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The more we let God take over, the more truly ourselves we become—-because He made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be… It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

… Where Christian faith is offered as a means of finding personal wholeness rather than holiness, the church has become worldly.

There are many other forms of worldliness that are comfortably at home in the evangelical church today. Where it substitutes intuition and feelings for biblical truth, it is being worldly. Where its appetite for the Word has been lost in favor of light discourses and entertainment, it is being worldly. Where it has restructured what it is and what it offers around the rhythms of consumption, it is being worldly, for customers are actually sinners whose place in the church is not to be explained by a quest for self-satisfaction but by a need for repentance. Where it cares more about success than about faithfulness, more about size than spiritual health, it is being worldly. Where the centrality of God to worship is lost amidst the need to be distracted and to have fun, the church is being worldly because it is simply accommodating itself to the preeminent entertainment culture in the world. Is it not odd that in so many church services each Sunday, services that are ostensibly about worshiping God, those in attendance may not be obliged to think even once about his greatness, grace, and commands? Worship in such contexts often has little or nothing to do with God.

Here is a fundamental rule of thumb to test whether you are living in accordance with gospel logic. What is your attitude toward people who excel you in anything? It might be the creation of wealth, it might be artistic giftedness, or it might be their ability to live comfortably with others. It could be anything. What is your attitude toward that? Does that kind of thing cause you to spur yourself on in glad imitation? Do you rejoice in what God has given to others? Do you want to grow to be like that, joining them in the pursuit of God-honoring excellence?

Or do you carp and criticize? Do you accuse them of cheating? Do you search out those who have conspired to make you come in third? Do you goad yourself with an envy prod to help you try to catch up with them? And if that is not possible, do you try to drag them down to your level, if only in your heart?

It is this attitude that the cross of Christ puts to death. And when it is put to death, a great deal of the trouble in the world is put to death along with it. Christians who understand gospel logic should be, taking one thing with another, the most accomplished and least envious people in the world. That is what the cross represents and means.

It is always the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us pay attention to ourselves instead of to Christ. He insinuates, ‘Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you do not have the joy of His children; you have such a weak hold of Jesus.’ All these are thoughts about self, and we will never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self. He tells us that we are nothing, but that Christ is all in all.

Isn’t God supposed to be good? Isn’t He supposed to love us? Does God want us to suffer? What if the answer to that question is yes? See, I’m not sure that God particularly wants us to be happy.
I think He wants us to be able to love and be loved. He wants us to grow up.

I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that He makes us the gift of suffering. To put it another way, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.

Christ has come into this mutinous world, which he made for his own glory, and paid for an amnesty with his own blood. Everyone who lays down the weaponry of unbelief will be absolved from all crimes against the Sovereign of the universe. By faith alone enemies will become happy subjects of an everlasting kingdom of justice and joy. Advancing this cause with Christ is worth your life.