I will not love a world that crucified him

The wonderful thing about God is that He always seems to know just what you need to hear and brings it. This time it came in adult class, which started going through Ryle's Holiness this week. I've been told by some people that Ryle is hard to read, but frankly I don't see it. There is no one else who wields the same level of Biblical knowledge combined with the tact and balanced approach clearly born of soaking one's soul in that knowledge for protracted periods. If only the Anglican church today held a candle to the religion of Ryle, it sure would be something.

I will not love a world that crucified him,
neither cherish nor endure the sin
that put him to grief,
nor suffer him to be wounded by others.
-- Valley of Vision

Nothing motivates the putting of sin to death and moves the soul to quit affection for the wolrld quite like the realization of what it cost the Redeemer.

How can the works of believers please God, since they're still shot through and through with sin? Even the best works performed by those who are not united to Christ are like submitting a 5-year-old's art drawing to a professional art contest. Even at their best, they don't come within missile range of being worthy of anything more than being immediately thrown in the trash bin. But take those same drawings and give them to that child's father, and they are suddenly priceless. The value comes not from the skill of the drawing, but the preexisting relationship between the artist and the benefactor. God is pleased not because of the quality of the deeds, but by the efforts of His adopted children in Christ to please him, weak though those efforts be.

"Walking in a manner worthy of the Lord" can never mean to walk in a way that would make one deserving, even in the least, of the favor of God because that is simply not possible. Even though we were still in our originally created innocence, we could never come close to meriting the condescension of Christ or the grace imparted by the indwelling Spirit. That said, saints worthy of the name so mirrors Christ that anyone who gets to know them should be able to at least say "if Christ makes a person into that, then tell me more about Him". There are sadly far too many who name the name of Christ of whom it can be rightly said, as I saw on a bumper sticker, "Jesus save us ..... from your followers." As John the Baptist [no not me :-)] put it, "bring forth fruits worthy of your repentance."