Ezra Reflections Archives - Page 2 of 6

10. A Watershed Moment

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

Most of us have moments in life that we look back on as turning-point or watershed moments. Life is never quite the same after them. I had one of those moments ten years ago while reading a book, Theology for the Community of God by Stanley J. Grenz. In a chapter “The Fellowship of Jesus the Christ with Humankind,” Grenz said things that helped me see the humanity of Jesus as I had never seen it before. Of course, I had always believed in the two natures of Jesus (the divine and the human) as part of my theological creed. That he […]

9. Obtaining the Spirit’s Help

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

There is little point in dwelling on the ways the Holy Spirit influences our lives (as we have done in recent articles) if there is nothing we can do to obtain those influences. To do so will only tantalize and torment us. Is there something we can do here – something that will enable us to receive the help of the Spirit, especially in the matter of understanding the mind of God in his word? John Owen, whose insight into the ways of the Spirit we have been mining in recent articles, believed that there is. He was too great […]

8. Discerning the Spirit (2)

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

There are two other ways by which we can tell when the Holy Spirit is working in our minds, “communicating spiritual wisdom, light and understanding unto them necessary unto their discerning and apprehending aright the mind of God in his word.”[1] Not only does he impart clarity and certainty, but also a sense of delight in the truth he reveals and an awareness of its compelling power. It is not often that we hear Christians today speak of the “beauty,” “grandeur,” “sweetness,” and “preciousness” of God’s truth, or of “delighting” in it. That kind of language sounds pietistic and sentimental and would likely brand a person as […]

7. Discerning the Spirit (1)

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

In the last two articles we have looked at the idea that God still “touches” lives today through his Spirit and Word. We have seen how the Puritan theologian John Owen believed (as did many of the Puritans) that we can only understand the spiritual sense of the Bible and its relevance to our faith and obedience as the Holy Spirit imparts spiritual wisdom, light and understanding to our minds. The question I want to explore in this article and the one that follows is, “What does that look (or feel) like?” Does John Owen offer us any help here? Indeed he does. He […]

6. A Special Work of the Spirit

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

The idea that we cannot understand “rightly” what God is saying in his Word without a special work of the Holy Spirit on our minds, as the Puritan theologian John Owen claims, is something you may find hard to accept. On the surface, it seems overly spiritual and subjective. Added to that it doesn’t appear to fit with experience. There is much in the Bible that you – and for that matter, anyone – can understand without outside help. Take, for example, the story of the prophet Jonah in the Old Testament. Even a child, you say, can follow (and […]

5. The Touch of God

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

There is another aspect to knowing God experientially beyond the personal dealings we have with him mentioned in the last article. It is the actual “touch of God” upon our souls that takes place through his Spirit as he first awakens and regenerates us, and then indwells, sanctifies, leads and empowers us. I have always been (and still am) hesitant to use language like “the secret touch of God” in our lives. It sounds awfully subjective and mystical. However, I have been emboldened to do so by a recent re-reading of parts of Abraham Kuyper’s book, The Work of the Holy […]

4. A Demanding Yet Simple Rule

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

You may recall from an earlier article I wrote that J.I. Packer refers to knowing Christ experientially in terms of “realized communion” with God. It is Packer who has helped me as much as anyone to understand what this communion involves and how we can have it. In his classic book Knowing God, Packer has a chapter entitled “Knowing and Being Known.”[1] In it he repeatedly makes the distinction between knowing about God and actually knowing him personally. The former belongs to the notional or intellectual knowledge that I wrote about last time; the latter is equivalent to an experienced knowledge of God – a knowledge […]

3. A Different Kind of Knowledge

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

I am well aware that my emphasis in the last article on the role of instruction in fostering a richer life in Christ could be viewed as advocating a heady or rationalistic kind of Christianity. That might be so if the instruction I had in mind was aimed solely at getting more information about Jesus into people’s minds. But I was most definitely not thinking that way. Rather, I was thinking of “proclaiming” Christ and “admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom” (Colossians 1:28) with the goal of people actually coming to know him in an interactive and personal way. In a […]

2. Finding a Solution

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

It is one thing to identify a problem and another to come up with a solution that is biblical and practical. That is the challenge that faces us in the Ezra Ministry as we attempt to address the problem of a “lack of competence and confidence in living in Christ and in the hand-in-hand conversational walk with God that we were created for.”[1] Thankfully, devising a solution for this is not something that is left up to us – who would be presumptuous enough to attempt this anyway? The reason we don’t need to try to do so is because the heart […]

1. A Perceived Need

By Andrew YoungSeptember 30, 2015A Perceived Need

A Perceived Problem In the recent Ezra Update I included a “perceived problem statement” and promised to elaborate on it. This is what I want to do in this article. Here, once more, is the problem – at least as I perceive it – that the Ezra Ministry seeks to address: Many Christians lack confidence in living in Christ and being led by his Spirit and consequently miss out on the richly interactive relationship with God that he desires and on which ministry effectiveness in his kingdom and in the world depends Let me explain and try to justify this statement. The first thing […]