A Thanksgiving Acrostic: “S” is for Salvation

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Wayne Davies

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“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.”
Psalm 136:1

The salvation of God is reason to celebrate Thanksgiving!

Today I’m thanking God for salvation – His salvation.

Allow me to ask you a personal question.

Do you know what your name means?

Go ahead and “google” your first name right now and see if you can discover the meaning of your name. Search on “meaning of YourFirstName.” For me, that will look like this: “meaning of Wayne.” (The quotation marks are optional.)

Ready? Go for it!

How did it go? Did find out the meaning of your name?

I did. One website says my name comes from an occupational surname meaning “wagon maker.”

SOURCE: http://www.behindthename.com/name/wayne

So I’m a wagon maker!

I know for a fact that my becoming a wagon maker was the furthest thing from my parents’ mind when they named me. I was born in 1957. John Wayne was a popular actor then, so my parents gave me this name because they liked him.

People rarely give names these days because of the meaning of the name. We pick a name because it sounds nice or because someone else in the family has that name. Or we name our child after someone famous.

In Bible times that wasn’t the case. 2000 years ago names had great significance, and names were picked because of the meaning behind the word.

Do you know the meaning of the name “Jesus”? The Bible tells us. In Matthew 1:21, the angel said to Joseph, “You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” The name Jesus means “The Lord saves” or simply “Savior.”

Jesus’ name communicates the purpose of His incarnation. He came to save us. Is this not the clear teaching of Scripture?

John writes, “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14)

Paul says, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15)

And Jesus Himself proclaimed, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

There are many passages in the Bible that explain salvation. One of the Bible’s clearest verses about Scripture as the source of the salvation message is 2 Timothy 3:15.

“From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” The Bible gives us the wisdom we need to understand, receive and apply God’s message of salvation, the gospel of Jesus.

The word “salvation” is a rich word, filled with significance. It simply means deliverance or rescue, and can be used of both physical salvation (such as being healed of an illness) and spiritual salvation (being saved from sin and all its devastating consequences, including the wrath of God poured out on Judgment Day and eternal punishment in hell).

My favorite way to explain salvation is to use a threefold outline that sees salvation as a past event, a present experience, and a future hope. This approach assumes that you are a Christian and you are looking at your salvation from the perspective of time: past, present and future.

  1. Salvation is a past event known as “justification.”

The Bible says you already have been saved. It’s a done deal. It happened on the day God granted you faith and repentance. Some Christians can remember the exact day and time. Other believers do not know the specific date, and that’s OK, too.

The point is this: We have been saved from the penalty of sin. God has rescued us from His wrath. He has delivered us from hell. Praise God for that! Because the Father poured out His wrath on the Son, His justice has been satisfied and His anger has been spent – on Jesus, who died in our place and took upon Himself the punishment we deserve.

The Bible describes our salvation from sin with the word “justification,” a legal term that comes from the courtroom. It means to “declare righteous.” God the Judge pronounces the guilty defendant righteous because the righteousness of Christ has been credited to his account.

Many passages teach that salvation is a past event. Note the tense of each verb in the following verses.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.” (Ephesians 2:8)

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.” (Titus 3:4)

  1. Salvation is a present experience known as “sanctification.”

The Bible also says that we are being saved (every day) from the power of sin. Even though God has forgiven our sins and wiped the slate clean through justification, we still have a sin nature and must fight a daily battle against the evil within.

From the day we are born again to the day we die, we need God to save us from the power of sin – everything from lust, anger and greed to lying, stealing and fornication. Temptation will continue to rear its ugly head at us, and the goal of Christian living is to live a life of increasing Christ-likeness and decreasing impurity. This is called “sanctification,” another word packed with meaning.

“Sanctification” simply means “holiness.” It means to be unique, to be set apart — from sin and unto God. Of course, only God is perfectly sanctified and holy. But we are to obtain a measure of his holiness through the lifelong journey of sanctification. God tells us, in no uncertain terms, to “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15).

Note the following passages that teach salvation is a present experience that occurs daily.

“By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Hebrews 10:14). Note that this verse mentions both justification (God has made us perfect by declaring us righteous in His sight because of Jesus) and sanctification (we are being made holy by becoming more and more like Jesus).

“By this gospel you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.” (1 Corinthians 15:2)

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:15)

  1. Salvation is a future hope known as “glorification.”

One day we will die and be transported immediately into the presence of Christ. “To be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Oh what a wonderful day that will be!

This is our hope – to spend eternity with King Jesus. Paul describes the incredible glory of heaven in one of the Bible’s most precious passages:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” (Romans 8:28-30)

Interestingly, Paul uses the past tense to describe our future hope of glorification. “Those he justified, he also glorified.” Because our inheritance in heaven is based on the promises of God, we can speak of it as if it has already happened!

Other passages use the future tense to describe the final phase of our salvation:

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Romans 5:9)

“We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Acts 15:11).

To summarize . . .

Salvation is a past event. “God saved me.” I have been saved from the penalty of sin. That’s justification.

Salvation is a present experience. “God is saving me.” I am being saved from the power of sin. That’s sanctification.

Salvation is a future hope. “God will save me.” I will be saved from the presence of sin. That’s glorification.

And how do we know all this? Because God has revealed the gospel of salvation in His Word. Without the Scriptures, we would be clueless regarding our lost condition and God’s remedy for it.

We must read and study the Bible so we can know, understand and apply the message of God’s grace in Christ Jesus.

Think about this: What would the world be like today if there was no Bible? Fortunately, God has not left us in the dark about our sinful condition and His solution to our #1 problem. Not only did He send Jesus to provide salvation from sin, He then miraculously guided His closest followers to record the life, death, resurrection and teachings of Jesus in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

After Jesus ascended to heaven and the early church began to grow, God then directed Luke to write the book of Acts, so we would know how the message of salvation was proclaimed in “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

During these formative years of the church’s existence, God also led Paul, John, Peter, James and Jude to write letters to the new Christian communities springing up throughout the Roman Empire. God saw fit to preserve some of these “epistles” so that by the end of the first century, there were 27 “books” (4 gospels + Acts + 22 letters) that became our New Testament.

Oh, may we never take the Word of God for granted! Many have died for this book. When you pick up your Bible, you are holding the world’s most precious possession in your hand – the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God.

This is no ordinary book. It contains the words of eternal life. Without it, we are lost forever. By reading this book, God can teach us how to find salvation from the penalty, power and presence of sin through His Son Jesus Christ.

For this wonderful gift of salvation, we give thanks to God today and every day!

NOTE: This post is an except from the book, Top 10 Reasons to Read the Bible Today, by Wayne Davies.

ALSO NOTE: For the other posts in this Thanksgiving acrostic, visit Click Here.
To date, there are 6 posts in this series, one for each letter of the word T-H-A-N-K-S.

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What Happens When We Ignore God’s Wrath?

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Wayne Davies

In chapter 15 of Knowing God, J.I. Packer indicts the church for ignoring the wrath of God.

heaven-hell-signs-115393__180“To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex and self-will, the Church mumbles on about God’s kindness, but says virtually nothing about His judgment. How often during the past year did you hear, or if you are a preacher, did you preach, a sermon on the wrath of God? The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter.”

This assessment is sad yet true. My own experience confirms it. During the past year I’ve heard nothing about God’s wrath from the pulpit. In fact, over the past eleven years I can only remember one sermon devoted to the topic. How about you?

We love to talk about heaven, but whatever happened to hell? It is conspicuously absent from the pastoral ministries of many evangelical churches.

So I’ve been thinking about the unfortunate effects of this trend. When the church ignores God’s wrath, we do so at our own peril. Here are five tragic consequences.

  1. We condone a distorted view of God’s character.

Packer blew me away with this quote from A.W. Pink’s The Attributes of God: “A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.”

Oh how we love to say “God is love.” But to focus on God’s love to the exclusion of His wrath is to worship a false God, a God that we’ve created. Yes, the Bible says “God is love.” And it also says, “God is a consuming fire.”

In John 3:16, how many times is heaven mentioned? How about hell? (These are not trick questions. The answer to both is one.) How would the preaching in our churches change if pastors followed this pattern?

  1. We stand in judgment over Scripture.

If Pink’s statement is true, then to ignore God’s wrath is to place ourselves above God’s Word. We decide what parts of the Bible to teach and which parts to discard. Oh may such an attitude never be ours!

Paul told the Ephesian elders that “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). When we minimize God’s wrath, does not our shrinking become a shirking of the God-given responsibility to teach everything found in Scripture?

  1. We devalue God’s love.

Many evangelicals focus on God’s love to the virtual exclusion of His wrath. The end result is a sentimentalizing and cheapening of His love. This approach backfires and causes the very thing we emphasize to lose its preciousness.

Do you want to increase your gratitude for God’s love? Then study His wrath. Doing so will heighten your appreciation for the magnitude of His grace and mercy toward you.

May we never forget that to be saved is to be delivered from sin and all its devastating consequences both in this life and the next.

When you reflect on the miracle of salvation, what comes to mind? Shouldn’t rescue from hell be near or at the top of your list of salvation’s blessings? If not, we’re missing out on one of God’s most precious promises.

  1. We allow the false teachings of universalism and annihilationism to prevail.

When we fail to teach the wrath of God, our silence on the subject allow false doctrine to prevail. There are two teachings in particular that continue to spread like wildfire throughout Christendom. The first is universalism, the belief that ultimately all will be saved. Without realizing it, ignoring God’s wrath provides greater opportunity for the proponents of this heinous doctrine to succeed.

The second is annihilationism, the belief that non-Christians do not actually spend eternity in hell, they just cease to exist. In other words, eternal life lasts forever, but eternal death is only temporary. In effect, after Judgment Day, God “snuffs out” the non-believer. I am saddened by the fact that an increasing number of evangelicals subscribe to this viewpoint. (For an excellent discussion of this issue, please read J.I. Packer’s article, “Evangelical Annihilationism in Review.”)

When we minimize God’s wrath, are we not walking on the slippery slope of doctrinal compromise?

  1. We preach a truncated gospel.

Paul warned the Galatians, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7).

Paul was battling the heresy of the Judaizers, who taught that the gospel needed to include adherence to the Law of Moses. Such teaching was “a different gospel,” and those who propagate such a gospel should be “eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:8). Strong words indeed!

When we leave God’s wrath out of the gospel, are we guilty of preaching “a different gospel”? Certainly it is an incomplete gospel. And to the extent that our gospel is incomplete, it is false. To offer the promise of heaven without the warning of hell is to proclaim a severely diminished gospel.

May we return to the gospel of Christ and the apostles, the gospel of the New Testament. Jesus preached on the wrath of God repeatedly, and so did the early church. May we do the same.

I’m sure my list of consequences is not exhaustive. If you can think of any others, please add them in the comment box below.

If you’d like to read other posts about J.I. Packer’s book Knowing God, Click Here.

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Do You Have A “Butterfly Mind”?

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Wayne Davies

monarch-butterfly-931632_1280According to J.I. Packer, “People nowadays are not encouraged to think systematically and at length about anything or anybody.

Our culture encourages us all to have butterfly minds, flitting from one thing to another without going deep into anything.”

What do you think of this indictment of modern society?

I’m the first to admit that at times I have such a “butterfly mind.” How about you?

And what is the antidote to this?

To hear what Mr. Packer says we can do to overcome the “butterfly mind,” check out this video in which Mark Jones interviews J.I. Packer. They discuss topics such as Cultivating Awe in the Presence of God, Christian Meditation and Knowing Christ.

Click Here to watch the interview.

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The Staggering Truth of God’s Love for Sinners

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerI remember the sermon well. It was Christmas Eve and the sanctuary was packed. The children sang and the grown-ups cackled.

Then the preacher said something I’ll never forget. “God sent His Son to earth to die for you. This proves how worthy you are of God’s love.”

I agreed with the first sentence. But what about the second?

God loves me because I’m worthy of His love? In other words, I should be taking credit for His love?

Then I stumbled across a little booklet by John Piper, entitled “For Your Joy.” Here’s what I read:

“I have heard it said, ‘God didn’t die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans.’ This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in our lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great only divine sacrifice can pay it.

There is only one explanation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is ‘the riches of his grace’ (Ephesians 1:7). It is all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is the overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely, his infinite beauty.”

So here we have an explanation of God’s love that is significantly different from what many of us have been taught: God’s love is not an acknowledgment of our worth. Rather, it is the proclamation of God’s infinite worth.

J.I. Packer would agree with John Piper. In his book Knowing God we find these comments in chapter 12 on “The Love of God” –

staggering-love-packer-1280“God’s love is an exercise of His goodness towards sinners. As such, it has the nature of grace and mercy. It is an outgoing of God in kindness which not merely is undeserved, but is actually contrary to desert; for the objects of God’s love are rational creatures who have broken God’s law, whose nature is corrupt in God’s sight, and who merit only condemnation and final banishment from His presence. It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of His love to call it forth; nothing in man could attract or prompt it.”

Yes, God’s love for us is staggering. We did nothing to deserve it. In fact, all we are and all we have done merits only God’s wrath.

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8).

Paul’s says nothing here about our value and worth, does he? Rather, he describes us as “powerless,” “ungodly” and “sinners.”

The love of God is all about God, not us.

Why does God love us? According to J.I. Packer, God loves us for the same reason He does everything: “God’s end in all things is His own glory – that He should be manifested, known, admired, adored.”

“It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true.”

To quote John Piper again, “Let it take your breath away.”

Note: This is one of a serious of posts on the book Knowing God by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

Final Thought: If you only had one word to describe God’s love, what would it be?
Please post your answer in the comment box below. Thank you!

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God Only Wise (Thoughts on Chapter 9 of Knowing God)

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerWhat is wisdom? Here’s how J.I. Packer defines it.

“In Scripture wisdom is a moral as well as an intellectual quality, more than mere intelligence or knowledge, just as it is more than mere cleverness or cunning. To be truly wise, in the Bible sense, one’s intelligence and cleverness must be harnessed to a right end. Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.”

There is a sense in which only God is wise. “[Wisdom] is found in its fullness only in God. He alone is naturally and entirely and invariably wise.”

Packer goes on to say that, fortunately, “God’s wisdom is allied to omnipotence. Power is as much God’s essence as wisdom is.”

And here’s my favorite part of this chapter about divine wisdom:

“Omniscience governing omnipotence, infinite power ruled by infinite wisdom, is a basic biblical description of the divine character.  . . Wisdom without power would be pathetic, a broken reed; power without wisdom would be merely frightening; but in God boundless wisdom and endless power are united, and this makes him utterly worthy of our fullest trust.”

And so I come away from chapter nine filled with awe and wonder at our God. I’m thankful that God taught this man how to describe God so gloriously. This is a gift from the Creator: that I can sit here and read these words and watch my spirit soar in adoration of the One who is perfectly wise and all-powerful, and who displays His wisdom and might for His glory and our good.

NOTE: This is one of a serious of posts on the book “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

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Eight Chapters, Two Responses, and One Amazing God

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerWhile reading chapters 1-8 of Knowing God by J.I. Packer, I find myself repeatedly bound by a two-fold response: repentance and worship.

Could this be one reason that Paul said we are “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10)? I am sorrowful because of my sins, which Packer unveils with pinpoint accuracy. And I am rejoicing in the worship of the great and wonderful God of Scripture, who Packer describes with the biblical wisdom of a gifted pastor-teacher.

Here’s a recap of the sins of which I’m guilty and the excellencies for which I praise Him.

Chapter 1: The Study of God
Repentance: I confess that I have pursued theological knowledge for its own sake, leading to pride and conceit. I have viewed myself as better than other Christians because I think I know more than they do.
Worship: I praise you, Father, because you have spoken to man, and the Bible is your Word, “given to us to make us wise unto salvation.”

Chapter 2: The People Who Know Their God
Repentance: I have often failed to grasp the difference between knowing about God and knowing God, making an idol out of the former to the exclusion of the latter.
Worship: I praise you for granting the gift of contentment to your people. Thank you for making peace with God possible through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Chapter 3: Knowing and Being Known
Repentance: I confess that my faith has often consisted of nothing more than “maudlin self-absorption.” There have been days when I treat God as merely the means to meeting my need for comfort and happiness.
Worship: I praise you for your “initiative in loving, choosing, redeeming, calling and preserving” your people. I thank you that “what matters supremely . . . is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it – that fact that He knows me.”

Chapter 4: The Only True God
Repentance: I confess that I have often thought of myself “free to think of God as I like” to think of Him, and have thereby broken the second commandment.
Worship: I extol you, O God, for you have spoken in your Son, and therefore “the light of the knowledge of His glory is given to us in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Chapter 5: God Incarnate
Repentance: I wasted many years by not only disbelieving the gospel, but by ignoring it altogether.
Worship: O God, how amazing is your grace! You saw fit to reveal yourself through your Son. I praise you for the mystery of the incarnation, that God the Son became Man without ceasing to be God!

Chapter 6: He Shall Testify
Repentance: I have consistently ignored the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Worship: I thank you, God, for teaching me that “were it not for the work of the Holy Spirit, there would be no gospel, no faith, no Church, no Christianity . . . no New Testament . . . in short, no Christians.”

Chapter 7: God Unchanging
Repentance: I have read the Bible and believed the lie that I must resign myself to “following afar off . . . neither seeking nor expecting for myself such intimacy and direct dealing with God as the men of the Bible knew.”
Worship: I praise you, O God, for you are immutable. “God does not change.” Your life, your character, your truth, your ways, your purposes and your Son do not change. May the glory of your immutability continue to make my soul soar to new heights of wonder!

Chapter 8: The Majesty of God
Repentance: I confess that my God is too small.
Worship: I praise you, O God, for your majesty and greatness. “You are eternal, infinite and almighty. You have us in your hands; but we never have you in ours. Like us, you are personal; but unlike us, you are great.”

NOTE: This is one of a serious of posts on the book “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

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Generation ex-Christian: Why Young Adults are Leaving the Faith and How to Bring Them Back (Book Review)

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Wayne Davies

“You can’t tell me there’s a God.”

My father’s words hung in the air like fog and I didn’t know what to say.

“After all I saw in the war, you can’t tell me there’s a God.”

It was a phone call I’ll never forget. My father was telling me, for the first time, why he was an atheist. He was raised in a Christian home near the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania. His father was a Welsh immigrant who came to America circa 1900 through the gates of Ellis Island.

graveyard-534616_640My Dad graduated from high school and left home immediately, having no desire to follow in his father’s coal miner footsteps. So he enlisted in the Army and headed to Europe, one of 600,000 American soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, “the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II” (Wikipedia). The numbers are staggering – 89,000 casualties and 19,000 killed . . . in six weeks!

Understandably, my father didn’t talk about the war. After he died, my mother told me he was tormented by nightmares for years. And how his comrades were dying left and right, and there was nothing he could do to save any of them.

Trapped in a foxhole surrounded by human body parts can make a man question both the love of God and His existence. The end result was a faith shattered by the indescribable insanity of war.

generation-ex-christianMy father became what author Drew Dyck calls a “leaver” – a person who was brought up in a Christian environment but then leaves the faith. In recent years, the number of “leavers” has increased dramatically and Mr. Dyck has written a book to explore the reasons for these defections. Generation ex-Christian: Why Young Adults are Leaving the Faith and How to Bring Them Back is the title of the book, which I highly recommend for these reasons.

Reason #1. You’ll get a valuable education about current trends in Western society that form the cultural backdrop to this mass exodus of young people from the church. Drew identifies six types of leavers: 1) postmodern leavers; 2) recoilers; 3) modern leavers; 4) neo-pagans; 5) rebels; and 6) drifters. Three of these categories are reflective of recent developments in the worldviews of many in society today: postmodern leavers, modern leavers, and neo-pagans. If you are unfamiliar with these categories, you would do well to learn about them here. The author has his pulse on the heartbeat of secular thinking. Christians need to know not only what people believe but why they have formulated those beliefs. This book does an excellent job of providing the information needed to understand the people who hold these views.

Reason #2. Drew not only identifies “newer” reasons for leaving the faith (leaver categories 1, 3 and 4), but he also presents the more obvious or “older” reasons for defection via leaver categories 2, 5 and 6: recoilers, rebels and drifters.

People have been leaving the faith for decades, as evidenced by my father’s abandonment in 1945. In fact, one can easily argue that leavers have been around as long as the church has been in existence. Consider 1 John 1:19 – “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

Who is the Apostle John talking about? Leavers. When did he write this? 2,000 years ago. You remember Judas, don’t you? Even one of the 12 Apostles was a leaver.

Reason #3. As indicated in the title, the author also explains “how to bring them back.” You’ll learn how to understand leavers so you can help them find their way home.

This book contains much more than an analysis of why people leave the faith. It is also a much-needed handbook on how to fulfill the Great Commission. Generation ex-Christian is a practical treatise on the heart of God, who loves all leavers and wants nothing more than to see them return to Him. After explaining what makes each leaver tick, you’ll find a plethora of insights that will equip you to approach any leaver with compassion and wisdom.

Reason #4. This is a more personal reason for liking this book: my life has been filled with the stories of leavers.

My father was a leaver. He best fits into category 2, a recoiler. He experienced the trauma of war and could not reconcile man’s cruelty with the existence of the “good” God of the Bible. His response was to reject this God and walk away from the faith.

One Heartbeat AwayI didn’t know how to talk to my father. Conversation with him was always difficult. I later gave him a book and asked him to read it. To my surprise, he did. The book: One Heartbeat Away: Your Journey Into Eternity, by Mark Cahill.  Then he called me and said, “Maybe it’s time for me to make a change.” Another phone call I’ll never forget! Before dying in 2010, he made a profession of faith and enlisted in the ranks of ex-leavers at the age of 86.

Why did I give him a book? Because reading a book is what God used to bring me back to the faith.

I, too, was a leaver. My father’s atheism prevented me from learning about the faith as a child. My first exposure to biblical Christianity was in high school. A friend invited me to his church, where I heard the gospel and professed faith at age 16. But at age 26 I left Christianity. I can identify with several of Drew’s categories, but category 5 describes me best. I’m a rebel.

Mere ChristianityI spent 20 years in a spiritual no-man’s land, ignoring God and denying His existence, determined to be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. But then my father’s cousin, an Episcopalian minister, gave me a book and asked me to read it. To my surprise, I did. The book: Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.  And God used Lewis’ book to bring me to my knees and I joined the ranks of ex-leavers at the age of 46.

I praise God today for Drew Dyck and what he’s done to help the evangelical church make disciples of leavers.

If you are reading this review, you likely know a leaver or someone who is about to leave. What can you do to help the leavers in your life? First, get this book and study it. Let Drew Dyck teach you how to love, understand and converse with a leaver. Let him show you what to say, what not to say, and what to do so that leavers become Christ-followers.

Next, get on your knees and pray, for our God is the God of second chances and changed lives. Then spend time with leavers and allow God to use you to lead them on their journey home. May He empower us to bring the leavers back!

NOTE: Drew Dyck is managing editor of Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today. He has also written the book Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying. Click here to read my review of Yawning at Tigers.

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J.I. Packer on the Deity of Christ

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerIn chapter 5 of “Knowing God,” J.I. Packer presents a wonderful explanation of the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ. Two statements summarize his exposition of the Bible’s teaching on this all-important subject:

1. The baby born at Bethlehem was God.

2. The baby born at Bethlehem was God made man.

Make no mistake, Jesus, God from all eternity, became a man. This is the teaching of Scripture in passages such as John 1:1-18, which Packer unpacks (no pun intended) with his unique combination of clarity and conviction.

John 1:14 is one of the clearest verses in the Bible on the deity and humanity of Christ. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Apostle John has already told us that “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then the Word became flesh. God became man. This is the glorious mystery of the incarnation and the foundational truth of biblical Christianity. This is what distinguishes our faith from every other believe system on the planet.

If you do not believe that Jesus is both God and man, please do not consider yourself a Christian.

I recall when Mitt Romney was running for president. People would ask me, “Are you going to vote for him? At least he’s a Mormon.” I cringed at the implications of statements like this. If a person holds to the teachings of Mormonism, he does not believe that Jesus is God, because Mormons do not believe in the deity of Christ.

It seems to me that many professing Christians are clueless about the beliefs of many religious organizations that do not subscribe to the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is God in a human body. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Baha’i – all these folks have a place for Jesus in their theology, but they all fail to accept His divinity.

I’ve written about the deity of Jesus on this blog repeatedly. I love this doctrine, because I love Jesus and I want to do everything I can to proclaim the truth of His identity. The world needs to know the Bible’s answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” And God has given us the responsibility to lead people to see the real Jesus, the Jesus of Scripture.

heaven-hell-signs-115393__180Please take the time to read these articles to make sure you understand the meaning and significance of this all-important teaching: when the Bible refers to Jesus as “the Son of God,” it means that He is “God the Son.” Your eternal destiny depends on whether you understand, believe and embrace this essential teaching.

“Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God . . . He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:5, 12)

Who Is Jesus?
https://godwrotethebook.com/basic-bible-doctrine-who-is-jesus/

Who Says Jesus Is God?
https://godwrotethebook.com/jesus-is-god-mark-1/

How Do We Know Jesus Is God?
https://godwrotethebook.com/evidence-jesus-is-god/

NOTE: This is one of a serious of posts on the book “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

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J.I. Packer on the Bible

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerIn the early chapters of Knowing God, repeated emphasis is given to the indispensable role of the Bible in the believer’s quest to know God.

In chapter 1 Packer offers up “five basic truths” which he calls the “foundation-principles of the knowledge about God which Christians have.” First on the list: “God has spoken to man, and the Bible is His Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation.”

In chapter 3 the author poses the question, “What are we talking about when we use the phrase ‘knowing God’? What sort of activity, or event, is it that can properly be described as ‘knowing God’?”

Here is the beginning of his answer: “What happens is that the almighty Creator . . . comes to him and begins to talk to him, through the words and truths of Holy Scripture. Perhaps he has been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant nothing to him; but one day he wakes up to the fact that God is actually speaking to him – him! – through the biblical message.”

“Knowing God involves, first, listening to God’s word and receiving it as the Holy Spirit interprets it, in application to oneself.”

bible-john-426132__180Packer believes that a hunger for the Word of God is a crucial indicator of genuine knowledge of God. This hunger is proof that our profession of salvation is real. “Is it not a fact that a love for God’s revealed truth, and a desire to know as much of it as one can, is natural to every person who has been born again?”

It is appropriate for us to regularly heed Paul’s command to “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). This self-examination should include many aspects of the Christian experience, and at the top of the list should be these questions: “Do I possess an ever-increasing love for the Word of God? Do I desire to know as much of it as I can, for the ultimate purpose of knowing God? Has this passion for God’s truth become as natural to me as breathing and eating and drinking?”

May it be so.

NOTE: This is one of a serious of posts on “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

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How Do You Know That You Know God?

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Wayne Davies

KnowingGodPackerHow do you know that you know the Lord?

Some of us might answer that question by saying, “I was raised by Christian parents and came to know the Lord at a young age.” Or “I knew the facts of the gospel, but I didn’t really know the Lord until later in life . . .”

Often our answer is a reference to a past experience, such as praying the “sinner’s prayer” or “going forward” at a church service or evangelistic meeting.

J.I. Packer takes a different approach. He challenges us to look at how we respond to specific situations in the present as the evidence of true knowledge of God.

“Can we say, simply, honestly, not because we feel that as evangelicals we ought to, but because it is plain matter of fact, that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us?”

In other words, when things don’t go well for us, how do we react?

For one who knows God, “Past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don’t matter.” According to Packer, those who really know God “never brood on might-have-beens; they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained.”

And what have we gained? To answer that question, he quotes Philippians 3:7-10 –

“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him . . . I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

Knowing Christ is the ultimate gain. When we know Christ, we have everything we need to live a life of contentment and joy, regardless of any circumstances that come our way.

This is the mark of genuine knowledge of God – the recognition that being “found in him” has “surpassing worth.” Knowing Jesus is a priceless treasure of infinite value, and being in possession of that, we need nothing else and seek nothing else to satisfy our souls.

May this be our prayer and our reality:

“Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:25-26

NOTE: This is one of a serious of posts on “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer. For details on how to join me, blogger Tim Challies and hundreds of other Christians on this journey, click here. To read the other posts in this series, click here.

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