On the Verge

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." -ephesians 2:1-3

Truths about our lives without Christ
1. We were dead
2. We walked in trespasses and sins
3. We followed the course of this world
4. We were obedient to the prince of the air (satan)
5. We lived in the passions of our flesh
6. We carried out whatever desires our mind and hormones directed us to
7. We stood under the wrath of God, with the rest of mankind.


"but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." - ephesians 2:4-10

Truths about God found in this text
1. God is rich in mercy
2. God has loved us with a great love
3. God loved us even when we were dead in our sins
4. God makes us alive with Christ
5. God saved us by grace
6. God has raised us up with Jesus
7. God is going to show us the immeasurable riches of His grace
8. We were saved by the grace of God through faith
9. Faith is a gift of God
10. We are God's workmanship


We were dead. God saved us. We followed the desires of our flesh which lead to death and He made us alive with Christ through His grace, and now we are seated next to Christ in the Heavenly places.

but God...

the gospel is a beautiful thing.

Labels: Calvinism, ephesians, gospel, grace

Posted by k jamison at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

In the life of the Christian I think it is essential for one to prioritize their beliefs. I want to always strive to put Jesus and His cross at the center of all I believe and do, and to see that while any other doctrinal issue might be important, it must not take the primary position that belongs to the cross. Now you could make a good argument that those secondary issues help us truly understand the cross, but for now, I'll just stick with what I said.

All of this to say that I really appreciated the following quote - even if it is aimed at a secondary issue. (which I'm still not sure if it really is a secondary issue...)

"What the Arminian wants to do is to arouse man's activity: what we want to do is to kill it once for all---to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must look upward. They seek to make the man stand up: we seek to bring him down, and make him feel that there he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to submit himself to God, and cry aloud, 'Lord, save, or we perish.' We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow." - C. H. Spurgeon






spurgeon is a gangster.

Labels: Calvinism, spurgeon

Posted by k jamison at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

Labels: Calvinism, church history, John Calvin

Posted by k jamison at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments