15th Century Thoughts on 'Confirming Faith with Experience'

Juan De Valdes was a 15th century Italian reformer, coming to the revelation of Justification by faith through the grace of God in Christ alone without any knowledge of Luther and his ongoing revelations elsewhere in Europe. I am just getting caught up in some of his writings so share some here with you.

These regard the importance of confirming our faith with experience;

"Supposing someone asks me, 'How shall I, a believer, confirm my faith by experience?' I would reply with two things.
First of all, let him divest himself of all Christless modes of justification, both of those that are negative and those that are positive. Let him only embrace the justification that is in Christ, which consists in believing. Let him strive in prayer to God ans ask that He would cause him to feel peace of conscience, that He would mortify him, and that He would quicken him.
In the second place, let him keep the strictest reckoning with himself as to his works, words, and thoughts. He will know by these means what progress he has made in mortification and quickening. Let his purpose be to increase every day in his experience of mortification and quickening so that he strives to acquire that Christian experience by which faith is established."

Basically die to self daily and seek only to pursue all Christian works with your righteousness in Christ as the only basis. Not easy, but no one ever said truly living this faith was.

Simon

Doing Something Right?

Oftentimes in our journey of faith, particularly in Christian Leadership we encounter seasons where we feel we are literally at war. This reflects the reality revealed to us by scripture that there is an enemy of those who follow Christ. He is the 'father of lies' he comes to 'steal, kill & destroy,' he is the 'accuser of the brothers [follower of Jesus' and he is constantly at work to distract us from the mission and to steal our joy and assurance in the great love of Christ!

Spurgeon alludes to this with fantastic words here:

"[if anything] makes me believe the work [fruitful ministry] is genuine is just this - that the enemies of Christ are exceedingly mad at it! When the devil roars at anything, you may rest assured there is some good in it. The devil is not like some dogs we know of; he never barks unless there is something to bark at. When Satan howls, we may rest assured he is afraid his kingdom is in danger."

We war against a conquered foe.

Simon

This is mum's 'sad face'

The face Malachi pulls when symbolizing mum's sadness!

SImon

Oh no someone's taken over the church office.

He just pushed me out the chair and told me he could do a better job. Who am I to argue?

Simon

Gosh makes you want to give all you are to the church

People, people, people if you are a part of God's church, you have been called to be a part of the greatest organism in all of reality. What a joy. Just let Driscoll in this video EXPLODE your mind about what is the church!

What is the Church by Mark Driscoll from Vintage21 Church on Vimeo.

Thank you Jesus that you died to make such a glorious bride!

Simon