Category: Quotes

On God’s Word

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Pastoral, Preaching, QuotesLeave a comment

God’s Word is bold, honest, and direct, cutting across the grain of popular culture. It penetrates hearts, illuminates minds, and transforms lives. Our circumstances and preferences don’t inform or liven up the Bible, dictate its meaning, or determine how it applies to our lives.

It is eternal truth, living and active, and it cuts to the heart of every issue.

Its meaning is fixed, and applicable to everyone, everywhere. Scripture speaks with absolute authority as it guides believers, confronts error, and brings clarity to even the most confusing theological questions.

There is simply no substitute for Scripture. Nothing else is as trustworthy and steadfast as the Word of God. Church tradition changes over time. Authors and pastors make mistakes. Even your own conscience can be wrong.

All believers must be like the Bereans Paul describes in Acts 17:11, measuring everything we hear, read, and see against the perfect, unchanging standard of the Bible.

The authority and power of God’s Word is unmistakeable and unforgettable.

Question for Reflection

  1. What do you think about God’s Word?

Resources

John MacArthur, John MacArthur: Servant of the Word of the Flock, 240.

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On Moralism

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Quotes2 Comments

Christians who are taught to act morally primarily to escape punishment or to win self-respect and salvation are learning to be moral to serve themselves.

They are not loving God for Himself.

They are not obeying him simply because of his greatness and because he has done so much for them in Christ. Rather, they are using God to get the things they want.

Question for Reflection

  1. What is your motivation for obedience?

Resources

Timothy Keller, Center Church, 67.

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On Community

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Church Life, Devotionals, Quotes3 Comments

Ephesians 4 makes it quite clear that full spiritual vitality cannot be present in the church until its macro-communities and micro-communities consist of fully developed networks of Christians who are exercising their gifts and contributing to one another, so that “the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:16).

Questions for Reflection

  1. How do you think about your work in the church?
  2. How do you contribute to growth in the members of the church?

Resources

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 167.

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On Prayer

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals, Discipleship, Quotes14 Comments

If all regenerate church members in Western Christendom were to intercede daily simply for…

…the most obvious spiritual concerns visible in their homes, their workplaces, their local churches and denominations, their nations, and the world and the total mission of the body of Christ within it,…

…the transformation which would result would be incalculable.

Not only would God certainly change those situations in response to prayer – we have Christ’s word that if we ask in his name he will do more than we ask or think – but the church’s comprehension of its task would attain an unprecedented sharpness of focus.

Perhaps much of our prayer now should simply be for God to pour out such a spirit of prayer and supplication in the hearts of his people.

Question for Reflection

  1. How is your prayer life?

Resources

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 160.

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On Hell and Evangelism

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Pastoral, Quotes2 Comments

The reason it is hard for us to think of the doctrine of hell is because God has put in our hearts a portion of His own love for people created in His image, even His love for sinners who rebel against Him.

As long as we are in this life, and as long as we see and think about others who need to hear the gospel and trust in Christ for salvation, it should cause us great distress and agony of spirit to think about eternal punishment.

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you think of the eternal destiny of unbelievers?

Resources

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1152.

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How Individualism Hinders Spiritual Growth

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Church Life, Practical, Quotes2 Comments

The pattern of congregational life established by the beginning of the Middle Ages, in which the laity become passive observers of the redemptive mystery instead of celebrants and participants mutually edifying one another, has resulted in…

…an individualistic spirituality which the church has never quite abandoned.

In this model of the Christian life the individual believer is connected to the source of grace like a diver who draws his air supply from the surface through a hose. He is essentially a self-contained system cut off from the other divers working around him. If their air supply is cut off, this does not damage him nor can he share with them the air that he receives. The situation would be no different if he were working alone a hundred miles away.

The organic metaphor for the church used by Paul absolutely negates this conception by asserting that…

…grace is conveyed through the body of Christ along horizontal channels as well as through the vertical relationship of each believer to God.

No individual, congregation or denomination of Christians is spiritually independent of the others: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you'” (1 Cor. 12:21).

Therefore “the normal Christian life” is not simply a function of an individual believer’s relationship to God.

If he is isolated from Christians around him who are designed to be part of the system through which he receives grace, or if those Christians are themselves spiritually weak, he cannot be as strong and as filled with the Spirit as he otherwise would be. Individual spiritual dynamics and corporate spiritual dynamics are interdependent, just as the health of the body and the health of its cells are correlative. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together’ (1 Cor. 12:26).

Resources

Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 168.

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