Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. –Ephesians 4:29
If the words I speak today are informed by Eph 4:29, I will leave behind me a trail of edified souls as a result of conversation with me. -CJ Mahaney via Twitter
“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” -Romans 8:3-4
I can approach the throne of God with confidence. Not because I’ve done a good job at my spiritual duties, but because I’m clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. -CJ Mahaney in Living the Cross-Centered Life
“But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8
When you’re tempted to doubt God’s love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Savior, and realize why He is there. I believe His Father would whisper to us, ‘Isn’t this sufficient? I haven’t spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him — for you. What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?’
— C. J. Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life (Sisters, Or.: Multnomah Books, 2006), 56 [via Of First Importance]
When you’re tempted to doubt God’s love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Savior, and realize why He is there. I believe His Father would whisper to us, ‘Isn’t this sufficient? I haven’t spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him — for you. What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?’
Living the Cross Centered Life(Sisters, Or.: Multnomah Books, 2006), 56
“…but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…” -Philippians 2:7
Fundamentally, you understand the substitution of Jesus. On top of that understanding of what Jesus did and how he did it—then you understand how his life can be an example for us as we are called to imitate him in giving our lives in loving service for others, in being willing to suffer and even to die for doing good. –Mark Dever at Next 2010
In other words, until we fully appreciate the work of the Savior we cannot follow the example of the Savior. -CJ Mahaney blogging about Mark Dever’s message at Next 2010
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” -Matthew 1:21
That baby was born so that “he who had no sin” would become “sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The baby’s destiny from the moment of his conception was hell—hell in the place of sinners. When I look into the manger, I come away shaken as I realize again that he was born to pay the unbearable penalty for my sins.
That’s the message of Christmas: God reconciled the world to himself through Christ, man’s sin has alienated him from God, and man’s reconciliation with God is possible only through faith in Christ…Christmas is disturbing.
[William H. Smith, as quoted by CJ Mahaney in “Disturbing Christmas“]
“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” -Romans 8:32
“During this time of year, it may be easy to forget that the bigger purpose behind Bethlehem was Calvary. But the purpose of the manger was realized in the horrors of the cross. The purpose of his birth was his death.
Or to put it more personally: Christmas is necessary because I am a sinner. The incarnation reminds us of our desperate condition before a holy God.”
[From “Disturbing Christmas,” a must-read article by CJ Mahaney.]
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” -Colossians 3:2
“When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin lose their attraction and disappear. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.” -John Owen
[as quoted in Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, edited by C.J. Mahaney, pg. 108]
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” -Galatians 4:4-7
“I was adopted when I was eighteen years old. I wasn’t an orphan, the way most people think of that term. I wasn’t an abandoned child. But I was in a condition far more serious: I was a stranger to the family of God, a slave to sin, and an object of the justified wrath of God.”
[excerpt from C.J. Mahaney‘s forward to Dr. Russell Moore‘s Adopted for Life: read full forward]
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” -1 John 2:15
“In the end, the sum of all beauty is Christ, and the sin of all worldliness is to diminish our capacity to see Him and be satisfied in Him and show Him compellingly to a perishing world.” -John Piper
[excerpt from John Piper‘s forward to Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, edited by C.J. Mahaney, pg. 13; Crossway Books 2008]
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” -James 1:22-24
Wouldn’t you be just a little concerned if you knew someone who got up each day, looked in the mirror, and walked away without making any adjustments? How long would that person be presentable to others? How long would you wait before you offered him a comb? It’s an absurd scenario…or is it? According to James, this is exactly what happens every time we encounter Scripture (the mirror) and then walk away without making any changes.
[C. J. Mahaney in Why Small Groups?, as featured on Fighter Verses]
New Life Baptist Church 