Self-promotion

Severing Our Love Affairs

Tony Reinke Cross-centered life, Legalism, Legalist, Self-promotion, Self-strength, Thomas Schreiner

Thomas Schreiner, Galatians (Zondervan, 2010), 392:

The cross plays a bookends role in the letter [of Galatians], for just as Paul begins the letter by featuring the freedom won in the cross, so too he closes the letter by underlining the significance of the cross.

Paul’s only boast is in Christ’s cross, by which he is crucified to the world and the world is crucified to him (6:14). The cross and eschatology are inseparable. Just as the cross liberated believers from the present evil age (1:4), so too it crucifies attachment to this world (6:14). The opponents boasted in circumcising converts and took pleasure in external accomplishments because they lived to win the applause of others (6:12–13). They lived for comfort in order to avoid persecution.

The cross severs a love affair with the world and grants a person (by grace!) a desire to boast only in the cross. A new reality—a new age—has begun through the cross, and Paul summons the Galatians and all believers to find their joy only in the cross and to renounce any boasting in human accomplishments.

Humbling Orthodoxy

Tony Reinke C.H. Spurgeon, Calvinism, Election, Humility, Predestination, Pride, Self-promotion, Sin

The doctrine of God’s divine election of unworthy sinners is a humbling truth. Or to use Spurgeon’s words, “a sense of election causes a low opinion of self.” That is the bullet point under which the following quote from Spurgeon comes to us, as recorded in a sermon delivered on July 1, 1888:

Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.

Paltering with Synergism

Tony Reinke Self-promotion, Self-strength

Isn’t this so true of the struggle to release our grip on self-righteousness, self-respect, self-affirmation? From P. T. Forsyth’s book The Cruciality of the Cross [page 47]:

“A man needs something to make him confident that his past sin, and the sin he is yet sure to commit, are all taken up into God’s redemption, and the great transaction of his moral life is done. … It is not easy.

Theological belief may not be so hard. But for a man to make Christ’s atonement the sole centre of his moral life, or of his hope for the race, is not easy. Nothing is so resented by the natural self as the hearty admission of man’s native lostness and helplessness, especially when he thinks of all the heroisms, integrities, and charities which ennoble the race.

It is not always pride, it is often a mere natural self-affirmation. It is a native self-respect, which makes him shrink from submitting himself absolutely to the judgment of another. Even in his repentance he does not want to lose all self-respect. He feels he cannot amend the life of conscience, and repair the old faults, without, some remnant of self-respect to work from.

His new shoots must come from the old stump, which must not be rooted out. He is fighting for the one remnant of a moral nature which if he lost he fears he would be less than a man. He does not easily realise what a poor thing his self-justification must be compared with his justification by God, his self-repair beside God’s new creation. He does not feel how sterile the stump is, how poorly his moral remnant would serve him for his moral need, how that recuperative vitality is the one thing he lacks, how absolute God’s grace is, and how complete is the moral re-creation in Christ. He palters with a synergism which is always trying to do the best for human nature in a bargain with God.”

Fool Moon Rising

Tony Reinke BR > Crossway, Children, Self-promotion, Self-strength

If you were a reader of this blog back in 2007, Tom Fluharty needs no introduction. You’ve already heard about my love and respect for this man. While my family and I lived in Minneapolis we met Tom, his wife Kristi, and their wonderful family and I doubt our lives have been the same since.

Tom is a world-class painter/illustrator and the only thing more amazing than his family and his artistic skill and his passion to lead worship in his local church is the story of how God broke into his life and converted him. I sat down with Tom two years ago in Minneapolis to record his testimony.

Today I’m honored to announce that Tom and Kristi have completed their first children’s book, Fool Moon Rising (Crossway 2009). The book is now available for pre-order and will be available at the end of September. Parents and grandparents now have at their fingertips an attractive book that will help them explain to their children the stark contrast between a self-glorifying life and a God-glorifying life. This distinction is a very critical lesson in life, but it’s not always a spiritual lesson that parents find easy to articulate to children, and especially in a way that highlights the importance of our Savior. This book does it!

I’ve read this book 20 times and I love it! My kids love it! I think any reader of Fool Moon Rising will be compelled by the lively illustrations and hear the unmistakable urgency of its message.

To help you get a feel for the book’s storyline, development, its purpose, authors, and to see examples of Tom’s illustrations, see the following website:

foolmoonrising.com

Here is the publisher’s description:

This rhyming, rollicking tale tells of a crime of cosmic proportions: the moon, blinded by pride, fails to see the true source of his abilities—the light provided by the sun. He boasts of his ability to shine, to change shape throughout each month, and to swell the tides. One day, overwhelmed by a piercing ray of sunshine, the moon repents of his pride and changes his ways, and from that point on he is happy to reflect the sun’s light.

This beautifully illustrated book introduces the concept of humility to children. Readers will be reminded that everything we have, including our gifts and talents, is from God. Just as the moon learns to boast only of the sun, children—and their parents—learn that to boast of anything other than the Son is utter foolishness.

The silenced M’Cheyne learns humility

Tony Reinke Banner of Truth, Great Quotes, Humility, M'Cheyne, Pastoral Failure, Pastoral Sin, Preaching, Pride, Self-promotion

“July 8 [1836 diary] – Since Tuesday have been laid up with illness. Set by once more for a season to feel my unprofitableness and cure my pride. When shall this self-choosing temper be healed? ‘Lord, I will preach, run, visit, wrestle,’ said I. ‘No, thou shalt lie in thy bed and suffer,’ said the Lord. Today missed some fine opportunities of speaking a word for Christ. The Lord saw I would have spoken as much for my own honor as His, and therefore shut my mouth. I see a man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ’s sake – until he gives up striving to attract people to himself, and seeks only to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this!”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne in Andrew Bonar, Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Banner of Truth: 1844/2004), p. 45