Today we begin reading a new Christian classic together—David McIntyre’s The Hidden Life of Prayer. If you would like to read along with us, consult this post where you’ll find instructions on downloading the free audio book or the $0.99 Kindle book and find some places where you can purchase the printed book.

As is my habit, I will begin with a couple of brief thoughts on this week’s reading (chapter 1) and then keep comments open so anyone else who has read along can tell us what value or questions or concerns or applications they found.

Discussion

The Hidden Life of Prayer is a book of short chapters, which I believe is ideal for our purposes. The short chapters mean we can read them early in the week and then work on application. I doubt there is any area of the Christian life which requires as much practice as prayer; neither is there any area of the Christian life in which we are prone to give up so easily.

I found several challenges and encouragements in the first chapter and the foremost was this: prayer is hard work. There is something so liberating about that. I find prayer a difficult, difficult task. Not only are there always hundreds of other things competing for my time and attention—things that either keep me from even attempting to pray or things that attempt to distract me while I pray—but even the act of communicating with God can be very difficult. It is often hard to believe that prayer matters or that my prayers matter. Many days it feels like they must be rising no higher than the ceiling. Other days it feels like I have nothing to say to God and there is nothing God would want to hear from me.

To all of this McIntyre says, “Prayer is hard work.”

Prayer is the most sublime energy of which the spirit of man is capable. It is in one aspect glory and blessedness; in another, it is toil and travail, battle and agony. Uplifted hands grow tremulous long before the field is won; straining sinews and panting breath proclaim the exhaustion of the "heavenly footman." The weight that falls upon an aching heart fills the brow with anguish, even when the midnight air is chill.

I know, I know—there’s a certain level of irony when you provide “bullet points” on death. Nevertheless, here are five important things that the Bible tells us about death.

1. Death is the result of sin

Genesis 2:17 -- “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Romans 6:23a -- ‘For the wages of sin is death”

2. Death is an evil intruder into the world

1 Corinthians 15:26 --”The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

3. Death is followed by judgment

Hebrews 9:27 -- “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment”

Revelation 20:12 -- “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”

4. Death for unbelievers is the entrance into eternal and terrible punishment

Matthew 25:41, 46 -- “Then [the Son of Man] will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. … And these will go away into eternal punishment …”

Luke 13:28 -- “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.”

5. Death for believers is the doorway to eternal life and joy with God

1 Corinthians 15:52, 54-55 -- “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. … then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’”

Revelation 21:4 -- “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Philippians 1:21, 23 -- “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. … My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

Indelible Grace - “Indelible Grace is making a new CD this summer!  We are going into the studio this summer to make Indelible Grace VI, a new collection of old hymn texts set to new music.” They have a kickstarter campaign underway to fund the album

Planned Parenthood - “A hidden camera disclosed a PP worker counseling a patient about sex selective abortion. The patient claimed that she only wanted a boy and that she intended to kill the unborn child if an ultrasound indicated it was a girl. The worker showed the patient exactly how to get this done.” Denny Burk discusses the problem and response.

Going to Church - Christine Jensen writes down some of her top tips on going to church as a family.

Defending Polygamy - People have long said that once homsexual marriage has been accepted (thus unmooring it from its biblical foundation) polygamous marriage cannot be far behind. Here’s an article that suggests this very thing.

The Journal of Biblical Counseling - A new edition of The Journal of Biblical Counseling is available for (free) download or reading in your browser. It’s always worth a read.

If a man tells me that he is humble, I know him to be profoundly proud. —C.H. Spurgeon

As Christians we make a big deal of the death of Jesus and rightly so because it is only through his death that we can be saved from our sin. But if all Jesus needed to accomplish before God was his death on the cross, he could have come to earth as an adult on the evening of Good Friday, he could have died, and still be the one to save us from our sin. But had he done all of this, we would still have a problem. There is a reason that before Christ died he had to truly live. This is the subject of R.C. Sproul’s new book The Work of Christ.

Sproul says: “In order for [Jesus] to qualify as our Redeemer, it was not enough for Him simply to go to the cross and be crucified. If Jesus had only paid for our sins, He would have succeeded only in taking us back to square one. We would no longer be guilty, but we still would have absolutely no righteousness to bring before God.” We would be free of guilt before God, but we would have no righteousness. This is what Christ merited for us in his life.

Our Redeemer needed not only to die, but also to live a life of perfect obedience. The righteousness that He manifested could then be transferred to all who put their trust in Him. Just as my sin is transferred to Him on the cross when I trust in Him, His righteousness is transferred to my account in the sight of God. So, when I stand before God on the judgment day, God is going to see Jesus and His righeousness, which will be my cover.

The purpose of this book is to give a brief overview of the time Christ spent in this world to show that he was here to fulfill a mission. Sproul looks at the incarnation, the infancy hymns, Jesus in the temple, baptism, and so on, in each case showing that all along the way Jesus was executing a mission. This book bears all the marks of R.C. Sproul, from careful teaching to wise application to theological nuance to a remark or two on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Though Sproul has elsewhere written extensively about the life and death of Jesus Christ, this book focuses narrowly on this one area of the theological implications of Christ’s life.

Let me say a word about the book’s format. The Work of Christ is the first of several books that will be released in a new partnership between Sproul, Ligonier Ministries and David C. Cook Publishers and this partnership has resulted in a unique format. Each of the book’s eleven chapters is about ten pages or so and then followed by an extensive study guide. The study guide for each chapter contains an introduction, learning objectives, quotations, a thorough outline of the chapter’s contents, Bible study questions, a discussion guide, a couple of points of application, and some suggested reading for further study. All told, the study guides are just about the same length as the chapters. This brings a lot of value to those who appreciate assistance in understanding and applying a book; this kind of a thorough companion to a book usually comes with an extra cost. Those who do not enjoy study guides will want to be aware that only about half of this book’s pages are actual content.

The Work of Christ is a powerful book that can serve as an ideal companion to The Truth of the Cross—one book to focus on Christ’s active obedience in living a sinless life, and one book to focus on Christ’s passive obedience in facing the Father’s wrath on the cross. I highly recommend it.

It is available from Westminster Books ($13.11), Amazon ($13.04) and Ligonier Ministries ($12.80).