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The Desperate Everyday Need For Christ

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, is always a helpful companion when thinking through various aspects of the Christian life (an excellent biography of Lloyd-Jones can be found here). He often highlights our desperate state in the clutches of sin, and the need we have of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here Lloyd-Jones is dealing with the issue of “deciding” for Christ at the point of conversion. This quote reminds us what conversion truly is, and also gives wisdom regarding how we should approach the Christian life everyday of our lives. We never get over being desperate. We never get over our need for the atoning work of Christ. We never get over our reliance upon the power of the Spirit. We never get over the sustenance we receive by  the means of grace that God has provided. Our posture is always one of reception, and this glorifies God and brings us into joyful union and communion with our God.

“The term ‘decide’ has always seemed to me to be quite wrong…A sinner does not ‘decide’ for Christ; the sinner ‘flies’ to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying —

‘Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.’

No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more ‘decides’ for Christ than the poor drowning man ‘decides’ to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.”

This quote comes from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachersan outstanding work on the primacy of preaching in the church.

Jeremy Kimble (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Cedarville University. He is an editor for Credo Magazine as well as the author of That His Spirit May Be Saved: Church Discipline as a Means to Repentance and Perseverance and numerous book reviews. He is married to Rachel and has two children, Hannah and Jonathan.

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