An Awesome Quote

My friend Ryan Beardsley just posted this exact quote on his blog, but I couldn't help pasting it here as well! The truth in these statements is profound and life-changing.

"The first foundation of the delight a true saint has in Christ is His own perfection; and the first foundation of the delight he has in Christ, is His own beauty; He appears in Himself the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely. The way of salvation by Christ is a delightful way to him, for the sweet and admirable manifestations of the divine perfections in it: the holy doctrines of the gospel, by which God is exalted and man abased, holiness honoured and promoted, sin greatly disgraced and discouraged, and free and sovereign love manifested, are glorious doctrines in his eyes, and sweet to his taste, prior to any conception of his interest in these things. Indeed, the saints rejoice in their interest in God, and that Christ is theirs, and so they have great reason, but this is not the first spring of their joy. They first rejoice in God as glorious and excellent in Himself, and then secondarily rejoice in the fact that so glorious a God is theirs."

Jonathan Edwards (Religious Affections, 176).

Apologies!

It's been four months since my last post and I apologize. After a semester and a half I am still learning to fit everything I have to do into my schedule and somewhere along the line updating this blog just fell through the cracks. So let's see. Where to start? God blessed me with a great first semester of seminary. He gave me the grace to work hard and do well in all my classes, and also allowed me to meet a lot of awesome people. One of the awesome things about Trinity is that people come here from all over the world to get the training they need to handle the Word of God faithfully so they can spread the gospel to the people in their own countries. On my own hall I have the privilege of living in between one guy from Sri Lanka and another from South Korea. A little further down the hall is a man from Indonesia and a guy from Romania. Some of these guys have parted from their wives and children for a time in order to attend school here. It's amazing to see their dedication to Christ and the gospel that sustains them through such sacrifices.

God also provided me with a very interesting part-time job last August that has been a great blessing. At the beginning of last semester I began working at Kelley and Spalding Funeral Home, where my friend Ryan Beardsley and I work as visitation attendants. It's been a wonderful job in that the hours are usually in the evenings, the people I work with are extremely enjoyable, and I am often able to study vocabulary while working. I am also thankful to have a job while in seminary that keeps me reminded often of the reality that I will very shortly be with the Lord Jesus. John Piper recently posted this amazing quote on his website:

"You can be so interested in great theological and intellectual and philosophical problems that you tend to forget that you are going to die."

-Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 193.

Pray for me that all of my studying and learning will be done in full recognition of my own approaching death, and in steadfast faith in the great hope of the gospel. There is so much more to tell, but this will have to do for now. My next post will hopefully be quite sooner than the last one. Also, I'm experimenting with different colors for my blog. I can't seem to find the right one. Any suggestions let me know!