Nothing Thrills Like the Gospel

One of the marks of Gospel wakefulness is the the failure of anything else to thrill the soul like the Gospel. When the heart enjoys Christ and savours His power, sin grows bitter. Even good gifts that God made recede to their proper flavours. Good things that we have made 'god things' don't cease to be good; in fact they continue to provide pleasures and satisfactions but they keep their proper functions and blessings in service to the common grace the God of glory ascribed to them. 

Gospel wakefulness doesn't lead to asceticism. It does not lead to a withdrawal from society and simple pleasures into a monastic regimen. Rather, Gospel wakefulness is foremost about orienting your spiritual system around the sun. When the sun is the center of the solar system, the planets don't cease to exist. In fact they exist more securely, more beautifully, in their proper positions and proportions. With God at the centre of your universe of worship, with the Gospel at the centre of your life all other good gifts -peoples and pleasures, thoughts and things - take their proper place and proportion in our lives. They are more pleasing and enjoyable because they give the pleasures they are designed to give and no more. 

Gospel Wakefulness, Jared C. Wilson, Pp 59-60

Book Review: Gospel Deeps

Have you ever walked around your local book store, whether Christian or secular? Have you looked at what the popular books are? Self help books, dieting books, Amish fiction and children who 'went to heaven.' It's a brave man that writes books that fall into none of these categories.

Gospel Deeps is the third book i've read by Jared C. Wilson, following the excellent Your Jesus is too Safe, and the stellar Gospel Wakefulness. In those books Wilson pulled no punches in getting us away from 'Six flags over Jesus' and confronting us with the rugged, terrifying, comforting beauty of our Lord. Gospel Deeps is not a self help book. There are no 'six steps to going deep' in this book. There's no plan to change your life in thirty days, nothing that will fix your teenager by tomorrow evening. It's a breath of fresh air.

In last years Gospel Wakefulness, and in Gospel Deeps, Wilson shares something of his story with us, how he was brought, mercifully to the end of himself one day, lying on the carpet of his spare room. He's a man worth listening to because he knows the depths of Christ-less despair are matched only by the depths of Christ centred joy.

In ten chapters Wilson invites us to revel in the joy the Gospel, to glut ourselves on grace. He reminds us of the Gospel, he delights in the trinity, he calls us to remember the joy of fellowship with Christ and tells us again of the sharp, deathly edge to the atonement for sin. He doesn't hide from suffering, and shows us that God does indeed keep his best wine in the cellar of affliction. He rubs our hearts in the sheer bigness of the Gospel, and soothes our hearts with the immanence of our God.

Not a self help book. A helpful book.

You and I, your church, my church, The Church, we don't to spend our time analyzing and moralising, we need to spend our time remembering and proclaiming. We need to remember that the Gospel is the A-Z, the beginning and the end, we need to remember, and bathe, in the depths of the Gospel.

There is nothing new in this book, and that is the best recommendation i can give you. It reminds us, calls us, and allures us to the sweetness of the Gospel. And that's what we need.

Run, don't walk, to buy this book.

Malachi and Mark

Can i recommend two sermon series for your iPod? These have kept/are keeping me company as i mow the lawn and walk around our new neighbourhood. A series on Malachi by John Piper has helped me tremendously.

Pastor and author Jared C. Wilson is preaching through Mark in his church are the moment. These are some great messages!

Malachi: The Son of Righteousness will rise, John Piper.

Mark, Jared C. Wilson