irreconcilable war.  Because of sin, there is enmity. It was introduced by God the Father in the fallout of the Fall.

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Since that day, the sons of Eve have been at war with the seed of the serpent, wherever it is found. Christ came to conquer as far as the curse is found. This includes the dragon without and the dragon within. The Christian life is one of unending warfare. It is killing sin wherever it is conceived inside us (James 1:15) and taking it captive for Christ wherever it is conceived around us (2 Cor. 10:3-5).

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

There will be warfare. There will be contradiction. There will be words and there will be backchat. Imposing wills will clash with only one will prevailing at the expense of the other. The Spirit will not stop until the world, the flesh, and the devil have been fully vanquished. The flesh will not cease fire. It will not surrender. But neither will the Spirit and God's guns will outflank the flesh, lay waste the world, and demolish the devil.

God shall arise and by His might

Put all His enemies to flight

With shame and consternation.

His haters, haughty though they be,

Shall at His august presence flee

In utter desolation;

For when Jehovah shall appear,

He shall consume, afar and near,

All those that evil cherish.

As smoke before his dreadful ire,

As wax is molten by the fire,

So shall the wicked perish.

Psalm 68

day no. 16,563: the constant gardener

Colossians 3:1-5

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry

If a gardener gets up every morning to weed his garden, the presence of weeds every morning is not evidence of him being a bad gardener; on the contrary, it is his daily presence in the garden to weed it that serves as proof of him being a good gardener. To be a good gardener is to be gardening; only a bad gardener gardened. To have gardened is to have had a garden. In other words, if you aren't gardening anymore, you no longer have a garden.

The presence of sin does a sinner make per se, but an absence of repentance does. 

Romans 8:13

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

A Christian man must walk his garden. He cannot call it a garden if it he cares so little for its health. He cannot expect fruit to grow where weeds are allowed to live. He cannot with confidence call himself a gardener if he with regularity ignores it.

“Let not man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts.” ― John Owen, Mortification of Sin

You are not maturing in Christ if you are not mortifying your sins. You are not alive in the Spirit if you are not killing your sins. You cannot be at peace with both Christ and corruption. Enmity is inescapable. Sin is at war with God's Son, who gladly returns the favor.

Galatians 5:17-26

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

If you are a Christian, you will desire to be sinless; but you won't be. Your holy discontentment will be made manifest in your daily repentance and ongoing diligence in working out what God worked in. Sanctification is continuous vivification, quickening that which pertains to the Spirit, and mortification, killing that which pertains to the flesh.

“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”  ― John Owen, The Mortification of Sin

There will be killing. There is no question. The only questions are "who?" and "what?" Will it be sin killing you or you killing sin? You cannot expect to be sinless. You cannot insist on it. To say that you are sinless is to be dead in sin. To deny today's need is to ensure tomorrow's destruction.

1 John 1:10

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we insist on saints being practically sinless, we only ensure an embargo on saints. But if we insist on sinners being definitively, positionally sinless and daily, practically repentant, we confirm the Christian faith and the confession of every honest Christian.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The only way to win against sin is to confess it. You cannot hide it, cover it, or explain it away. The only thing you can do is confess that you can't do anything and that Christ has done it all.

day no. 16,406: the Master and martyria

Matthew 1:21

You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The promise was:

Christ will be Master;

Sin will be mastered.

2 Timothy 2:19

God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”

Christ will be glorified;

We will be sanctified.

Christ was crucified.

Sin will be mortified.

The promise was kept:

Christ is Master;

Sin is being mastered.

day no. 15,957 continued... full of sap

Psalm 104:16

The trees of the Lord are full of sap.

"We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sacred mystery." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Those who are planted by the living water of the Word are full of sap. We have things happening inside us that don't make sense: mysterious things, the workings and work of something magical. Life, like sap, circulates through us as we thrive and pours out of us where we're pricked. It comes out our fingertips. It drips out from us. It is moving so completely within us that it comes out of us wherever there is a breach. Whatever we touch has life only inches behind it.

day no. 15,791: getting used to it

“Sanctification is the art of getting used to your justification" - Gerhard Forde

When you know who you are, you know what to do. When who you are is made new, you need to adapt to a new way of doing things. Sanctification is the process of dying to your old self (mortification) and coming alive to your new self (vivification) as you learn to be who you now are in Christ. It is not merely becoming who you ought to be in Christ, but being who you already are in Christ. It is not simply preparing to get your driver's license, but learning how to handle the privileges and responsibilities of being legally allowed to drive.

day no. 15,779: turnt or burnt?

"Ephraim is a cake not turned" - Hosea 7:8

"A cake not turned is uncooked on one side; and so Ephraim was, in many respects, untouched by divine grace: though there was some partial obedience, there was very much rebellion left. My soul, I charge thee, see whether this be thy case. Art thou thorough in the things of God? Has grace gone through the very centre of thy being so as to be felt in its divine operations in all thy powers, thy actions, thy words, and thy thoughts? To be sanctified, spirit, soul, and body, should be thine aim and prayer; and although sanctification may not be perfect in thee anywhere in degree, yet it must be universal in its action; there must not be the appearance of holiness in one place and reigning sin in another, else thou, too, wilt be a cake not turned.

A cake not turned is soon burnt on the side nearest the fire, and although no man can have too much religion, there are some who seem burnt black with bigoted zeal for that part of truth which they have received, or are charred to a cinder with a vainglorious Pharisaic ostentation of those religious performances which suit their humour. The assumed appearance of superior sanctity frequently accompanies a total absence of all vital godliness. The saint in public is a devil in private. He deals in flour by day and in soot by night. The cake which is burned on one side, is dough on the other.

If it be so with me, O Lord, turn me! Turn my unsanctified nature to the fire of thy love and let it feel the sacred glow, and let my burnt side cool a little while I learn my own weakness and want of heat when I am removed from thy heavenly flame. Let me not be found a double-minded man, but one entirely under the powerful influence of reigning grace; for well I know if I am left like a cake unturned, and am not on both sides the subject of thy grace, I must be consumed forever amid everlasting burnings." — Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

day no. 15,448: no loitering

1 Thessalonians 5:6
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

"If thou rememberest that thou art going to heaven, thou wilt not sleep on the road. If thou thinkest that hell is behind thee, and the devil pursuing thee, thou wilt not loiter. Would the manslayer sleep with the avenger of blood behind him, and the city of refuge before him?"
-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Christians are commanded to be awake and alert with alacrity. Christians fall asleep when they take their eyes off the prize or forget the dread of where they come from. The manslayer making his way to the city of refuge does not dally or delight himself in anything that takes him off mission. If he dawdles, he dies. If he dallies, he ends up dead. If we are lazy, it is because we have forgotten that we are manslayers and that our only safety is in the refuge of where we're going. That brings us back to the primary focus. The Christian is not merely running away from something, but toward something. It is not merely the fear of what is chasing them, but the beauty of what lies before them that motivates activity, energy, alertness and sobriety. The Christian is obligated to keep a clear picture in his mind of the better country to which he has been called. Its attraction is so captivating when fixated upon that it immediately dulls all counterfeit lures. It exposes the switch in the bait and doesn't bite. Its failings and flattery become so obvious as to prevent the possibility of temptation. When heaven is beheld, half-truths are easy to abandon.

day no. 15,362: works follow faith by necessity and in that order

"If your life is unholy, your heart is unchanged; and if your heart is unchanged, you are an unsaved person. If the Saviour has not sanctified you, renewed you, given you a hatred of sin and a love of holiness, he has done nothing in you of a saving character. The grace which does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves his people, not in their sins, but from them. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' 'Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.' If not saved from sin, how shall we hope to be counted among his people." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

The saved are also changed.
The transformed are also conformed.
Those perfected are also being made perfect.

If nothing has changed, you are not saved.
If you're not being conformed to Christ, you have not been transformed by Him.
If you're not being made perfect, you are not counted perfect.

This is not legalism. This is not reintroducing works as a post-script. This is not agreeing to leave works out of the recipe mix as long as we get to insist on it being sprinkled on top. This is allowing for works to be left out of the recording, but demanding it be allowed into the mastering. Works do not save. Works cannot save. Only grace through faith in Christ's substitutionary life, death, resurrection and ascension can save. And it does. And when it does it changes the root of the matter which changes the fruit of the matter. Repentance is confirmed by its fruit. If the fruit tastes the same, the root remains unchanged. Change the root and the fruit follows.

Works follow faith by necessity and in that order.

If your faith is not followed by works, that is proof positive that whatever you do have, it is not Biblical faith. The appraisal confirms it as fool's faith.

Faith is the source of works. It cannot follow. Faith bows and works curtsy. Faith proposes and works accept. Faith opens the door and works walk on through.

day no. 15,339: sin cannot ride sidecar

"Sin is lawlessness, and because grace is not sinful, grace is not lawlessness. Grace conquers sin, and not by putting up with it. Grace overcomes, and grace restores. Grace loves, grace rejoices, and grace loves to die and rise." -- Douglas Wilson, Bone of My Bones

Grace conquers sin. The land of sin is the object of grace's conquest. Grace does not merely move in next to its new neighbors. It dispossesses its inhabitants. It doesn't offer to take the top bunk. It evicts sin. Grace does not rent a bicycle built for two or let sin ride in the sidecar. It doesn't settle for one pedal while letting sin push the other. It doesn't offer to ride in the little basket up front. It rides the bike or it doesn't come along for the ride. 

Some may object saying, "that doesn't sound all that graceful. That sounds mean-spirited and rude" But that brand of grace is counterfeit. It doesn't spend in heaven. It's impotent and flaccid. It produces "peace" with sin by letting sin win. It comes to terms with sin only by agreeing not to call it "sin" anymore. But that isn't grace... that's just another sin. 

Calling dark "light" and light "dark" doesn't make peace between night and day, the one still displaces the other. Grace that attempts to end the war of enmity between good and evil by erasing their distinctions loses the war without fighting, it surrenders and says, "no more war! ta-da." But that isn't grace. That's disgrace.

Where grace lives, sin dies; and grace resurrects those who die to sin.