A LITTLE OF CHRIST, PLEASE!

D. A. Carson:

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to basic Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher’s sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity. (A Call To Spiritual Reformation,121)

SLIDING TOWARD GODLESSNESS

D. A. Carson:

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

THE LOVE OF GOD

D. A. Carson:

“The love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.” (The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, 11)

SLOUCHING AWAY FROM HOLINESS

D.A. Carson:

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

God’s Providential Love

D.A. Carson:

God’s providential love over the entire universe: Not only did God make the universe and call it “very good” (Gen. 1:31), but even now in its disordered and rebellious state, Jesus teaches us that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 4:45). That this is an act of love on God’s part is shown by what Jesus says next: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” (Matt. 5:46). In other words, our responsibility to love our enemies is grounded in the fact that God providentially loves the just and the unjust. (Love in Hard Places)

Sin Deserves Wrath

D. A. Carson

From the desk of D. A. Carson

“If in fact we believe that our sin properly deserves the wrath of God, then when we experience the sufferings of this world, all of them the consequences of human rebellion, we will be less quick to blame God and a lot quicker to recognize that we have no fundamental right to expect a life of unbroken ease and comfort. (Carson, How Long, O Lord? 47)

D.A. Carson: “We Will Not Drift Toward Holiness!”

D. A. Carson

Quoting D.A. Carson:

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. (Reflections, Christianity Today, 7-31-00)