"What can I write equal to the theme of sovereign grace?"

"What can I write equal to the theme of sovereign grace? It is a miracle, a perfect miracle, that God should so love man as to die for him, and to choose him before the foundation of the world." -C.H Spurgeon.

That God chose you "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4a) is baffling.  That God chose you before the foundation of the world to "be holy and blameless before Him" (Eph 1:4b) is even more so baffling. Not only did He in His infinite sovereignty, choose His people; He granted them- who were desperately wicked and totally depraved (Rom 3:9-18)- total reconciliation with Holy God. That is unfathomable!

And can it be?That I should gain an interest in the Saviors blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me? What! Did you catch all that? God DIED for you? God DIED for you who pursued Him to death? This is the basis of your salvation- that your God would save you who crucified Him. Amazing love! Unfathomable grace!

What an unparalleled theme is this: God saving sinners and bringing ultimate glory to Himself through each one. This is our passion. This is our message. This is our emphasis. This is our life.

There is Only One Personality Test

If you open up google and type in “personality test” you may be presented with about 9,150,000 search results. That’s right, 9 million. Many of these sites contain tests which a person can take to determine what personality he or she has.

The danger with these tests is that they may cause you to pigeonhole yourself. While the results may reflect some revealing truths about you, they should not define who you are. Determinatively labeling yourself with a certain personality type could lead to justifying poor behavior/character qualities- whether it be neglecting good aspects of your weaker side, or catering to bad aspects of your stronger side. Rationalizing any sinful behavior as  due to "personality type" is simply another avenue of blame-shifting. A personality is just a combination of characteristics and qualities which form an individuals character. In the Bible, Christ is the perfect standard to which all men should be compared. Until we are all like Christ we should be striving to reform our personality. It's true that everyone is unique (and these tests can help in identifying some of your individuality), but shouldn’t all Christians be striving to change their personality until it looks like Christ’s? 

Therefore, the Bible presents us with one personality test: Christlikeness. If you’re a believer, it doesn’t matter what your "personality" is, it needs to be adjusted to line up with Christ’s.

If you take a personality test and it comes back and tells you that you are a “lion” this may be helpful for you to know. However, this should not mean that you go on living your life with the label “lion” justifying an insensitive, dominative behavior, while neglecting “lamb-like” qualities. When you cause yourself to believe that the label “lion” defines who you are, you may live your life constrained to that sphere- when in fact the Bible calls you to much more. 


Christ couldn’t be described as just one of say 4 types of personalities. He was the best of all 4. Therefore as followers of Christ, striving to grow in Christlikeness, we should not be content until we are the best of all 4.