A True Confession of Man's Depravity

We in our day have a very over-inflated view of man, and a under-inflated view of a Holy God. We would like to think of ourselves as being saved because of some spark of religion or goodness that dwells in us that causes us to turn to God. We however exist only by His grace and are saved in no less of a manner: by His grace. We love Him only because He first loved us (I Jn. 4:19). We often present a weak/false Gospel and lead people into a false conversion thorugh a trite little prayer that we in our man-centered formula have concocted. Consider in opposition to this a prayer that is more accurate of our state that Dr. John Gerstner has written entitled,
A Seeker's Prayer.

Dear God, whom I hate with all my being precisely because you hate and threaten me with hell, I hate this punishment perhaps even more than I hate you. Or, maybe I should say that I love my comfort even more than I hate you. For that reason I am asking a favor of you. I want you to make me love you, whom I hate even when I ask this and even more because I have to ask this. I am being frank with you because I know it is no use to be otherwise. You know even better than I how much I hate you and that I love only myself. It is no use for me to pretend to be sincere. I most certainly do not love you and do not want to love you. I hate the thought of loving you but that is what I'm asking because I love myself. If you can answer this 'prayer' I guess the gift of gratitude will come with it and then I will be able to do what I would not think of doing now—thank you for making me love you whom I hate. Amen.

London's Greatest Tragedy is Not Terror

Last Thursday the confidence of many Brits was shaken (and rightly so) by the terror strike on their mass transit system. The rest of the world looked on in horror as the news feeds began to poor in via the internet and television networks, showing the mangled wreckage of those trains and buses. There in a city who once boasted in its legacy of great cathedrals and universities where the Word of God thundered in power and purity, but now has forgotten the roots of her stability. Over the course of the last 200 years England has seen a gradual paradigm shift from the God Who fueled her greatness to the polytheistic cancer that is causing her ultimate demise. So while the citizens of England search for the answers of how to deal with terrorism, I urge them to remember that God, Jehovah God, is a jealous and consuming fire and He will not overlook their seeking of strange gods.