Daily Carson 05/10/08

A final quote from the Afterward of A Call to Spiritual Reformation, by DA Carson.

And now, Lord God, I ask your blessing on all who read this book, for without it there will be no real benefit. We may have education, but not compassion; we may have forms of praying, but no fruitful adoration and intercession; we may have oratory, but be lacking in unction; we may thrill your people, but not transform them; we may expand their minds, but display too little wisdom and understanding; we may amuse many, but find few who are solidly regenerated by your blessed Holy Spirit. So we ask you for your blessing, for the power of the Spirit, that we may know you better and grow in our grasp of your incalculable love for us. Bless us, Lord God, not with ease or endless triumph, but with faithfulness. Bless us with the right number of tears, and with minds and hearts that hunger both to know and to do your Word. Bless us with a profound hunger and thirst for righteousness, a zeal for the truth, a love of people. Bless us with the perspective that weighs all things from the vantage point of eternity. Bless us with a transparent love of holiness. Grant to us strength in weakness, joy in sorrow, calmness in conflict, patience when opposed or attacked, trustworthiness under temptation, love when we are hated, firmness and farsightedness when the climate prefers faddishness and drift.
We beg of you, holy and merciful God, that we may be used by you to extend your kingdom widely, to bring many to know and love you truly.
Grant above all that our lives will increasingly bring glory to our dear Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, equip us with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Click here to read all the Carson quotes I posted from this book.

Daily Carson 05/09/08

Another great quote from page 223 of A Call to Spiritual Reformation, by DA Carson.

He asked for strength that he might achieve;
he was made weak that he might obey.
He asked for health that he might do greater things;
he was given infirmity that he might do better things.
He asked for riches that he might be happy;
he was given poverty that he might be wise.
He asked for power that he might have the praise of men;
he was given weakness that he might feel the need of God.
He asked for all things that he might enjoy life;
he was given life that he might enjoy all things.
He has received nothing that he asked for, all that he hoped for;
his prayer is answered. -Anon

Click here to read all the Carson quotes I posted from this book.

Daily Carson 05/08/08

Another great quote from page 223 of A Call to Spiritual Reformation, by DA Carson.

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of his salvation know,
And seek more earnestly his face.

I thought that in some favoured hour
At once he'd answer my request;
And, by his love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this, he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry power of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

"Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried.
"Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?"
"Tis in this way," the Lord replied,
"I answer prayer for grace and faith."

"These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free,
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may'st seek thy all in me!" -Anon

Click here to read all the Carson quotes I posted from this book.

Daily Carson 05/07/08

We return this week to finish out the last few quotes that I took down when reading A Call to Spiritual Reformation, by DA Carson. I can't wait to read this book again!

Suppose, for argument's sake, that every time we asked God for anything and ended our prayers with some appropriate formula, such as "in Jesus' name," we immediately received what we asked for. How would we view prayer? How would we view God? Wouldn't prayer become a bit of clever magic? Wouldn't God himself become nothing more than an extraordinarily powerful genie, to be called up, not rubbing Aladdin's lamp, but by praying? "Please give me the ideal spouse, today. In Jesus' name, Amen." "Please raise up eighty-two more missionaries for Zaire, complete with their support, by the end of the week. In Jesus' name, Amen." What an easy and domesticated religion. But this is not true religion. This is magic, not worship; it is another power trip, not hearty submission to the lordship of Christ. It is superstition, not a personal relation with the Father God who is wise, good, and patient. He may give us what we ask for; he may make us wait; he may decline. He may give us the goal of what we ask for, but by quite another means, as when he provided Paul with more grace to cope with the suffering inflicted by the thorn in the flesh, rather than removing the thorn. (p. 222)

Click here to read all the Carson quotes I posted from this book.

Daily Carson 3/14/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

[The Bible] is rather more like a jigsaw puzzle whose Maker has guaranteed that all the pieces he has provided belong to the same puzzle, even though for various good reasons he has not given us all of them. "The secret things belong to the LORD," Moses tells us, "but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever" (Deut. 29:29). That means that we will always have gaps as we construct the puzzle; it means that clumsy players will try to force some pieces into slots where they do not belong and may be tempted to leave some pieces out because they cannot see where they fit in. (p. 205)

Daily Carson 3/13/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

This is Don Carson’s response to the popular poem “Abou ben Adam”

No thinking Christian will long identify with such sentimental twaddle. In the teaching of Jesus, the first command is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength; the second is to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matt. 22:37-40). Jesus does not suggest that the two commands are identical. Far from it: he enumerates two commands and sets them out in terms of their relative priorities: first and second. (p. 65)

Daily Carson 3/12/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

We Christians must constantly be reminded of the fact that just as we were saved by grace, so also are we sanctified and glorified by grace … We become fruitful by grace; we persevere by grace; we mature by grace; by grace we grow to love one another the more, and by grace we cherish holiness and a deepening knowledge of God. Therefore Paul reminds his readers at the end of his prayer that everything he has asked for is available only on the basis of grace. The Savior himself cannot be glorified in our lives, nor can we be finally glorified, apart from the grace that he provides. (p. 60)

Daily Carson 3/10/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

The truth is that every Christian who has thought long and hard about the cross begins to understand that God is not merely a stern dispenser of justice, nor merely a lover who lavishly forgives, but the Sovereign who is simultaneously perfect in holiness and perfect in love. His holiness demands retribution; his love sends his own Son to absorb that retribution on behalf of others. The cross simultaneously stands as the irrefutable evidence that God demands retribution, and cries out that it is the measure of God's love (Rom. 3:21-26). That is why, in the Christian view of things, forgiveness is never detached from the cross. In other words, forgiveness is never the product of love alone, still less of mawkish sentimentality. Forgiveness is possible only because there has been a real offense, and a real sacrifice to offset that offense. (p. 48)

Daily Carson 2/22/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

The critical turning point in their lives came when they believed the gospel: "you believed our testimony to you" (v.10). Beyond their conversion, however, Paul assumes that real Christians will ultimately persevere. The assumption is common in Scripture (e.g. Matt. 24:13; John 8:31; Heb 3:14; 1 John 2:18-19). Christians may stumble and fall, doubt like Thomas, and disown their Lord like Peter, but they ultimately will utter their "Amen" to Thomas's confession (John 20:28) and weep with Peter (Matt. 26:75)." (p. 45)

Daily Carson 2/21/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

If in our prayers we are to develop a mental framework analogous to Paul's, we must look for signs of grace in the lives of Christians, and give God thanks for them. … For what have we thanked God recently? Have we gone over a list of members at our local church, say, or over a list of Christian workers, and quietly thanked God for signs of grace in their lives? Do we make it a matter of growing conformity to Christ, exemplified in trust, reliability, love, and genuine spiritual stamina? (p. 44)

Daily Carson 2/20/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

But in the Western world we urgently need this advice, for many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers. Pray until you pray. (p. 37)

Daily Carson 2/19/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

What [the Puritans] meant is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying. We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty. To enter the spirit of prayer, we must stick to it for a while. If we "pray until we pray," eventually we come to delight in God's presence, to rest in his love, to cherish his will. Even in dark agonized praying, we somehow know we are doing business with God. In short, we discover a little of what Jude means when he exhorts his readers to "pray in the Holy Spirit" (Jude 20)--which presumably means it is treacherously possible to pray not in the Spirit. (p. 36)

Daily Carson 2/18/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

If a boy asks his father for several things, all within the father's power to give, the father may give him one of them right away, delay giving him another, decline to give him a third, set up a condition for a fourth. The child is not assured of receiving something because he has used the right incantation: that would be magic. The father may decline to give something because he knows it is not in the child's best interests. He may delay giving something else because he knows that so many requests from his young son are temporary and whimsical. He may also withhold something that he knows the child needs until the child asks for it in an appropriate way. But above all, the wise father is more interested in a relationship with his son than in merely giving him things. Giving him things constitutes part of that relationship but certainly not all of it. The father and son may enjoy simply going out for walks together. Often the son will talk with his father not to obtain something, or even to find out something, but simply because he likes to be with him. (p. 31)

Daily Carson 2/17/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

The reason we pray so little is that we do not plan to pray. Wise planning will ensure that we devote ourselves to prayer often, even if for brief periods: it is better to pray often with brevity than rarely but at length. But the worst option is simply not to pray--and that will be the controlling pattern unless we plan to pray. If we intend to change our habits, we must start here. (p. 20)

Daily Carson 2/16/08

Here is today's quote from Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation (see Intro):

In the biblical view of things, a deeper knowledge of God brings with it massive improvement in the other areas mentioned: purity, integrity, evangelistic effectiveness, better study of Scripture, improved private and corporate worship, and much more. But if we seek these things without passionately desiring a deeper knowledge of God, we are selfishly running after God's blessings without running after him. We are even worse than the man who wants his wife's services--someone to come home to, someone to cook and clean, someone to sleep with--without ever making the effort really to know and love his wife and discover what she wants and needs; we are worse than such a man, I say, because God is more than any wife, more than the best of wives: he is perfect in his love, he has made us for himself, and we are answerable to him. (p. 16)

Daily Carson

D.A. Carson has written a great book on prayer called A Call To Spiritual Reformation, in which he walks through the prayers of Paul's epistles, expositing rich lessons on prayer from the biblical text!

I typed up some of my favorite quotes from the book, and will be posting those daily for a while.

If you want an excellent, VERY thorough (10 pgs) outline of the book plus many quotes from the very quotable Carson, check out Dan Green's blog. Dan is a youth pastor in the UK, who named his dog Piper (that's right, after John)!

It is my prayer that A Call to Spiritual Reformation will encourage you in your walk with Christ, as it has in mine!

Let's get on with the first quote:

The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better. (p 15)