Posts by Nick Batzig
Athanasius once made the following statement about the book of Psalms: "While the entire Holy Scripture is a teacher of virtues and of the truths of faith, the book of Psalms possesses somehow the perfect image for the soul’s course of life." The Psalter has a unique place in Old Testament revelation in that it really is a sort of miniature Bible. Every systematic and biblical-theological truth of Scripture is found, in seed form, in the Psalms.
Anyone who is seeking to be faithful in Gospel ministry should first prepare himself with a mindset of diligence and a willingness to "be spent" (to borrow words from the Apostle Paul) for the sake of the Gospel. He must be willing to go the extra ministry mile.
We are all guilty of having given unjust praise to men and having received unjust praise from men. We have all sought our own glory far too often. None of us have adequatly sought the glory of the only true God. This is why we need the Savior to cleanse us with His blood from our propensity to praise ourselves, seek the glory of men and flatter others for sinful gain. When we are humbled at the foot of the cross by a glimpse of what Jesus did to purchase our praises, we learn to rightly direct our praise to the true and living God, to give Him the glory due to His name, to love just interactions with men and to honor our brethren who, by His grace, labor diligently for His name's sake.
Whether we find ourselves in a place where we have failed morally and spiritually in the Christian life or in a place where we have been mistreated because of ministerial mistakes or errors in judgment that we have made in ministry, there is one thing that we must constantly do--we must seek the Lord to give us the grace in Christ that we so desperately need in order to recover in a way that is pleasing to Him and that will bring Him glory and His people good.
We must resist the temptation to trust in our worship practices rather than in the God we are coming to worship. In order to do so, we must examine our hearts and minds to see whether we have allowed self-righteousness to lay hold on our worship practices. We must seek to bring all that we do in worship into accord with Scripture as we direct our gaze on the Christ who leads us as the heavenly worship leader (Heb. 8:1-2).
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