Faith that is warming itself at the fire of God’s love …

How blessed I was by our small group last night.

(Yes, yes, we didn’t cancel small group. I Clorox-wiped down everything and did my best to not share germs, but I thought it’d be OK to risk it since we weren’t “captive” in little rooms with little children sitting around little tables (like co-op would’ve been) … so I guess I DO fall somewhere in the middle of all of your excellent comments from yesterday. Thanks for those, by the way!)

We’re continuing to study Galatians and last night we looked, in particular, at how the gospel turns us away from our idols.

I’m assuming that most of my blog friends have already studied the topic of idolatry a lot, so I won’t go into a teaching on “the basics.”

(But if you haven’t studied this topic, I encourage you to do so! Elyze Fitzpatrick’s Idols of the Heart is a good, basic introduction; as is Ken Sande’s The Peacemaker. And if you want to go deeper, anything by David Powlison or the CCEF authors will be, I’m sure, rich and challenging (and encouraging!).

Oh, and that encouraging part is important, isn’t it? Otherwise, it can be very easy to slip off into condemnation rather than conviction once we begin to see “the sin under every sin” that idolatry is. So black are our hearts! And so deep is our depravity! If we are convicted and then attempt to moralize or psychologize our way out–it will lead only to despair.)

So what do we do? How do we turn away from our idols? We run to Christ and believe Him. By faith, by grace, we stop “believing that our personal security rests on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life” and instead? “We start each day with our personal security resting on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ.”

“The faith that is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness.”

This morning? This day? I am praying that we will all tuck up under that blanket of warmth, face-forward, heated to our very core by the knowledge of and confidence that we are not our own, but we have been bought with a Great Price (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Redeemed now, we can never and will never be forsaken–for God will not forsake His children (Psalm 99:14).

Alleluia! Thank God for the gospel. Thank God for Christ!

We’re off to the airport now! Soph’s happily ensconced with Uncle TJ (who, by the way, has some STUNNING paintings up right now, including a FRAMED one that would be an IDEAL Christmas present for someone special in your life), Auntie Samara, Scout & William. And I’m already missing her so much that my heart hurts. I’m sure I’ll be OK once I get moving and the wonderful CCEF Conference begins, but here at home? In the quietness of the early morning with Lili snoring at my feet? My momma heart is keenly aware that something is “not the way it’s supposed to be.”

So with that, I’ll head on up for final packing.

Hope you enjoy a wonderful Wednesday! “Warming yourself at the fire of God’s love …”

Yours,
Tara B.

PS
All of the quotes above came from Richard Lovelace’s, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal. I’d never heard of Richard Lovelace before, but I really want to read this book now!

PPS
If you’d like to do your devotional today on that rich truth that you have been “bought with a price,” I reviewed this Spurgeon sermon this morning and was “warmed” with the gospel. I heartily commend it to you.