Many Christians think once they're saved, they don't need Christ!

Some are primarily concerned about getting a ticket out of hell, and are looking forward to heaven – rather than being concerned about how they live here, and that's a very low view of Christianity and salvation (and if you persist in that, I'd seriously question you as to whether you are really saved or not – for faith without works is dead and we are warned time and again not to receive God's grace in vain).

Others make the dreadful mistake of thinking they can live the Christian life and fight spiritual battles with their own resources. How foolish that is! The Christian life is a life of spiritual warfare (e.g. - Ephesians 6:10-20 & II Corinthians 10:1-6). Since God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14), and because the devil is the enemy of Christ, he is also the enemy of all those who have been united to Christ by grace through faith. We must keep in mind that the devil is continuing to prowl day and night, constantly scheming and lying, seeking ways to devour us and to entangle us, to keep us from fixing our eyes on Jesus and running the race set before us.

We will not be able to live and thrive and bring glory to God in the Christian life unless we come to see that the God who delivered us from the domain of darkness in the first place is the one to whom we must continue to turn and to ask for fresh supplies so we might press in our race, to keep walking the kingdom of light – similar to how the Israelites had to go out and collect manna for each day. Christ is our whole life. He is not only our justification, He is also our sanctification (I Cor. 1:30).  How can we expect to live the Christian life apart from the life of Christ in us?!

In Psalm 18, David brings a song of praise and thanksgiving to God commemorating and celebrating the great deliverances God granted him, exalting and exulting in God, his strength (see also II Samuel 22).

Here's David, who was soon to be made king over all Israel – and yet see how humble he is: notice how he refers to himself as a servant of the Lord. Though David will be king, he is ever mindful who is the King of kings. And David doesn't take one iota of credit for the victories – but he rightly ascribes it all to God's merciful and gracious provision. Throughout the whole Psalm, David readily and happily acknowledges that God alone is his strength and that God alone gave him the victory, thus rendering to God all the praise, honor and glory due His name.

David starts off with these words:

And then David continues throughout the Psalm fervently declaring the many ways the LORD delivered him, boasting in God as his strength and professing his continued reliance on God. (I'd encourage you to read prayerfully through the whole psalm.)

And because it is Leap Day, the second half of verse 29 got my attention:

It seems to me that many, many Christians have walls that God is calling them to leap over, but they're failing, and they keep failing. Why? Many times it is because they have not come to know the LORD as their strength as David did. They keep trying to fight spiritual battles in their flesh. They keep turning to their own resources, wisdom, strength and ingenuity, and, as a result, they remain impotent – for they've not come to know the power of the Holy Spirit at work in them. They keep trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! They keep turning to secular books and counselors and twelve step programs, etc., rather than turning to the living God Himself. Should not God's people seek their God? Should not God's people seek their God as their strength?

You may not be leaping over walls because you've not come to know the living supply of Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit. In fact, some of you who profess to be Christians may not be leaping because you've never been born again. If you have never been born again, God's Holy Spirit has not come to dwell in you, and you don't have that vital connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, as the branch abides in the vine; therefore, there's no way you can expect to know and experience Jesus Christ as your strength.

Or, perhaps some of you have been able to leap over some walls – and in fact, compared to most people, you're looking pretty good – however, you're not really leaping by the power of God, instead you're relying on your own strength. You've never come to know God as your strength. You have fallen into the all-American, Pharisaical snare of self-reliance. You've never come to end of yourself and the end of your own strength, so you might begin to cry out to ask for and to know God's strength. As so you function as a Christian primarily in your own fleshly strength. However, that way of life is contrary to the life God intends for the Christian:  the Christian is to put no confidence at all in the flesh and to live by the Spirit. In Galatians, Paul warns us: having been born again and started the Christian life in the Spirit, we must not return to the flesh!

Many of us hold up Biblical figures and other saints from Christian history, and we're tempted to think they had something we don't have. Well, what they had first of all was an understanding that they were NOTHING apart from Christ, they had NOTHING apart from Christ, and they could do NOTHING apart from Christ! They saw their total insufficiency and their need to rely on God alone, their need to know Him as their strength – and that experiential knowledge is what drove them to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in their time of need. And they saw every moment as a time of need! Consider this testimony of the apostle Paul:

You may never have gotten so low and so desperate and so needy that you cried out to God so you might know Him as your strength: to really know Him – not just recite God is your strength as a Bible verse, not just sing God is your strength in a hymn on Sunday morning, not just listen to someone sing God is your strength in a YouTube video, but to know God as your strength the way David did. You may never have come to the place where you were faced with such a high and huge and thick and insurmountable wall, that you finally cried out to God in desperation, "Who is sufficient for these things? Be my Strength! I am not sufficient! Without You I can do nothing!"

That was my position as a Christian for over twenty years. I was leaping over some walls, and I was engaged in some so-called "good works," but I regret to say that many, perhaps most of those, were done out of my own flesh. But then there came a time several years ago when a Christian had asked me to forgive an offense – and I couldn't do it – and I wouldn't do it. I was the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21-35) – and in a very dangerous position! But thanks be to God, in spite of myself, God's grace pursued me, and in God's command to me to forgive another as He had forgiven me, I began to see how much greater God's gift of salvation and forgiveness was toward me than I ever imagined, and how great a sinner I was, that I really was a wretch, though I'd sung it for years in "Amazing Grace" – after that time I could truly confess from the heart that I, Karen, was a wretch – and at that point, grace really did become amazing to me for the first time! The Holy Spirit convicted me and showed me how pitiably small the offense was that I was asked to forgive in comparison with all my sins that God forgave me for Christ's sake! And I found myself able to desire and then to do what I could not do in my own strength – for God gave me the desire and the ability to do His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-14): so I was able to forgive as the Lord had forgiven me. Impossible with Karen, but possible with God! Hallelujah! He was my strength! Without Him I could do nothing, but with Christ I could do all things!

Since that time, God has continued to show me time and time again that without Him I can do nothing, absolutely nothing at all. And as soon as I become puffed up and begin to think I can do anything without Him, thanks be to God, He knocks me back down again to the dust to show my utter insufficiency and my total dependence on Him. Oh, yes, it's certainly painful – but it is profitable! Blessed is the man whom God chastens!

When I was recently convicted to send a message explaining the Gospel to an unsaved family member, I knew that God had given me that desire, but I had nowhere else to turn but to God, for I knew in and of myself I was wholly insufficient. I was tempted to fear the repercussions, I was tempted to please man rather than God and shrink back from following through, and I knew I had no words to write at all except what God would supply – and so I prayed God would be my strength, that His Spirit would strengthen me to fulfill the desire He had placed in me. And all glory to God alone, He was my strength – and He strengthened me to leap over that wall – and God wants to do the same in all His children, so His name alone might be magnified.

I love these two passages for they show us how by our God we can leap over walls, and not only that – they show that our coming to know God as our strength and having His strength work in us brings Him glory.

God is all about His glory, and God receives no glory when we rely upon our own strength – even though we may be leaping over some walls, and we may be looking good to ourselves, to other Christians, or to the world. But anything we do that isn't done by the power of Christ in us brings no glory to God. God alone is to be our strength and our boast and our glory:

What wall stands before you that you have been unable to leap over? Have you come to know Christ as your strength, or are you continuing to walk the vain, dangerous, and God-dishonoring road of self-sufficiency? Are you continuing to attempt to live the Christian life in your own flesh and robbing God of the glory due His name? Will you ask God to show you your insufficiency, so you might come to know God's sufficiency and come to know Him to be your strength, so like David, you might leap over a wall? Will you ask God to grow your knowledge of Him and your trust in Him so you might lay aside your own fleshly efforts and embrace Him as your strength, so you might sing with David: "I love you, O LORD, my strength... by my God I can leap over a wall!" ... and confess with the apostle Paul:  "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).

• Can two walk together... Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit...
• the poor & needy & joy ~ Psalm 35:9-10 | letter 105 on assurance & fighting for joy
• your resolution - "Divine Intervention" by Lecrae
• Naphtali News: God speaking to me about my failures & the one thing needful
• Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit
• why we need a new heart (Bible reading - Matthew 5)
• Bible Reading: Ephesians 4 and 5-The New Man
• trusting the eagles' wings (reliance on the Holy Spirit)
• Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
• His Spirit ... His people
• Postcards from God in England: sanctification is gloriously messy!
• "As your days, so shall your strength be"
• "Dependence" by William Cowper
• Birthday reflections ~ "Keep me an infant" (Isaiah 46:1-4)
• Tonight I am weak . . .

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Messene_01.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0 / by Herbert Ortner.

Luke 18:1 (KJV) And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint...

Psalm 62:5  My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. 6  He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. 7  In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. 8  Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. (KJV)

I Kings 17:1  Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2  And the word of the LORD came to him, 3  “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4  You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5  So he went and did according to the word of the LORD. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6  And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Exodus 33:13 (KJV) Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

II Corinthians 3:16  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

II Corinthians 4:18 (KJV) While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

II Corinthians 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4  who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5  For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6  If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7  Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

8  For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10  He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11  You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

Romans 5:1  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5  and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

My other letters on assurance & fighting for joy including:

• "give me also springs of water" - Will you be an Achsah? (letter 66 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• one Friend alone | letter 100 on assurance & fighting for joy
• Can there be more? | letter 113 on assurance & fighting for joy
• Pleasures abounding, pleasures from above | letter 117 on assurance & fighting for joy
• disappointment ~ appointment | letter 119 on assurance & fighting for joy
• Fear not, little flock (Luke 12:32) | letter 123 on assurance & fighting for joy
• "Who wants candles when he has the sun?" ~ Edward Payson | letter 124 on assurance & joy
• If I be not given spiritual sight ~ "with unveiled face" (letter 127 on assurance & joy)
• Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
• Let Him kiss me – none can compare! | Letter 135 on assurance & fighting for joy
• five years ago ~ for your joy (AND an inheritance | Richard Sibbes & the Sealing of the Spirit)

In the multitude of our anxieties, the Lord's comforts alone delight our souls
As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
"And Jacob was left alone" ~ Don't waste your loneliness
Where are you lifting up your eyes? Psalm 121:1-2
Two Fountains ~ Where are you drinking? What is flowing? Don't waste your drinking!
Psalm 131 ~ Lord, calm my soul; Lord, wean my soul in this mephitic air | W.H. Hewitson
Where do you go when the world is unlovely? (Psalm 84 & the theology of Biblical counseling)
don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)
The Dove's Resting Place | What kind of dove are you?
Blessed dependence ~ "Leaning upon her beloved"
He dawns on them like the morning light
"I will be like the dew" (Hosea 14:5) ~ Precious Dew, Heavenly Shower
In hope against hope believe, Blessed are all who believe
As the Visible Disappoints

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Emphasis mine.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. Emphasis mine.

Work found at http://thebiblerevival.com/clipart/1890holmanbible/bw/elijahfedbytheravens.jpg / breadsite.org / ((PD-Art|PD-old-75}}

I Samuel 14:24  And the men of Israel had been hard pressed that day, so Saul had laid an oath on the people, saying, “Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening and I am avenged on my enemies.” So none of the people had tasted food. 25  Now when all the people came to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground. 26  And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was dropping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. 27  But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath, so he put out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes became bright. 28  Then one of the people said, “Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food this day.’” And the people were faint. 29  Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey. 30  How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies that they found. For now the defeat among the Philistines has not been great.”

"Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging any thing to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in it; but the heart is concerned in the latter. When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. It is implied in a person's being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is sweet and pleasant to his soul; which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent."

How we come to this sense – the Scriptures & the Holy Spirit

Has your soul become heartily sensible of the sweetness, pleasantness, loveliness, beauty, holiness and excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ – or do you merely have a rational opinion that He is sweet, pleasant, lovely, beautiful and excellent? Joseph Hart used the phrase "known and felt." Christianity comprises a definite body of knowledge, and so we come to the Scripture first, never neglecting, never marginalizing and never discarding the Bible or Biblical doctrine. All Scripture is God-breathed!

However, as we go to the Scripture – and we must go there!  – we must also go to the throne of grace and ask the Holy Spirit to shine His light on the truth that is written there, for that is the way we come to Jesus Christ and come to have life and life abundantly. The devil is a deceiver and a liar. At every turn, he is prowling and engaged in a fierce battle against the truth – for it is the truth that sets us free. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He is sent to us to lead us into all truth.

There is a body of truth, independent of and outside of our own thinking and our own whimsical and wishful musings about the character of God, truth which comes down to us from the Father of lights, the God who is light and in whom there is no darkness.

We need to continue to read the Scripture in conjunction with the Holy Spirit or we will be led astray. Like the Bereans (Acts 17), we must continue to check all things against the Bible. Throughout both the Old and the New Testament, clear warnings are heaped up for us: take heed, do not forget, remember, test and try all things, be on guard, etc., etc.. Why is that? Because if we don't remain rooted in the Bible and Biblical doctrine, each and every one of us will be tossed to and fro, and we will end up like the people in the book of Judges, who did what was right in their own eyes, and like those later on in the Old Testament who walked after the imagination of their own evil hearts – because all of our hearts are "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9-10, KJV), and each one of us, as Robert Robinson wrote, is "prone to wander."

All of that was all a precursor, but a very necessary precursor, to what I'm going to say now...

My prayer for you...

Christian, I pray God would anoint your eyes so you might begin to have a spiritual sight of the riches of your inheritance, the inheritance for which Christ died to bequeath to you, the inheritance which you share with all the saints. May God give you grace to begin to pursue God in earnest, to desire an experiential sense of God's love, mercy, grace, power and might (e.g. - see Ephesians 1:15-23), so you might enter into a living fellowship with the living God, so you might know the love of Christ and be filled with all the fullness of God (see Ephesians 3:14-21).

O! turn away from your flesh and from the world and all its vain charms and inventions – and look away to Jesus! Do not be deceived! Do not keep going after what does not profit! Look! The honey is dropping right before your eyes – as you open your Bible, all the treasures of our inheritance are set forth for you and for all the children of God to begin to take and eat and drink! May the blessed Holy Spirit give you ears to hear the Lord Jesus Christ as He invites all who hunger and thirst to come to Him to eat and drink so they might be satisfied, supplied, strengthened and sustained all the days of our pilgrimage!

My pilgrimage: "they look like trees, walking"

I've previously written how I'd trudged through years and years of lukewarm Christianity, and I never had an inkling of what eating and drinking of the Lord Jesus Christ really meant (e.g. - see here and here). (Not that I have very much sense of it now, but by the grace of God, I have got some...) I liken myself during that period of time to the man at Bethesda who was blind (Mark 8), and upon being touched once by Jesus, he professed that he saw men, "but they look like trees, walking." The devil wants to keep us locked up and bound in that sort of Christianity for it  leads to either a reliance on our own flesh or else a profound paralysis (in either case, the center remains self). The devil wants us to be complacent with what we already have of Christ, and not to press on to seek a clearer and higher sight of Christ. Our adversary wants to be remain lukewarm, not pressing in and upward and higher and higher so we might come to know, to really know, more and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. The devil loves miserable and forlorn Christians! What kind of testimony is that to a dying world? And yet – infinite and inexhaustible riches await us at the throne of grace! Jesus asked the blind man if he saw anything. Have we really seen anything? Have we begun to get any spiritual sight of the Lord Jesus Christ? How can we in our right minds restrain ourselves from picking up that honeycomb and being filled and satisfied with the fullness of God? What does the world have to offer that can compare to Jesus Christ?!

When I first started blogging five years ago this month, I would have been the last person I thought would be writing over and over again about the wellspring of living water that is available to whosoever is thirsty and whosoever will come – because I had no understanding that this type of Christianity existed! Though I was going to the Bible, much like the Pharisees, I was blinded and stuck hewing and drinking from broken cisterns. However, God was gracious to me (who am I but a worm and the chief of sinners), His Spirit blew, He shone on my path, He opened my eyes, He began to draw me to Himself, giving me a hunger and thirst to know Him, and in His merciful kindness, He has permitted me to lift that honeycomb and allowed me to begin to taste and see the Lord Jesus Christ and experience foretastes of glory divine – and I fervently desire for all of you to do likewise.

My grief and my prayer for you: "How long will you put off going in ... ?"

I have encountered far too many Christians who have not begun to experience this blessed satisfaction, and it grieves me. (Well, seeing even one of you is one too many!)

Are you going to sit back – or are you going to be violent and take the Kingdom of God by force and seize the inheritance that is rightfully yours as a child of God? Throughout the book of Joshua, we find the people of God urged to enter into their inheritance.

And today, I urge you . . .

What are you doing with the freedom you have in Christ?

Through faith in Christ, the veil has been taken away, and the Holy Spirit has been given. Why? That we might seek to behold Him!

What are you doing with the freedom God has given you? Are you seeking to behold the glory of the Lord? Is Christ your best thought by day and by night? Or, are your desires no different than the world? Do you barely give God a thought, except when Sunday morning rolls around – or when you get into a difficult situation? Does your Bible continue to collect dust? Have you ever even read through the entire Bible? Are your prayers all filled with petitions for your kingdom to come rather than His? Is your desire for your own glory of for His? Are you making a mockery of your Christian profession and trampling the precious blood of Christ underfoot?

My friends, our God is not a liar. He has told us He is a rewarder to all those who diligently seek Him. Ask Him to give you a passion to follow hard after Him, and to bless you with a continuing desire to cleave to Him. After all, where else can we go? Jesus Christ has the words of eternal life! Who is a god like unto Him?! Jesus Christ is the fount of every blessing! Every blessing! O! Consider Him! God's Beloved Son! The Alpha and Omega! The Author and Finisher of our faith!

About shepherds like King Saul

May God guard us from false and misguided shepherds like King Saul, whose teachings hinder God's flock from pressing on to know the Lord, those who want us to remain content with a sterile and frigid head knowledge, a Christianity that stops at only notion, a Christianity that forbids a taste of the honeycomb! O, don't get me wrong – I am all for orthodox teaching and Biblical rooting (hence the large section devoted to it above), but we can be very orthodox but at the same time effectively dead like the Church at Sardis (Rev. 3). We can be very orthodox, but have we abandoned our first Love like the Church at Ephesus (Rev. 2)? What kind of Christianity is that? Is that the life and life abundantly of which Jesus spoke?

Is that how Jesus Himself defined eternal life?

Is that the experience the disciples on the Emmaus Road had with Jesus?

May God guard us from false shepherds and false teachings which seek to quench and extinguish the believer's pursuit of the experiential knowledge of and communion with the living God.

Asking, seeking and knocking... Will you lift the honeycomb with me?

May God's Spirit open our eyes so we might be granted a spiritual sight of our Father's perfect, all-satisfying and sweet provision for us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

May God open the eyes of our understanding so we might have full assurance that all that our Father has is truly ours, so we might be lifted out of the pitiful position of the tasteless, joyless, empty and unfelt "Christianity" of the older son.

May God make us importunate to ask, seek and knock for His full supply, and then to keep asking, seeking and knocking... Is there any time we do not have need of Him?

The life we have received in the Spirit requires our being continually supplied by the Spirit...

• Finding pleasure in Him
• How's your spiritual appetite? (Jonathan Edwards)
• don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)
• "The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it..." | the Father's assurance
• Mistakes about Religion & What Religion Is
• "Alas! if this be not true religion, what is?" ~ George Whitefield
• The flags unfurled ... Christ's eternal banner | Lloyd-Jones ~ a third type of assurance
• Happy Birthday, John Piper ~ reflections on year-ends, aging, fruit bearing & Christian hedonism
• The Father's Inheritance (Eleven days' journey ~ A lamentation & an exhortation)
• Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
• Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
• Advent # 7 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might be satisfied with Him
• As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
• Letter 3 on assurance and fighting for joy (Jesus' desire vs. Satan's desire)
• Letter 18 on assurance and fighting for joy (my testimony of joy)
• dear devil/dear flock of God (day in, day out): Letter 63 on assurance & joy
• experimental assurance of the Father's love (letter 67 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• this earthly manna ~ the Christian hedonist's plea
• adopting God's purpose for the nations is for your joy & His glory (Letter 76 on joy)
• Pleasures abounding, pleasures from above | letter 117 on assurance & fighting for joy
• "Who wants candles when he has the sun?" ~ Edward Payson | letter 124 on assurance & joy

Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Emphasis mine.

Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Honey_comb.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0