BLOOD EARNESTNESS

Blood earnestness what is it?
Thomas Watson Men could be content to have the kingdom of Heaven; but they are loathe to fight for it. They choose rather to go in a feather bed to Hell than to be carried to Heaven in a 'fiery chariot' of zeal and violence. -Thomas Watson. ...Until you believe that life is war...That the stakes are your soul, you will probably just play at Christianity with no blood earnestness and no vigilance and no passion and no wartime mindset. -John S Piper
Blood earnestness is a hearts cry to have all of God or nothing at all . I want you or nothing at all. At all cost. My blood spilled out if necessary. I must have you Lord. I must put to death my sin. My sin that hinders my joy of fellowship with thee. As John Owen said be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

I have been reading Thomas Watson's book 'Heaven Taken By Storm'. I strongly recommend this book. Many of us are moved by the passion driven preaching of John Piper. We want his passion. I know I do. Where does he get it? It is so rare. I hardly know of any one who has fire in his belly. I know so many nice guys. Just nice and friendly. No backbone. No zeal...or so little zeal. I DON'T WANT TO BE ONE OF THESE. God save me from the cesspool of indifference. Please tell me where or how to get this blood earnestness?
Many of the passion driven preachers of today have this one thing in common. Reading Puritan literature. I heard Piper on the radio just the other day encouraging his listeners to read the puritans . Why?...Because of their intense blood earnestness. I would whole heartedly agree. I can not recommend the Puritans highly enough.

Heaven Taken By Storm by Thomas Watson is a great work to read. "The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence , and the violent take it by force" (Matt. 11:12) this is the text for this book. I will be taking some of the chapters and discussing them on later blog posts as I have been meditating on them and implementing them in my life. Thomas said... We must offer violence in order to get into Heaven."We must offer violence to Heaven in regard to the difficulty of the work-taking a kingdom . First, we must be pulled out of another kingdom, the kingdom of darkness (Acts 26:18). To get out of the state of nature is hard, and when that is done and we are cut off from the wild olive and implanted into Christ, there is still new work to do: new sins to mortify, new temptations to resist, new graces to quicken. A Christian must not only get faith, but go "from faith to faith" (Rom. 1:17). This will not be done without violence."We must offer violence to Heaven in regard to the violent assaults made against us. Our own hearts oppose us. This is a strange paradox: Man naturally desires happiness, yet opposes it; he desires to be saved, yet hates that holy violence which would save him."