Dr Paul Allen

By John Piper Our theme for the week of prayer has been, "Going Hard After the Holy God.". Today we focus on "going hard." The phrase is adapted from A.W. Tozer, whose little book, The Pursuit of God, has a chapter entitled, "Following Hard after God." Tozer wrote this book in 1948, but if anything, it is more relevant today.  After showing how Moses and David and Paul and all the great hymn writers were even thirsting after more of God, Tozer writes; “How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to centre upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ . . . and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwi...

We have no shortage of excellent books on the subject of holiness. J.C. Ryle’s Holiness has stood the test of time while R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God and Jerry Bridges ’ The Pursuit of Holiness represent two modern classics.  We might well ask whether we really need more books on the subject. Kevin DeYoung ’s The Hole in Our Holiness answers with a resounding “Yes!” DeYoung believes there is a hole in our holiness, a gap between gospel passion and the pursuit of holiness. The hole is simply this: that we don’t really care much about holiness. “Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches. … I’m talking about the failure of Christians , especially younger generations and especially those most disdainful of ‘religion’ and ‘legalism,’ to take seriously one of the great aims of our redemption and one of the required evidences for eternal life—our holiness.” I have thought about this often over the years and am inclined...

Personal holiness has not been a topic that’s received great emphasis in the churches and ministries. In Rediscovering Holiness , J. I. Packer points to the same reality. Packer identifies 3 evidences that Christians today evidently do not think personal holiness is very important: It’s not the topic of much preaching, teaching, or writing.  It’s seldom valued or expected in Christian leaders. It’s not shared in the message of evangelism, declaring to the world that without holiness, “no one will see the Lord” ( Heb 12:14 ). Apart from Packer’s own book , here are a few more faithful works, listed from older to recent, that I believe are good resources for every Christian in their pursuit of holiness: J.C. Ryle, Holiness . This maybe the classic work on the subject and even Ryle’s greatest contribution to the library of faithful Christian teaching. Fortunately, it’s old enough that it can be read online . And there’s also a recent edition with a nice biographical sketch...

That’s the way so many live, avoiding the things we collectively determine are wrong while affirming the things we determine are right and good. By consequence, our morals are in constant flux, constant transition, as they respond and adapt to the spirit of the age. This is true outside of the church and, sadly, true even within Christian culture . In  The Discipline of Grace  Jerry Bridges challenges us that “if we are going to make progress in the pursuit of holiness , we must aim to live according to the precepts of Scripture —not according to the culture, even the Christian culture, around us.” But we can’t do this if we don’t know what those precepts are and we can’t know what those precepts are unless we are immersed in the Word of God . Says Bridges, To pursue holiness, one of the disciplines we must become skilled in is the development of Bible -based convictions. A conviction is a determinative belief: something you believe so strongly that it aff...

Churches focused on personal holiness don't always seem to be "on mission." How do we avoid repeating this mistake? Two thoughts come to mind. One, we must remember that holiness is part of our mission. Christ calls us to make disciples, not just decisions ( Matt. 28:19 ). Helping people obey Jesus and pursue holiness is an important aspect of the Great Commission ( Matt. 28:20 ). Two, we must emphasize that the pursuit of holiness is really the pursuit of Christ. We aren't simply trying to be better. We are working---as God works in us---to be more like Christ who is in us. In witness and in sanctification we are making Christ known. You observe that, in many circles today, "We know legalism (salvation by law keeping) and antinomianism (salvation without the need for law keeping) are both wrong, but antinomianism feels like a much safer danger." How did we get this way, and how do we correct without overcorrecting once more? The las...

John Owen, by John Greenhill (died 1676). See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Puritan writers like John Owen are well-known for teaching Christians to pursue holiness and kill sin. This is helpful, but Puritans like Owen also recognized that this can also lead to a serious misunderstanding on the part of Christians. In the pursuit of holiness , Christians are tempted to dwell too much on their own sins and forget the kindness of their Heavenly Father . Think through the logic. We know that God hates sin. And although we fight sin in ourselves, no matter how hard we try, we will always find a lamentable degree of remaining sin on this side of glorification. Therefore, God must be perpetually an...