Habakkuk 2:4 is a classic place where we’re taught the idea that God mercifully works to make us His own.  Here’s more:

1.) Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
–From the Westminster Shorter Catechism

2.) We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice on our behalf. By his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God. Inasmuch as Christ was given by the Father for us, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in place of our own, freely and not for anything in us, this justification is solely of free grace, in order that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from this free justification.
–Point 8, The Justification of Sinners in the Gospel Coalition Confessional Statement

3.) The doctrine of justification, the storm center of the Reformation, was a major concern of the apostle Paul. For him it was the heart of the gospel (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-5:21; Gal. 2:15-5:1) shaping both his message (Acts 13:38-39) and his devotion and spiritual life (2 Cor. 5:13-21; Phil. 3:4-14). Though other New Testament writers affirm the same doctrine in substance, the terms in which Protestants have affirmed and defended it for almost five centuries are drawn primarily from Paul.

Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9-24), accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. This justifying sentence is God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 5:21).    –JI Packer, article on justification

God moves powerfully through our feeble imperfect prayers.  He just does.  As Tim Keller has written, “Throughout the Old and New Testaments and church history, every spiritual awakening was founded on corporate, prevailing, intensive, kingdom-centered prayer. We cannot create spiritual renewal by ourselves, but we can “prepare the altar” and ask God to send his Holy Spirit to change our hearts, our churches, and our communities.”

Come to Room 122 anytime between 5-6pm Sunday to join in Kingdom Centered Prayer.  Please note this will be happening simultaneously with the Summer Fellowship Event that runs from 5-8pm.

You can read Kingdom Centered Prayer online.

Today a gentlemen in the church asked me about the canon of scripture.  After sending him over some resources, I thought it might be good to make them more widely available.  Enjoy and learn.

1.) The Canon of the New Testament, by FF Bruce

2.) New Covenant Scriptures —-by Dr. Charles E. Hill, is professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.

3.) In centuries past, the church was faced with the important task of recognizing which books belong in the Bible. The Bible itself is not a single book but a collection of many individual books. What the church sought to establish was what we call the canon of sacred Scripture. The word canon comes from a Greek word that means “standard or measuring rod.” So the canon of sacred Scripture delineates the standard that the church used in receiving the Word of God.  Read the entire article Tota Scriptura, by RC Sproul

4.) The Canon of Scripture, by John Frame

Sundays in August in our Adult Ed, at 9am and 10:30 in Room 122.

“Dispatches from the Front is a thoughtful, moving, understated, and ultimately convicting series of videos depicting the work of the gospel in some of the most challenging corners of the world. Far from glorying in celebrity missions, the stories in these videos depict the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, sometimes in the teeth of virulent opposition. Here are brothers and sisters in Christ who in God’s grace display faithfulness and transcendent joy, unflagging zeal to share the gospel, and an unfettered allegiance to King Jesus. To watch the kingdom advance in the teeth of these challenges is to learn humility and rekindle contrition, faith, and intercessory prayer.”

—D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; President and Co-founder, The Gospel Coalition