Cultivating fresh faith

I am almost finished blogging through the book Gospel Centered Discipleship. I continue to be encouraged and edified as I re-read and reflect on some of the ideas and insights of its author Jonathan K. Dodson.

Towards the end of the book Dodson works through some practical steps believers can take in regards to gospel-centered discipleship and I am reminded of how solid and helpful some of these suggestions are. For instance, Dodson begins an sub-section of his chapter entitled Practical Discipleship: Putting the Gospel into Practice with the title Cultivating Fresh Faith in the Gospel. Sounds good, right? Well, it is.

Consider the questions he leads this section off with:

How do we cultivate Bible reading that brings us fresh faith in the gospel? To be honest, there are times that old, memorized promises don't always work for me. Is this because "trusting your savior" doesn't work? No, it's because my heart becomes indifferent to them. How do we revive our hearts to take interest in God's promises? (132-3)

Dodson relies on the Puritan heavyweight John Owen to respond to the above questions and to indicate how we might cultivate fresh faith in the Gospel.

John Owen recommends we return to prayer, but perhaps not as you usually pray. He notes that if we wisely consider the Spirit's working in our hearts by prayer, we may understand much of his working upon our hearts by grace. In order to have fresh faith in the gospel, we ought to pray to the Spirit for three things: 1) insight into his promises, 2) experience of our need, 3) creation of desire. All too often we assume the insight, neglect to experience our need, and are too proud to ask for desire. (133)

I think that though all three of these practical insights are helpful, #2 impacts me the most. In our society and the culture that permeates it, it can actually be difficult to understand our ever-present and enormous need. We are seduced and satiated by the world to the detriment of our inner life. I think a prayer for cognizance and experience of our need is vital.

Dodson expounds on these ideas in the ensuing sections and it is all very helpful. Consider getting your hands on this gem and benefiting from it first hand.

Dodson on mortification

In blogging through Jonathan K. Dodson's book on discipleship entitled Gospel Centered Discipleship, I have arrived at the section of the book which concerns itself with practical application of what it expounded and explained in earlier chapters. As the book discusses applying the Gospel, it engages with mortification in the Christian life. I love how Dodson defines mortification writing, "Mortification is that tenacious disposition of the heart that longs to defeat sin out of love for Jesus" (128, emphasis mine).

The motivation for mortification which the author notes in this definition is incredibly important. Over the ages many people have tried, both Christian and non-Chritian, to conform their actions and change their habits from a desire to meet some perceived standard, to "be all that you can be." But ultimately, being moral for morality's sake, or good for goodness' sake, gets you no further ahead than were you to remain as you were.

God is not looking for us to conform to some set of rules whether they be encoded or arbitrary. He is looking for us to be conformed to his Son. And thus, our motivation for conformity and mortification of those areas in our life which are not conformed, needs to be found in Christ.

Dodson continues with an encouraging passage on fighting sin in our life:

Sin is no lighthearted matter. It is crouching at our door and we must master it (Gen. 4:7). It is dangerous not to fight sin.It is a sobering fight we must not cease. Fight your sin means a habitual weakening of the flesh through constant fighting and contending in the Spirit for sweet victory over sin. It should be regular and progressive, not occasional and instant. Fighting is not an end in itself or a way to make us more presentable to God. We fight because we have been made presentable in Christ. We fight for belief in his gospel, the truest and best news on earth-that Jesus defeated our sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection, and he is making all things new, even us. Until all things are new, we will continue to fight the good fight of faith. (128-9)

Keep fighting!

An article on pain

The good people at Gospel Centered Discipleship have posted another article of mine at their site. Here is an excerpt from the article:


Using pain as a preparatory mechanism is quite common in football. Before a game, in the locker room or on the sidelines, you will often see teammates hitting each other or slapping each other on their shoulders. Many football players claim that they can’t really get into a game until they receive or deliver their first hit. There is something about the pain that brings purposefulness and clarity in combative sports.

It seems that pain in ‘real’ life, whether physical, emotional, or mental, does the exact opposite of what it does in football. For many people, pain leads to paralysis instead of performance. Pain doesn’t help us engage; it causes us to detach, disassociate, and disconnect from life. When the life gets tough, genuinely tough, the accepted response is to quit. We do not regain focus on the end and purpose of our lives. Instead, we abandon engagement in life.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Holy Spirit and decision making

The role of the Spirit in decision making can bring up some contentious issues. Extremes range from the charismaniac who is always looking for some type of "sign" from God to the hardcore cessationist who will deny any sort of input-prompting, impulse, intuition-that could be attributed to God's direction. This may be a difficult area for Christians to navigate, but I think this excerpt from Gospel Centered Discipleship is helpful in terms of adding some balance to the backlash against the Spirit's involvement in our decision making.

After his baptism, Jesus was "lead by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil" (Luke 4:1-2). Notice that the Spirit played a directive role in the life of the Son of God. Mark tells us that the Spirit "drove" Jesus into the wilderness (Mark 1:12). Jesus clearly relied on the Spirit for direction. This sensitivity to the directing influence of the Holy Spirit is characteristic of the disciples in the book of Acts. Philip is directed to speak to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). Peter is directed to the house of Cornelius (Acts 10). The Jerusalem Council is Spirit directing your life? Very often, our modern, self-reliant sensibilities cut the Spirit right out of everyday decision making. Rarely do we request or expect the Spirit's direction. Yet, we are repeatedly told to "walk" in the Spirit throughout the Bible (Ezek. 36:27; Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16,25) and to make decisions by seeking the Lord (Prov. 5:4-6; James 4:13-15). Being motivated by the Spirit should affect not just normal decisions but also our general approach to life. Paul tells us to be "filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). How often do we start our day by requesting a fresh infilling of the Spirit's power for the day that lies ahead? Instead, we assume his presence and barrel forward. Our assumption of the Spirit reveals a self-reliant faith. Instead of starting and continuing our days in our own strength, what would it look like to fight for faith with utter dependence upon the power and direction of the Holy Spirit? (92)

Jesus' dependence on the Spirit

The life of Jesus is exemplary not just in what he did but also how he did it. Jesus was not immune to temptation or impervious to suffering. He fought the good fight of faith but he did not fight it alone. Jesus did not sever himself from the Trinity in order to accomplish his mission. He remained in communion with the Father and dependent upon the Spirit. The Spirit empowered and motivated everything Jesus did. (91)

Jonathan K. Dodson, in his book Gospel Centered Discipleship, introduces an important issue in fully understanding the incarnation of the Son of God. Jesus, as we know and as the church has known from its inception, is both fully God and fully man. And he lived his life on earth in dependence on the Holy Spirit as all men who are part of God's family do. Despite not needing the Spirit in regards to his divine nature, we see the beautiful condescension of the Son in that he relied on the Spirit of God while he lived his earthly life. Bruce Ware, in The Man Christ Jesus, relays some similar thoughts.

Again, one must come to terms with the significance of the repeated biblical teaching that Jesus, the Messiah sent from God, would be marked by having the Spirit upon him. But why would he need the Spirit since he possessed already the infinitely and complete divine nature? What can the spirit of God add to the deity of Christ? He can add nothing, since the deity of Christ in infinitely full and perfect. But what can the Spirit of God add to the humanity of Christ? He can add everything of supernatural enablement! Yes, Jesus, the Spirit-annointed Messiah, lived his life as a man, accepting the limitations of his human existence, and relied on the Spirit to do in and through him what he could not do in his human nature. His identity, then, as the Spirit-annointed Messiah is fundamentally that of a man empowered by the Spirit to carry out what he was called upon to do. (43)

True Christianity is a fight!

My favourite quote from the movie Braveheart:

Stephen: Fine speech. Now what do we do?
Wallace: Just be yourselves.
Hamish: Where are you going?
Wallace: I'm going to pick a fight.
Hamish: Well, we didn't get dressed up for nothing.



Now that we have our minds on fighting:

But what do we do when we don't feel joyful? Do we resign ourselves to disobedience? Should we abandon following Jesus? Not at all! We fight the good fight of faith. It is good to fight for belief in the Gospel. We fight for faith to believe that obedience to Jesus is better than disobedience. Religious affection is an expression of faith in the Gospel, but it does not constitute the whole of faith. Faith also includes trusting God when we don't desire him. It is this faith that fights to follow Jesus, even when we don't feel like it. We were recreated in Christ not to run emotional power but spiritual power-the filling of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Spirit comes to life when we trust in his Word. (Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print.80)

I love this quote by Dodson. I love his reaction to trials and difficulties and joy being robbed: fight the fight of faith. Following hard after Christ  is not going to be easy. But we need to resist cynicism and pessimism and be willing to put some effort into our walk with God. Consider this excerpt by Dodson in light of another excerpt from J. C. Ryle's classic on sanctification called Holiness:

The first thing I have to say is this: True Christianity is a fight. True Christianity! Let us mind that word “true.” There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster; it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the real thing which was called Christianity eighteen hundred years ago. There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday, and call themselves Christians. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They mean to be buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any “fight” about their religion! Of spiritual strife, and exertion, and conflict, and self-denial, and watching, and warring, they know literally nothing at all. Such Christianity may satisfy man, and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable; but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded, and His Apostles preached. It is not the religion which produces real holiness. True Christianity is “a fight.”

Freedon from judgment, not obedience

Some thoughts from Jonathan Dodson on spiritual license:

Liberated Christians boast a spiritual license that says they are not bound to rules. This license may be expressed by drinking too much, watching inappropriate films, or refraining from Bible reading, all in the name of spiritual freedom. The subtle assumption here is that true freedom comes from the ability to not keep rules. However, when freedom is constructed against rules, it is a false sense of freedom. The lie of spiritual license is a partially true. Because of the costly death of Christ, forgiveness has been purchased for our disobedience. Because judgment has fallen on Christ for our sin, we are free, but not as we might think. God's forgiveness frees us from judgment, not from obedience.

(Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 72)

Performance and Perfection

From Gospel-Centered Discipleship:

Whenever we replace Jesus with another lord, we displace the gospel from the center of our discipleship. We substitute Jesus's perfect performance for our imperfect performance, which will always fail.  The gospel reminds us that our approval before God rests, not on our performance but on the performance of Jesus in his perfect life, death, and resurrection. Religious performance deceives us by saying: "Impress God and he will approve of you." The truth of the goepl, however, says: "You don't have to impress God because Jesus has impressed him for you." (71)

Substitution in the atonement as understood by evangelicals is a beautiful doctrine. But when the substitution you're practicing is one in which you substitute your good works in place of Christ's, to quote the younger generation, "you're doing it wrong."

Substitution in the proper sense is necessary precisely because our own good works are not sufficient to assuage God's wrath and make him pleased with us. Thus, Christ became sin for us and suffered the penalty due us, that we might be reconciled to God. Our sin was imputed to him; his righteousness was imputed to us.

Authenticity

Fake watches and ersatz purses. They were everywhere. Imitation perfumes and copy-cat colognes lined the shelves of the many stores. Vendors hawked their wares making note of the excellent prices of their "authentic" goods. Such was the scene on Canal and Broadway in Manhattan. I was there as a supervisor for a group of 44 students on a field trip to the Big Apple. The visit to Chinatown's purse peddlers and scent sellers was frustrating for me. There is something bothersome, even with the cheap prices, about knock-offs and fakes. They lack authenticity. There is something inside of us that yearns for the real deal. Inside, we long to be authentic people; people with integrity and a deep-down realness. But at our core, apart from Christ, we realize that authenticity, being who we are supposed to be, has eluded us. Jonathan Dodson touches upon this idea as he writes,

Sin stands in the way of authenticity. It is a silent, spiritual rejection of our identity in Christ. It denies judgment and grace. However, when we confess our sin in true repentance, we come to our senses in Jesus. We return to our selves. Confession of sin is a kind of repentance from being inauthentic ... Both the religious rule keeper and the confessionless rule breaker are inauthentic. They choose "sinner" over "son." The difference between the two is that the rebel avoids God while the religious person tries to impress him. One runs away from him, while the other runs past him. Instead, rebels and the religious need to run straight to God in confession of their sin and in confidence of his forgiveness. (Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 68-9)

Our authenticity, our stepping into who we really are meant to be, is only possible through the forgiveness of sin. For this, we can only turn to Christ.

Fighters, Beholders, Believers

I love this excerpt from Gospel-centered Discipleship by Jonathan Dodson. It touches on the battle of our faith, the battle to behold the Beautiful One. There is a sublimity to the Christian walk. There is battle, blood, and beauty in this life we are called to.

In summary, disciples of Jesus are called to fight, not in physical or virtual combat, but for the noble cause of everyday faith in Jesus. We are called to beauty, not through performance, but by beholding Jesus. We fight to behold the image of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. This faith fights not for perfection, but for belief. We fight to believe that Jesus is more precious, satisfying, and thrilling than anything else this world has to offer. This is faith in the gospel-the grand announcement that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection and is making all things new, even us. When we believe the gospel, we get to enjoy the promises of God's grace, peace, and joy. When we don't believe the gospel, we move away from these things. most of all, we move away from Jesus, who is worth our every effort, every gaze, and every belief.

(Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 59-60)

We fight, contend, and struggle

"...we have been called to "take hold" of eternal life. There is urgency in our faith. True faith struggles to pry our hands off the old life and keep them on our eternal life. Biblical faith fights to believe the gospel to such a degree that it is reflected in our practice. Disciples fight to believe that Jesus' death and resurrection is our death and resurrection. His death is our death and his life our life (Romans 5; Galatians 2). As a result, the lie-believing, image-distorting life is dead, and in its place we have received a truth-believing, Christ-adoring life (Eph. 4:20-24). However, because of our tendency to return to the old image, we walk by faith until we see Jesus, when faith will correspond with sight (2 Cor. 5:6-7; Gal. 2:20). Until then, we fight, contend, and struggle. Believing the gospel is not a passive, one-time decision; it is an active, continual fight for faith in what God says is noble, true, and good."

(Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 58)

A vision correcting gospel

This is a fantastic excerpt by Jonathan K. Dodson from his book Gospel Centered Discipleship. Every sentence in this passage is worth contemplating. The Piperian paradigm of sanctification (Piper didn't invent it, but I first encountered it through him), beholding-is-becoming-ism, has become something that I find very helpful. In his book, Dodson formulates helpful discipleship issues and ideas along the same lines.

Only by looking to Jesus can our disfigured image be restored and our contemptuous disregard forgiven. When we look away from ourselves into the face of Christ, we behold "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). This gospel knowledge corrects our vision so that we not only behold but also become the image of the glory of God in Christ. True nobility and beauty converge in the image of Jesus.

It is a fundamental truth that we become what we behold. Children become like their parents; interns become like their mentors. If we behold the beauty of Christ, we become beautiful like Christ. While it is true that our first glance into the face of Christ restores our image (Rom. 5:1-2; 8:29-30), it is also true that we drift back into fashioning our own distorted image. We slip into our own distorted forms of masculinity and femininity. The gospel calls us back to look at Jesus over and over again. A disciple of Jesus is a person who so looks at Jesus that he or she actually begins to reflect his beauty in everyday life. The gospel gives us the eyes to Jesus as well as the power to look like him. It changes us into the image of his glory: "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" (2 Cor. 3:18). This transformative vision comes from the presence and power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17-18) ... gospel-centered disciples rely on the Spirit, who focuses our hearts' attention on Jesus, where beholding him results in becoming like him. This goal is worth fighting for.

Fighting for something

So you see, everyone fights for something. The desire to fight isn't masculine or feminine; it is human. Deep down we all want to be noticed, for our lives to count for something. We want to be beautiful or noble. The problem is that we direct our fighting desires toward the wrong things. We work hard at being noticed or entertained. We fall short of beauty and nobility. What would happen if, instead of spending hours in front of the video screen or mirror, we spent hours in front of the gospel? What if we fought for a more noble cause ... I need to fight for the nobility of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and to be ravished with the image of his glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). (Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 53-4)

The gospel-centered Great Commission

The Great Commission is not evangelism or discipleship centered; it is gospel centered. It calls us to make disciples by being a people who orbit around Jesus and his blood-bought benefits, not performance and self-made efforts. Disciples are gospel people who introduce and reintroduce themselves and others to the power of Jesus over and over again. A disciple of Jesus never stops learning the gospel, relating in the gospel, and communicating the gospel. (Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 41)

Gospel going, gospel baptizing, gospel teaching

This is a great excerpt from Gospel Centered discipleship, a superb book by Jonathan K. Dodson that I have posted about before here and here. This passage looks at the Great Commission and considers the implications it makes in regards to the gospel. Dodson suggests, helpfully and correctly in my opinion, that the Great Commission is really a gospel commission. And he emphasizes that this commission is not just to make disciples, but also to baptize them and teach them, And this making, baptizing, and teaching is all in reference to the gospel, and thus is centered on the Person of the gospel, Jesus..

"At the risk of oversimplification, we could say that the Great Commission commands us to learn the gospel by the gospel. We learn the breadth and depth of the good news by continually situating ourselves in it, through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Jesus is the gospel of our teaching and observing. It is this understanding of the gospel that makes disciples, which is why it would be better to refer to the [Great] commission as the "Gospel Commission." The Gospel Commission sends us to teach and observe the gospel.

With this all too brief explanation of the Great Commission directives, we must conclude that the gospel isn't just for evangelism, the initial making of disciples. It is also for discipleship, the continual making of disciples. Jesus' view of discipleship is radically gospel centered. The gospel is for not-yet disciples and already disciples. The gospel people believe to be baptized is the same gospel people believe to be sanctified (through the work of the Spirit). Followers of Jesus make and mature disciples by going with the gospel, baptizing disciples into gospel community, and teaching the gospel. We are to go in the power of the gospel, baptize into the grace of the gospel, and teach the Person of the gospel. Jesus is the ground of our going, the goal of our baptizing, and the gospel of our teaching. Making disciples is radically Jesus centered. This is how we make disciples-gospel going, gospel baptizing, gospel teaching." (35)

What are disciples?

From Gospel Centered Discipleship by Jonathan K. Dodson:

The word disciple is used more frequently than Christian to refer to believers in the Bible. This repeated usage tells us that disciple is a fundamental category for Christians. We are disciples first and parents, employees, pastors, deacons, and spouses second. Disciple is an identity; everything else is a role. Our roles are temporary but our identity will last forever. Marvelous. If this is true, it is incredibly important to have a sound definition for the word disciple. (29)

Dodson works his way through some foundational ideas about disciples and arrives at a definition of the word:

A disciple of Jesus, then, is someone who learns the gospel, relates in the gospel, and communicates the gospel. (38)

Fight to believe the gospel

From the introduction of a wonderful book on discipleship, written by Jonathan K. Dodson, called Gospel Centered Discipleship:

As we give and receive the gospel, we don't linger in imperfection, unbelief, disobedience, and failure. The Bible repeatedly tells us to fight. We have to fight to believe the gospel. Otherwise, we will slide back into individualistic, indifferent, or professionalized discipleship. This fight is a fight of faith. It is a struggle to believe what the gospel truly promises over what sin deceitfully promises. We need to remind one another that Jesus has not called us to performance or indifference but to faith in him. We need relationships that are so shaped by the gospel that we will exhort and encourage one another to trust Jesus every single day. (Dodson, Jonathan K. Gospel-centered Discipleship. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012. Print. 18)