Tried With Fire

Congratulations to Melissa, the providential winner of Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung. Thanks to everyone who entered. God willing, there will be a giveaway next month, so stay tuned...

Kevin DeYoung referenced this quote in Hole in Our Holiness . Here's the original: Modernity presents an interlocking system of values that has invaded and settled within the psyche of every person. Modernity is simply unprecedented in its power to remake human appetites, thinking processes, and values. It is, to put it in biblical terms, the worldliness of Our Time. For worldliness is the system of values and beliefs, behaviors and expectations, in any given culture that have at their center the fallen human being and that relegate to their periphery any thought about God. Worldliness is what makes sin look normal in any age and righteousness seem odd. Modernity is worldliness, and it has concealed its values so adroitly in the abundance, the comfort, and the wizardry of our age that even those who call themselves the people of God seldom recognize them for what they are. 1 So how are we doing with worldliness? How am I doing? Am I glad to embrace Christian freedom but without ...

It's giveaway time! I'll be giving away one copy of The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung.  To enter the giveaway, fill out the form below. The providential winner will be chosen on Tuesday, October 23 (US addresses only.) Thanks for entering! Holiness is the sum of a million little things - the avoidance of little evils and little foibles, the setting aside of little bits of worldliness and little acts of compromise, the putting to death of little inconsistencies and little indiscretions, the attention to little duties and little dealings, the hard work of little self-denials and little self-restraints, the cultivation of little benevolences and little forbearances. Are you trustworthy? Are you kind? Are you patient? Are you joyful? Do you love? These qualities, worked out in all the little things of life, determine whether you are a blight or blessing to everyone around you, whether you are an ugly spiritual eyesore or growing up into a good-looking Christian... ...

I don't think I've read a book by Kevin DeYoung that I didn't like, and this book is no exception.  In The Hole in Our Holiness , Pastor DeYoung addresses the concern that there's a disconnect between what we believe (or say we believe) about the gospel and godly living.  We've seen the harm that legalism has done, so there's a temptation to swing to the opposite extreme where we fear that any hint of calling Christians to holiness is a return to that bondage. But this should not be and is not the case. DeYoung calls believers to live lives consistent with what they believe - not to earn their salvation but because they have been saved. This is not a contradiction of the gospel of grace but a manifestation of the power of that gospel in our lives. We are becoming and should want to become who the gospel has declared us to be. Holiness is not : Mere rule keeping. Generational imitation. Generic Spirituality. "Finding Your True Self". The way...