The shallow language of the pulpit

"The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment." —John MacArthur

This is pious and ignorant. I can no more deny myself prior to regeneration than I can fulfill myself (using MacArthur's word).

This is the language of the pulpit. A hybrid language designed to keep people in their place and keep them ignorant of what it means to be a Christian. It's a language spoken by fools desperate to pay bills and have 'standing' in the world. It's a grotesque distortion of anything the Bible describes as the faith.

So once regenerated the process of self-denial has been worked out 99% by the pummeling I've experienced from the world and my own fallen nature. And self-fulfillment (using MacArthur's word) is basically a 'filling of the vacuum' of what has already been destroyed. Filling the vacuum desperately with the knowledge and practice and understanding of the faith.

It's all out of my hands.

We don't say: "Now it is the time that I will engage in self-denial." Making sure your standing among the church crowd is correct and you are receiving the respect you've come to demand and deserve. Everything in place. Everything right. "While at the same time I will eschew engaging in self-fulfillment." Relieved because this means to you that you won't have to actually read that strange book some of your fellow church goers are holding, let alone come to anything resembling an understanding of it.

You're in the world.

You're not on the hook, being lifted out of the world, fighting like hell every inch of the way.