The World-Class Accuser

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briefcaseHere’s an excellent article by R. J. Grune entitled “g.rand, a.k. uzer, & howe” – original source here.

Satan is the world-class accuser. If he ran a law firm, he’d be its first and most powerful partner. His specialty is accusing and destroying people. Like you. From the moment you’re accused, he’s prowling around in front of the jury, ready to attack and make his case. He never comes to court unprepared. He’s got evidence, eyewitnesses, and testimonies to put you away for life. He calls your friends on the stand to testify about your lies and cover-ups. He puts your family on the stand to reveal your weakness before the jury. His evidence submitted before the court and in full public view includes e-mails, voice-mails, and even off-the-record conversations that make you look like a dirt-bag.

And The Accuser doesn’t stop there. Witnesses for the prosecution continue until you are crushed with guilt and your character is shamed beyond recovery. You’re buried under a burden of evidence and testimony with no way out. The accused – you – fight to defend yourself. After all, you got yourself into the mess, and you can at least mount a defense to get yourself out.

You think about hiring a lawyer, but opt to make your own defense, boldly ignoring the lawyer’s axiom “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” With your back against the wall facing brutal accusations, what other choice do you have? Is there really any better person to help you avoid a guilty verdict? Can anyone really justify your actions better than you? If there’s a chance that you will be found innocent, you have the best shot at making it happen. That’s foolishness, though. You’re not going to get off, and you know it. The accusations are accurate. You might as well just plead guilty. Your efforts to self-justify and refute the evidence are hopeless.

Counter intuitively, it’s in this hopelessness that God meets you in the courtroom where Satan has made his airtight case against you. Jesus arrives as your advocate. You don’t have to make a defense. Revelation 12:10-11 says, “For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb.” 1 John 2 says, “But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” When Jesus makes his entrance into the courtroom, he comes with witnesses, testimonies, and evidence to support you. Oddly, though, his evidence doesn’t testify to your righteousness but to his. Jesus transforms the proceedings by exchanging his innocence for your guilt. He mitigates the charges against you by offering his own life – his active obedience, his sacrificial death, and his victorious resurrection – all on your behalf. This is an unbeatable tactic. The accuser doesn’t stand a chance. When you are clearly guilty, Jesus gives you a new shot at life, and there’s nothing Satan and his team can do to take that from you.

But the accuser is clever. Even after the case is closed, Satan knows exactly the accusations to whisper to cause you to question your innocence. He knows what wounds to re-open. The accuser is an expert at bringing up forgiven sins. He is an expert in convincing you that your case might be re-opened, perhaps by God himself. Maybe God will change his mind. Maybe your sin is too much for even Jesus to cover.

While Satan continues to accuse and sow doubt, the law is the law. There is no double jeopardy in the Kingdom of God. In Romans 8 Paul writes, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen. It is God who justifies.” When Jesus says, “Not guilty,” that is what you are. The case is closed. The gavel falls. Court adjourned.

Methods for Fighting Half-Hearted Prayer

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beeke3_2This excerpt is taken from Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism by Joel Beeke.

5 Methods for Fighting Half-Hearted Prayer

The Puritans were prone to give five methods for fighting our natural tendency to lapse into half-hearted prayer:

1. Give priority to prayer. Prayer is the first and most important thing you are called to do. “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge to Satan.”

2. Give yourself—not just your time—to prayer. Remember that prayer is not an appendix to your life and your work, it is your life—your real, spiritual life—and your work. Prayer is the thermometer of your soul.

3. Give room to prayer. The Puritans did this in three ways. First, they had real prayer closets—rooms or small spaces where they habitually met with God. When one of Thomas Shepard’s parishioners showed him a floor plan of the new house he hoped to build, Shepard noticed that there was no prayer room and lamented that homes without prayer rooms would be the downfall of the church and society. Second, block out stated times for prayer in your daily life. The Puritans did this every morning and evening. Third, between those stated times of prayer, commit yourself to pray in response to the least impulse to do so. That will help you develop the “habit” of praying, so that you will pray your way through the day without ceasing. Remember that conversing with God through Christ is our most effective way of bringing glory to God and of having a ready antidote to ward off all kinds of spiritual diseases.

4. Give the Word to prayer. The way to pray, said the Puritans, is to bring God His own Word. That can be done in two ways. First, pray with Scripture. God is tender of His own handwriting. Take His promises and turn them inside out, and send them back up to God, by prayer, pleading with Him to do as He has said. Second, pray through Scripture. Pray over each thought in a specific Scripture verse.

5. Give theocentricity to prayer. Pour out your heart to your heavenly Father. Plead on the basis of Christ’s intercessions. Plead to God with the groanings of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:26). Recognize that true prayer is a gift of the Father, who gives it through the Son and works it within you by the Spirit, who, in turn, enables it to ascend back to the Son, who sanctifies it and presents it acceptable to the Father. Prayer is thus a theocentric chain, if you will—moving from the Father through the Son by the Spirit back to the Son and the Father.