Grace for All

What I most enjoyed about the book All of Grace by C.H. Spurgeon were the great sense of compassion the author had for the reader and the apologetic aspects of the book.

In a day when compassion for other people and actually caring about what they are going through is so sparse it was refreshing to hear Spurgeon plead with me to love Jesus. When he says “Oh, receive the Lord Jesus into your soul, and you will live forever” I get the sense that he loves me and wants to see me in heaven even though he lived over a hundred years before I was even born. I think one of the great struggles for the church is to have a heart for the unreached. Not only to be thankful for our salvation but to want other people to have that salvation is something that is lacking in so much of our lives. I know that so many times I have had to force myself to pray for a heart that will love people. It was so refreshing to read a book by someone that had a genuine heart for me.

I’ve been commanded to be an evangelist by God and this book was a great example of how to explain the gospel to non-Christians. Spurgeon didn’t leave any room for us to escape without completely accepting or denying Christ and his work on the cross. He was very good at reading the readers mind and answering any questions we might have. In chapter 11, he takes many excused for our lack of following after Christ and refutes them all with basically one verse: “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” We don’t have excuses not to follow Christ because he is our strength and our salvation. Praise God for that!

God is not...

God is not the easter clown

God has many attributes. Some of which we are able to understand and know, and others which we are unable to comprehend fully. One of the major ways in which we can know God and his attributes is to be in relationship with him. Much like when you spend enough time with someone, you begin to gain an understanding of who they are and how they behave. Another way in which we can know and understand God is through theology, the study of God. Through theology we can begin to learn what God is and what He isn’t. Being able to know how God acts or behaves, as best we can, can help us in evangelism, apologetics, and our own personal lives. It is my personal opinion that knowing the attributes of God, what he is and what he isn’t, is the best way to know God.

In my personal relationship with God I am quick to hold on to his sovereignty, omniscience and immutability. I love the sovereignty of God. It is so dear to me when living through the many trials that I have and will face in my life. To know that there is someone in control of this mess and that he is perfect and can have no wrong intentions is so comforting. Open theism commonly attacks the omniscience and sovereignty of God. I hate open theism. In an open theistic world, I’ve created the mess around me completely. There is no father going before his son with a flashlight through the woods.

Another attribute of God, which he has fortunately shared with us, is love. An attribute of God that I don’t think I fully understood until I heard John Piper speak at the reformission conference in 2004. I was only able to fully realize his deep love for us by realizing my great iniquities. My whole life I had been asking why God didn’t save everyone. At that conference my question became, why did God choose me? Only a truly loving, gracious God could look past my failures and still love me. Since that day it has been a quest to understand how to live in his grace and not my works. I believe my true conversion happened at that conference.

If you’ve noticed I have described only two of the attributes of God, it blatantly yells of my lack of knowledge of who God is. I can only pray through this process and Lord willing a full life of time in his scriptures that I will become closer everyday to knowing the true God and what he is and what he isn’t.