Author Archives: John Samson

Why Did You Come to Christ?

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“…we might imagine asking four professing Christians, ‘Why are you saved?’ They all answer that they are saved by trust in Christ, who died for their sins and rose again. The next question is posed: ‘Why did you trust in Christ?’

The Pelagian answers, ‘I came to Christ by my own free will.’

The other three say, ‘I came to Christ because the grace of God drew me.’

Another question is posed to these three: ‘Why did you come to Christ when many who hear the gospel do not?’

The Arminian Christian says, ‘I cooperated with the grace that God gives to everyone.’

The Lutheran Christian responds, ‘I did not resist the grace that God’s Word brings to all who hear it.’

The Reformed Christian answers, ‘God overcame my resistance and sweetly inclined my heart to believe God’s Word, so that I willingly came to Christ.’”

[Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Spirit and Salvation, vol. 3, Reformed Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 380]

We Must Remember

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“No doubt the church in the west has many new things to learn. But for the most part, everything we need to learn is what we’ve already forgotten. The chief theological task now facing the Western church is not to reinvent or to be relevant but to remember. We must remember the old, old story. We must remember the faith once delivered to the saints. We must remember the truths that spark reformation, revival, and regeneration. And because we want to remember all this, we must also remember-if we are fortunate to have ever heard of them in the first place-our creeds, confessions, and catechisms.” – Kevin DeYoung, The Good News We Almost Forgot- 13.

The Love of Ease

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“For another thing, it will cost a man his love of ease. He must take pains and trouble, if he means to run a successful race towards heaven. He must daily watch and stand on his guard, like a soldier on enemy’s ground. He must take heed to his behaviour every hour of the day, in every company, and in every place, in public as well as in private, among strangers as well as at home. He must be careful over his time, his tongue, his temper, his thoughts, his imagination, his motives, his conduct in every relation of life. He must be diligent about his prayers, his Bible reading, and his use of Sundays, with all their means of grace. In attending to these things he may come far short of perfection; but there is none of them that he can safely neglect. ‘The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat’ (Prov. 13:4).

“This also sounds hard. There is nothing we naturally dislike so much as ‘trouble’ about our religion. We hate trouble. We secretly wish we could have a ‘vicarious’ Christianity, and could be good by proxy, and have everything done for us. Anything that requires exertion and labour is entirely against the grain of our hearts. But the soul can have ‘no gains without pains.’ Let us set down that item third in our account. To be a Christian it will cost a man his love of ease.”

J.C. Ryle