Friday, March 7, 2008

joy is not enough.

Sinclair Ferguson on why it's not enough only to receive the gospel "with joy": Biblical teaching suggests that we truly respond to the message of the gospel only when our hearts experience both joy and sorrow. Even from a psychological point of view it is not possible for sinful men and women to rejoice in the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting without knowing some kind of sorrow for what they are and have been. Similarly in developing Christian experience we cannot separate the rhythm of sorrow and joy which is so often stressed in the New Testament. Christians in this world are 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing' (2 Cor. 6:10), but never one without the other—at least in this world. (The Christian Life, 176)

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