Sovereignty, Providence, and Cultural Blinders

Sovereignty, Providence, and Cultural Blinders

It’s difficult to assess the spread of views on sovereignty and providence in the Christian population.

I have friends, daily devout and simply faithful, who never use these terms in their discussion of God, ever. To them, and for them, God is largely their good buddy, an equal partner, someone who contributed significantly to their salvation, but who is essentially their personal protector when needed, a doddering figure who doles out useful doses of friendly wisdom, when asked, and who intervenes in a crisis when prayer is passed up the chain; although how this casual friend has the authority or power to actually accomplish anything always seems obscured.

Other good friends are those who tend to be more legalistic and who use the Bible as the source of authority to get their way. And it is a good thing that God has joined their team, because their way is the most properly aligned with the Bible, and their way is the surest path to success in establishing God’s Kingdom. These folks speak of God as sovereign, and it sounds as though he is actually pretty powerful, but they are the ones in the driver’s seat. He is sovereign, to be sure, but their lives reflect only a passing nod to any form of submission on their part. Like some odd anime character, God is a powerful weapon in their hands as they move the Kingdom forward on their own terms.

I have known others who view God as a capricious despot who uses his power and authority to push us around with arbitrary and often nasty acts for his own nefarious ends. These people tend to either live in paralyzing terror that God will smite them if they aren’t “holy enough” or they reject him altogether, calling him that “Old Testament God,” who murdered people and said it was “okay” for some hidden reason. It is inevitable that you can’t have a relationship with a God like this. How sad that the hearts of men love to create gods who are infinitely distant.

And then there are some of us, the reasonable few, like myself, of course, who confidently pick up our Westminster confession and want so desperately to trust God’s sovereignty and providence. We want to believe that, “necessarily, freely, or contingently” connects to us with faithful regularity and means that God really loves us! We cling so desperately to “doth.” He “doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions and things…” These phrases reflect God’s Word, lofty and promising, and for the most part, we believe them firmly and have a ready response when we are cornered about How It All Works with vague references to “the mysteries of God.” But for the most part, it is confusing, and mysterious, and doesn’t really align very well with what happened last Tuesday.

Or, when we are honest, we struggle with figuring out how sovereignty and providence jive with most Tuesdays. We struggle with the issue of God being in charge. And we try to pretend that this is an intellectual struggle against a mystery, but the truth is that it is difficult for us to trust God.

The problem starts with our hearts, of course. We don’t want to submit to a Sovereign, and we are afraid to trust his plan. That is our vivacious starting point as humans. Once we are united to God through faith in Christ, we can at least want to submit, and we try to overcome our fears. In our union with Christ by faith, we know, finally, that God has a loving plan for us, one that truly is for his glory and our good.

But then it’s Tuesday, again.

As Americans, (and sinners), we don’t have an example of a Good King. There is no “authority” in our lives, or in our world, who is powerful and benevolent on our behalf. The most vivid expression of authority in our lives is traffic control. When we drive our cars, we must stop at red signs and red lights. And when I say, “stop,” of course, I am not talking about what a physicist would consider a cessation of relative motion against the surrounding environment; we all know that “stop” means “coast” or “slow down.” And don’t even get me started about those vague suggestions, you know, those numbers surrounded by “SPEED LIMIT.”

The fact is that traffic laws are not benevolent, personal, or even very sovereign. And yet, they teach our eager hearts daily that submission to sovereign authority is distant and avoidable, optional, irrelevant, and not in control as much as my gas pedal. When we say that God works out everything for his glory and for the good of his people, we don’t have a workable image in our mind to say, “God is like that.”

Cultural influences present a challenge to our “go to” verse about God’s providence and plan in Romans 8:28. God is working everything out for Good! This verse is absolutely true, but perhaps we look at that verse through optimistic American eyes, where “all things” are supposed to stinkin’ work out with a happy Hollywood ending where the good guys win, the bad guys get blown away, and everybody is happy, healthy, and rich with no bad outcomes or consequences. We are then disconsolate when things don’t work out that way; often the wicked do prosper, and in every story, when we are honest, we are the bad guys who should be blown away.

You see, on Tuesday, something goes wrong and Houston, We Have a Problem. We are enlightened people who know what good is. It is true that God made us so that we can tell the difference between good and bad. But we need to be careful not to twist this to mean that good is when my plan works out, and when bad things don’t happen to me. Inevitably, in a moment of pungent reality, Tuesdays always shake our Westminster Confession foundation and life begins to fall apart.

It is a vivid struggle. How do you put “good” together with the fact that God’s sovereign plan includes, sickness, pain, death, suffering, financial struggles, careening careers, failed grades, broken marriages, defiant children, failed parenting, car wrecks, collapsing bridges, war, poverty, injustice, political intrigue, lost luggage, delays, coffee that is too sweet, clocks that are off by five minutes, dogs that bark when you’re on the phone, rotting fruit, grass that always needs to be cut, trashcans that are always full, and gas tanks that are always empty. Your heart has a ready answer; the only guaranteed constant in life is that there will always be something that will remind you that your plan is better than God’s! Hence the struggle; we know that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, but MY plan for Tuesday didn’t include any problems!

The solution to Tuesday has two parts.

First, we need to fill our lives and minds with the word. Trite, of course, expected, of course, imperative? Absolutely. The solution to our conflict with sovereignty is truth; lots of it. We need to overwhelm our Tuesdays, our traffic, our mystery excuses, our rotting fruit with so much truth that nothing else matters. We also need to balance and inform our “go to” verse in Romans 8 with another passage, Acts 2:22-23: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (ESV)

We wonder why God lets bad things happen to us, and this verse changes the object of that wonder. Rather than basing our confidence in God’s plan on something as fluid and shifting as whether Tuesday was good or not in our eyes, let’s place our feet on the foundation of God’s definite plan and foreknowledge that crucified his beloved son on our behalf. God himself suffered the worst evil and pain in all of history as part of his own, sovereign, plan so that we can have him. This passage is proof that God uses even the worst things to bring about glory and love and freedom and joy and peace. He is not capricious about his love and care, he is determined to pour out his love on us, and he has proven his commitment. In this context Romans 8:28 takes on a whole new meaning; for those united to Christ by faith, everything is good and works out for our happiness and salvation.

Second, we need to go back a few thousand years and visit a family of Israelites in Egypt, and it is year 200 of Israel’s enslavement. Imagine the young son, after a day of slave labor, perhaps beaten, asking his father about the sovereignty and providence of God. He asks his father about when “good things” will begin to happen, he knows the difference. For him, every day is Tuesday. His father knows the Scriptures, the promise of God to Abraham, the Law. Israel must “be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.” What do you tell your son when you know that you, he, his children and grandchildren will all live and die as slaves in Egypt? Did the love of God somehow get used up by Joseph?

At the core, this is our Tuesday dilemma. How do we reconcile what we know is true about God with the unassailable evidence that life is one endless trouble after another?

Humble faith. We must believe that no matter the sorrow, no matter the pain, this is the very thing for which Jesus died and this is the exact thing that he will deliver us from. Maybe not today, maybe not even in this lifetime, but deliverance is a guarantee. And despite the present circumstance, God still loves us, he still cares, his plan is still benevolent, we still have a glorious future, still, still, still.

By faith, God’s sovereignty and providence are unassailable by any number of Tuesdays.

This blog was written by Charles Fox

AgapeStorm

The Calm, Crazy, Whirlwind of Love

Read 1 John 4:7-21 and John 3:16 3 times, slowly.

As soon as we say the word, love, we find ourselves, metaphorically, on a rickety rope bridge swinging and creaking wildly in a tempestuous wind, dangerously high above treacherous rocks of meaning. We all think we know where we are, and despite the danger, we feel that simple calm and confidence; love is so familiar. We all know what love is, surely. It is stamped into our DNA so securely that, when we were young, we would ask, “How do you know love when you see it?” The answer is always the same, “Oh, yoU’LL know…”

And we do, kinda. Love is a feeling and a commitment, a force and a goal. When we’re “in it,” love makes our knees weak, or strong, depending on the situation. We become heroic, or bashful; silly or serious or forgiving. Love somehow breaks us and re-makes us, wherever it takes us. It generates more poems and songs and purpose and confusion than even our pets or our cars. We know with confidence from some mystical feeling that the Beatles were right, love really is all we need, or, for a song reference with far too many artists to mention; love does make the world go round.

The irony of the lyrics to these sappy songs is that, for a Christian, these largely superficial sentiments ring true in Jesus Christ. Since God is Love, love truly is all we need, and since Jesus is God, love actually does make the world, indeed, the entire universe, go ‘round. The rest of the irony, however, is that apart from God, love is confusing and difficult to define and understand. Of course, confusion is not God’s purpose, because love is central to who he is and at the core of his plan.

So, it is no surprise that for something so critical, God has a lot to say. Love is at the very core of the eternal, triune relationship (More on that in a future blog), such that, when God decides, together, to create and sustain an entire history of the cosmos, love explodes from within the Godhead and washes over every aspect of that story. In many ways, love is the why of everything God does for us. (Footnote: His own glory could also be used as the why of everything he does.) How do we know this?

There are three ways that God reveals love to us.

First, God demonstrates love in all he does. When you open the Bible, you see what God does. Every action is that of a loving father with his treasured children. The list of ways that he does this is endless, because every action he takes is an act of love. He walked with Adam and Eve, then disciplined them, banishing them from the garden. He called and protected Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their families, and their descendents; the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and Ezekiel, Isaiah, Hosea - everyone of his children. He listens to prayers, delivers from distress; heals, guides, teaches. He also punishes, disciplines, reconciles and restores. Every single action of God is ultimately a model of what love looks like in action. There is no better way to see what love looks like than to see everything that God does.

Second, God defines love over and over in his word. The passages abound. He tells us the characteristics of love and how to recognize it clearly. He tells us what love is, and what it isn’t. In his word, we learn why love has power and how to wield it for the good of others. Stay tuned, we are going to wade into many passages that will threaten to drown us.

Third, God incarnates love in Jesus Christ. Although I mention this last, it is by far the first in priority. It is no stretch to say that Jesus is the perfect expression of love, because Christ’s incarnation is how God chose to show us his love; a love that for us in the loftiest, most profound, and most intimate possible expression. And wonder of wonders; the eternal, triune love that Jesus has for us is best experienced through personal relationship as we are united to God through faith in Jesus. This is why John 3:16 is so precious to the church, God so loved the world that he gave his son. Wow! Suddenly, Love makes sense, but when held in contrast, this true love of God demolishes every other lesser concept of love.

Our passage from first John is a warehouse of content regarding love, but for now, we need to cook up two concepts from the passage and season it with a few other familiar ideas. Verse 11: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, and verse 19, We love because he first loved us. These two verses simmer in the pot and we are led to two inescapable conclusions. First, God wants us to love others the way that HE loves others (and us, by the way.) Second, God is the source of that love. The seasonings for this verse-stew are the two Great Commandments and loving our enemies. We must love God first (heart, soul, mind, strength). We must love our neighbors as ourselves. We must love our enemies.

This is a high calling. Love everyone the way God does.

Let’s cut to the chase. What is Love? What is God’s Love? What characterizes the love that God demonstrates, defines, and incarnates? What is the nature of the love we need to hold for everyone?

Here goes: God’s love is fervent, sacrificial, purposeful, gracious, expressive, bold, and covenantal. That is AgapeStorm. That is the challenge. We will begin to tuck in to this feast in the next blog.

This blog was written by Charles Fox

The Book of Revelation: Closing Remarks

This past Sunday, I concluded at 14 week adult Sunday School class (Listen Here) on the book of Revelation. Prior to teaching this class, I did 13 weeks on the book of Revelation in the Sr High Sunday School class. That means that for the past 6 months (give or take a few weeks), I have been swimming head deep in the Apocalypse.  In all actuality, 14 weeks to teach Revelation is simply not enough time. I found myself thinking “I wish I had more time to go back and touch on this passage” more than once. I pray that in the future, the Lord will grant me another opportunity to teach and/or preach through this book, and if that happens, I’ll get the chance to touch on many things that got breezed over for the sake of time.  For now, however, I do want to offer up some “closing thoughts” about the book of Revelation; some reflections and final remarks. 

Teaching Revelation to the Youth vs teaching Revelation to the Adults:
I expect that teaching youth is a very different experience than teaching adults. But what I did not expect with Revelation was just how dramatically different this experience would be. First, in teaching the youth, it became very clear to me that we are in a post-dispensationalist era of the Church. The first week of both the youth and adult classes I asked, “What comes to mind when you think of the book of Revelation?” The adults were more than eager to offer up their thoughts. I would say an overwhelming amount of our adults were raised in Dispensationalism, knew that the Reformed Tradition is drastically different in that regard, and were eager to hear a Reformed/Historical perspective on the book.

The youth on the other hand? Nothing. They had no thoughts on the book at all other than some comments about how it seems very confusing with all the symbolism. In fact, when I brought up what were once “common thought” in Evangelicalism, ideas such as the rapture, a 7 year tribulation, even the entire “Left Behind” series, most students looked at me with puzzled looks. No one is truly a blank slate of course, but these kids were working with as close to a “tabula rasa” as one could get. On the one hand, this made my job very easy! The students simply accepted the things I was saying (for better or worse…) and the class ended up having a lot more discussion around application of the texts than interpretation. On the other hand, this left me very unprepared for what was ahead of me in teaching the adults. Sure, the first few weeks with the adults went off pretty easily. Then we got to Revelation 7 and the sealing of the 144,000. The next thing I knew, we were spending 3 weeks examining and discussing this passage. I learned after this that if I were to get through the material in the time I was given, I was going to have to do a better job at anticipating questions from folks who not only have been taught Dispensationalism their whole lives, but folks who were taught it very well! 

Dispensationalism takes the Scriptures seriously:
I always knew that Dispensationalists were an ally in the “battle for the Bible”, but this class really helped give me a new appreciation for this reality. Whatever else I might say about Dispensationalism as an interpretive approach to the Bible, I will say that I find its proponents to be very serious about the Bible, and for that, I give thanks. As Dispensationalism slowly begins to fall out of favor in the West, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll be losing a powerful ally. I may disagree strongly with men like Charles Ryrie, but he believed that the Bible was the very Word of God, saw the doctrine of inspiration as a “close handed” issue, and was willing to die on that hill. We need men and women like that in the Church today, maybe now more than ever. 

We don’t need to figure it all out:
As my teaching time with adults progressed, I found that I was being asked questions about portions of Revelation for which I simply didn’t have answers. To be fair, I did warn the class this would happen! But many of these questions arose from people being taught one thing about these portions of the text from a Dispensationalist perspective, wondering how they fit into a Reformed/Covenantal interpretation. Many times I could find answers. G.K. Beale’s 1500 page commentary on Revelation is extremely thorough! But, I did come to a point where I realized that if I didn’t have an exact answer concerning a certain portion of Revelation, that’s okay! It doesn’t uproot or shatter the interpretive approach to the book that I was teaching. Our understanding of Revelation is contingent upon how we read the whole of Scripture. We don’t interpret the Bible in light of Revelation, we interpret Revelation in light of the Bible. And there are certain things that we’d have to abandon to make a premillennial/Dispensational interpretation to Revelation work. Namely, our entire understanding of the history of redemption, the nature of covenants in the Scriptures, and the identity of the people of God.  The only way a dispensationalist interpretation of Revelation works is by believing that the Church and Israel are not one, that they’re two separate peoples with their own sets of promises and covenants, and that ultimately, its all about the Jews. This is an idea that is not only foreign to the Reformed tradition, it’s foreign to the entire history of the Church until J Nelson Darby arrives on the scene in the 1800s. And this is why I say, “We don’t need to have it all figured out!” If a portion of Revelation perplexes us or confuses us, it doesn’t shatter our overall understanding of the book because our understanding of the book is built upon the sure foundation of the entire biblical narrative of Redemption. 

The Bible is remarkably unified:
It was no mistake-although it was not planned by human minds-that as I began teaching Revelation to the youth, we began a new sermon series on the book of Genesis. And I can honestly say that almost every week throughout both the youth and adult class, whatever we were talking about in Revelation somehow connected with the sermon series. It was uncanny, to be honest! One of our elders commented to me after one class, “I appreciate how you and Pastor Troy are coordinating your Revelation class and the Sunday sermons”. I just had to laugh and admit that Troy and I weren’t coordinating at all! All this overlap was due 100% to the providential work of God. And for myself and many, it was an amazing testimony to the fact that the Scriptures truly are one great and grand story of redemption. How can we explain the idea that two books of the Bible that were written by two men, living thousands of years apart, one wandering in a desert outside of modern day Israel, the other imprisoned on a Greek Island in the Aegan sea, some 1300 miles away (as a man walks), are so connected with one another, so interwoven, so consistent with each other? No human mind could pull this off. The Scriptures truly are “breathed out by God”! 

The main point is the same:
Whether you hold to Covenant theology, to Dispensationalism, whether you’re Pre-mil, Post-mil, Amil, whether you’re a Futurist, a Preterits, whatever your interpretive approach is, ultimately we all end up with the same conclusion to the book of Revelation: Christ wins. And that’s really the great hope for us all, isn’t it? Christ wins. All the enemies of Christ, all the enemies of God’s people-the beast, the false prophet, those who follow the beast, the harlot of Babylon, and ultimately, the Great Dragon are all defeated. Their fate is the same. Meanwhile, whether you believe that Israel and the Church are one people, or two separate brides, either way our fate is also the same-eternity with Christ in the New Creation, enjoying perfect, full and true communion with Christ and with one another, where God himself will wipe every tear from our eyes, death shall be more more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away. And that leads us all to join in the Apostolic proclamation, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Communion with God Chapters 23&24

Here we are in the last two chapters of "Communion with God". I hope you enjoyed reading along this summer through both the book and this blog. It's always a privilege to read and blog on these books!
Chapter 23 continues Owen's discussion on communion with the Holy Spirit. The title of the chapter is "The Behaviour of the Saints towards the Holy Spirit", but really, the chapter is about what we strive to not do towards the Holy Spirit. Owen lists three things.

1-We strive to not grieve the Holy Spirit. Now, Owen is careful here. We have to speak of grieving the Holy Spirit carefully, lest we come away with the impression that the Spirit is manipulated emotionally. This is not true. The Westminster Confession states this clearly by saying that God is without passion. That does not mean God is without emotion or passions, but it means that he is not controlled emotionally by external forces. And yet, there is a very real sense where the Spirit does indeed grieve when we, as the blood-bought people of God, do not pursue holiness in our life. Owen offers up a meditation on this topic:

The Holy Spirit is infinite love and kindness to me. He has wonderfully chosen to be my Comforter. He does this work willingly, freely and powerfully. What great things I have received from him! How often has he comforted my soul! Can I live one day without him? Shall I not care what he wants to do in me? Shall I grieve him by my negligence, sin, and foolishness? Shall not his love constrain me to walk before him in such a way that brings him great pleasure?

2-We strive to not quench the Spirit. Drawing off of Old Testament imagery where the Holy Spirit was typified by the fire that was always burning on the altar in the tabernacle and temple, Owen here is speaking specifically about not suppressing the works of the Spirit. If we resist the Spirit's work, it would be as if we're throwing wet wood on a fire to smother it. 

Now when we want to resist fire, we quench it. So the opposition made to the Holy Spirit working in us is called 'quenching the Spirit', as wet wood will do when it is cast into the fire. So we are said by the same picture to 'stir up with new fire' the gifts that are in us. The Holy Spirit is striving with us, working in us, encouraging growth in grace and the production of his holy fruit in us. 'Take heed,' says Paul, 'lest by the power of your lusts and temptations, you do not pay attention to him, but quench his works of good will in you.'

3-We do not resist the Holy Spirit. Owen's point is so good here. Stephen accused the Jews of "resisting the Spirit" by rejecting and killing the prophets of God. How might we resist the Spirit? By holding the preaching of the Word of God up with contempt. 

When the Word of God is preached, the authority, wisdom and goodness of the Holy Spirit in setting up this ordinance is to be recognized and respected. For this reason, obedience is to be given to the Word when it is preached, because the Holy Spirit and he alone gives gifts fro the Word to be preached. When this truth keeps us humble and dependent on the Holy Spirit, then we have holy fellowship with him in this ordinance.

Chapter 24, the last chapter of the book, really focuses in on worshiping the Holy Spirit as God. We'll close this blog with these words:

Our fellowship or communion with the Holy Spirit should stir us to give him praise, thanks glory, honour and blessing for the mercies and privileges we receive from him, as we do the Son for his work of Redemption (Rev. 1:5-6). Are not the same praises and blessings due to him who makes Christ's work of redemption effectual to us? The Holy Spirit undertook to be our Comforter with no less infinite love than the Son who took it on himself to be our Redeemer. When we feel our hearts warmed with joy, strengthened in peace and established in obedience, let us give him the praise that is due to him. Let us bless his name and rejoice in him.

This blog was written by Andy Styer

Communion with God Chapters 21-22

Chapter 21 continues to look at the fellowship and communion of believers with the Holy Spirit, and in this chapter Owen turns his attention towards the futile attempts of Satan to undermine this communion. And Owen frames Satan's main attempts to undermine the Spirit within the context of gathered worship. This is a fascinating insight from Owen. He is exactly right to begin here, for no doubt, the Enemy wants nothing more than to pervert God's people in this way. He knows that we were created to glorify and enjoy God, and so it makes sense that the Enemy would create and spread lies among mankind concerning the nature of worship!

The first attack against the Spirit from Satan is by setting up ministers and gathered worship services which are completely independent of the Holy Spirit. They have the right liturgy, the minister guides the congregation through the service effortlessly, and by all outward appearances, these gatherings seem to be gatherings of Christian worship. Yet, apart from the Holy Spirit, they are nothing of the sort.

The second attack against the Spirit is that Satan attempts to do the exact opposite of his first attack by deceiving Christians into thinking that you can have the Holy Spirit apart from a structured, gathered worship service. All you need is the Spirit, and you can him without biblical worship and the ministry of Word and Sacrament that happens in a worship service!

Owen's words here speak into our context today just as strongly as they spoke into his in the 17th century. For Owen, this is not a choice between liturgical worship and the Holy Spirit. For Owen, the believer needs both, and if we would discard either one, then we are proving ourselves susceptible to the attacks of Satan.  We need the gathering of God's people in structured, liturgical services where the ministry of Word and Sacrament happen, and we need the Holy Spirit's  work, empowerment, and blessing in these services of worship, lest they become mere exercises of the flesh. 

Owen says that these attacks do two things. The first attack tries to get us to focus merely on the physical by having all the right outward (physical) things in place, but no Spirit. The second attack tries to get us to focus on merely the spiritual reality of Christ by discarding the importance of the physical things. But Owen reminds us that the true ministry of the Spirit concerns both the physical and spiritual, because Jesus Christ himself is both truly God and truly man. The Holy Spirit reminds us of Christ's words and work on our behalf. The Spirit glorifies Christ, the God-Man. The Spirit pours into our hearts the love of God. The Spirit guides and directs us in prayer. And while Owen doesn't state this conclusion, we can say that this is exactly what the Holy Spirit does when we gather together for worship that is both guided by the Scriptures and empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Chapter 22 is focused upon the Spirit's work as our comforter. It's a difficult chapter on some level because Owen openly talks about afflictions as being something that the people of God should not despise. He reminds us that troubles and afflictions are part of our Father's chastisement and discipline. And God's discipline of his children is an essential part of our discipleship. So while men apart from God despise affliction and trouble, the children of God remember this is part of our Father's molding and shaping us, and we look to the Holy Spirit as a comforter and help during affliction. 

And the Spirit does bring us comfort and help. He brings us comfort when we are burdened with sin. While men apart from God are crushed by guilt, the Spirit reminds those who have union with Christ that we are, indeed, children of God and we have no need to fear God's wrath nor do we fear the accusations of Satan. The Spirit also brings strength and comfort in this life as we eagerly await the consummation of the resurrected life in the new creation. Apart from the Spirit, we would be crushed by the troubles and trials of this current life. But with the Spirit, we patiently await and endure until "the end". 

How does the Spirit comfort us? Very simply, he communicates to us the truth that God loves us. He comforts us by reminding us that the Father's love is eternal and unchangeable. He comforts us by communicating to us and making us more and more familiar with the grace of Jesus Christ, and brings to us the fruits that Christ as purchased for us. He comforts us by glorifying Christ in us, revealing his excellencies to us. He comforts us by reminding us that in Christ, we are justified and adopted into the everlasting family of God. 

And why? Why does the Spirit do this for us? Because of his infinite love for us, and his willingness to help us in our weakness and helplessness. 

He (the Holy Spirit) knew what we were, what we would do and how we would deal with him. He knew we would grieve him and provoke him. He knew we would quench his activities in us and defile his dwelling place, and still he becomes our Comforter. Lack of a due consideration of this great love of the Holy Spirit weakens all the principles of our obedience. Did this knowledge abide in our hearts, how highly we would value his work as Comforter. As we value the love of Christ in laying down his life for our salvation, so we must value the work of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter.

This blog was written by Andy Styer