God's works before creation… — John Calvin

“Here also the impiety of those is refuted who cavil against Moses…For they inquire why it had come so suddenly into the mind of God to create the world; why He had so long remained inactive in heaven: & thus by sporting with sacred things they exercise their ingenuity to their own destruction. In the Tripartite History an answer given by a pious man is recorded, with which I have always been pleased. For when a certain impure dog was in this manner pouring ridicule upon God, he retorted, that God had been at that time by no means inactive because He had been preparing hell for the captious…. As for ourselves, it ought not to seem so very absurd that God, satisfied in Himself, did not create a world which He needed not, sooner than He thought good. Moreover, since His will is the rule of all wisdom, we ought to be contented with that alone. For Augustine rightly affirms that injustice is done to God by the Manichaeans, because they demand a cause superior to His will…”

— John Calvin, Commentaries on the first book of Moses called Genesis

Temptation - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh…. It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money…. Joy in God is…extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, He loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real…. Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God…. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: “Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?” “Is it really not permitted to me, yes — expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?”… It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Temptation

no rest apart from redemption in Christ – R. Kent Hughes

“Trust in Him (Jesus Christ) is what gives rest to our souls. True faith is belief plus trust. When you truly trust in Christ as Savior, rest comes because the burden of your sins is lifted. You rest from your works. And because you are in Christ you enter the Sabbath rest of God. You know that He is your Creator and Redeemer.

Everyone who has truly come to Christ has experienced that rest. All the impossible striving to gain salvation was then over. You rested in Christ, not in yourself. The burden of guilt was lifted. Your soul was light with rest.

And now as a believer the principle is: the more trust, the more rest. Our belief or unbelief makes all the difference…Resting is trusting. Believer, you can have perpetual rest by resting in Him…

St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless ‘til they find their rest in Thee.” He knew from experience that life apart from Christ is striving, that men and women will remain restless regardless of what they attain or obtain in this world. You will never find rest apart from redemption in Christ.
But when you come to Him in faith as your Creator and Redeemer, you find a Sabbath rest for your soul – His own rest that He has enjoyed from creation…”

— R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing (Preaching the Word)

the romance of Christianity – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“We are believers, & not the others, says Paul, because we have received this Spirit that enlightens us (1 Corinthians 2:10, 12, 14)…

Christianity is not just a message that tells you that if you believe in Christ your sins are forgiven, & then leaves you to meet the world & the flesh & the devil just as you are & in your own strength. No, it is regeneration – new birth – a ‘new man’. When you become a Christian, what happens is not so much that you add something to your life as that your life is changed.

When men & women become Christians, it is not that they put on new clothes; no, they are changed, inside & out, & the inside is particularly changed, a new creation. But remember, secondly, that Christianity is not about people deciding to change themselves. They cannot. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?’ (Jeremiah 13:23). Let them try to do it, then they will find they cannot. We have all tried it. It is impossible.
But, thank God, there is power in this word [of the gospel] which brings forth fruit, & a part of the fruit is that it changes us. We do not decide to change ourselves but we find that we are changed.

That, to me, is the romance of Christianity. A man finds that he is ‘a new man’ and he is amazed at himself. He cannot believe it is true of him! He says, ‘Is it possible that I am the man I once was? I am the same man and yet I am not!’ The apostle Paul was always filled with that amazement at himself – ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20). He had been changed…

Do you know what makes men & women Christians? It is the mighty action of the almighty God, the Creator. He takes them as they are & smashes them & makes them anew. He, God, is bringing into being something that was not there; a new disposition is put into them, a new principle of life is infused into them. God enters into their lives. The life of God comes into the soul; it is a creative act, so the New Testament says that the Christian is ‘a new creature’.

Now there is nothing more wonderful than this. I think this is where the gospel hope comes in. When we have tried & tried & tried again, only to fail, always finding ourselves back at the same point, we stop, & the world stops. Philosophy cannot help us, psychology cannot help us, nothing helps us; but then the Creator says: I will help you. I will make a new person. I will put a new principle into you. I will infuse a new disposition into you. I will make you a new creation.

There is hope there, and it is the only hope. But, thank God, it is the hope that is given in this gospel. And my assertion is that you & I are not Christians unless we have been born again; unless we know that we have received the life of God; unless we become new creatures, new creations…”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Love so Amazing: Exposition of Colossians 1

“Cleave to Jesus Christ in affection and love all your days” – Christopher Love

“11. Cleave to Jesus Christ in affection and love all your days.
Why do children love their parents by instinct of nature? Because they have their life from them. Here let grace incline your hearts. You have a life from Christ; O love Christ! You have a glorified life from Christ, O glorify Christ! It is reported of the elephant that because it lacks one bone in its back if the creature falls it can never rise again but must there languish and die. A sleeping elephant fell down and could not rise, but lay there endeavoring for life to get up and could not. A traveler upon the way seeing this had compassion upon the creature and put to his strength and helped him up. The elephant, by the instinct of nature, to requite the man for his kindness, followed the man to his dying day, and historians say that when this man died the elephant lay upon his master’s grave and there died where his master died. This elephant resembles fallen Adam, and all us fallen in Adam. We so fell that the fall broke all our bones. We could never rise by our own strength. Now Jesus Christ, the good Samaritan, came by and, seeing us broken by our fall, put forth His helping hand and raised us from a state of death to a condition of life. If the elephant would requite the man for his kindness, O how should you requite your Savior, when you would have fallen into hell had not He put forth His helping hand! O cleave to Christ, and love that Christ who is the author and cause of so glorious a life!”

– Christopher Love, The Works of Christopher Love: Volume 1