Resources on Sanctification
Charles Hodge on Repentance
Charles Hodge lived a life of remarkable piety and learning, and in Andrew Hoffecker he has a biographer who tells his story well. Here’s Hodge on repentance: Our repentance needs to be repented of, unless it leads us to confession and restitution in cases of private injury; unless it causes us to forsake not merely outward sins, which attract the notice of others, but those which lie concealed in the heart; unless it makes us choose the service of God, as that which is right and congenial, and causes us to live not for ourselves but for him who loved us and gave himself for us. – W. Andrew Hoffecker, Charles Hodge: The Pride of Princeton (P&R: 2011), 224.
Read More“Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it” (Proverbs 13:11). Hastily acquired wealth can disappear as quickly as a federal budget surplus. A lottery winner hits the jackpot, wins a large fortune, and relaxes, ready to glide through life without a financial care in the world. But his “good luck” doesn’t last. Within a few years his relationships are in shambles, his fortune gone. Likewise an inheritance launches a young man on a spending rampage. Within a matter of months he ends up with as little as he began, and for the remainder of his life, he’s haunted by a once in a lifetime opportunity squandered away. The sad failure of both men is…
Read More“What our contemporary writers often do not understand is why our Western experience washes away at our own personal reality. Of course, our Western societies are consumer-driven, suffused with change, large and anonymous in how they work. They favor – indeed, almost demand – a self that is flexible, malleable, light, and free, that can move when movement is called for and adapt when adaptation is called for. A flexible biography, a self that can remake itself, shift and change, refurbish itself, reinvent itself, reimagine itself, is the counterpart to our market-driven economy with its constantly changing conditions, demands, and opportunities. This, of course, makes a mockery of what was once thought to be a virtue – the ideas of…
Read MoreOur pleasure and our duty, Though opposite before, Since we have seen His beauty, Are joined to part no more: It is our highest pleasure, No less than duty’s call, To love Him beyond measure, And serve Him with our all. – John Newton
Read MoreHoliness by J.C. Ryle was the first book I read devoted to the believer’s personal holiness. Through the years I’ve returned to it many times for instruction and encouragement, and it remains atop my list of recommended books on the subject. Ryle loved the the gospel of God’s justifying grace in Christ. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Not human works but Christ, by his meritorious life and atoning death, saves believing, repentant sinners. God justifies, and he also sanctifies as he works in believers to purify and make them holy…
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