keeping up with Calvin

I don't know about you, but I've found that keeping up with the Calvin
reading is a major challenge. It is relentless. Just when I get ahead
by a half day, I have a busy stretch for a couple of evenings. The next
thing I know, I'm looking at 20 pages to catch up on over the weekend.

That's one side of my experience. The other side is that this has been
some of the most edifying, heart-searching reading I've done in a long
time. Calvin's discussion of the spirituality of the law has caused me
to search my heart. It has revealed double-mindedness and hypocrisy. I
am seeing in a new way how good I am at dressing up the outside without
giving much concern for the inside. And Calvin reminds me that God sees
the inside just as clearly as he sees the outside. Who has become my
audience?

Calvin brings me back to the heart work that I need to do before the
all-seeing eye of God. Calvin reminds me that the law reveals my own
weakness and drives me to the one who supplies strength. I will make no
genuine headway at all until I come to the end of myself and look to
Christ who supplies all our strength in the power of the Spirit.

By God's grace, I intend to persevere in this reading and see what
further exhortation and encouragement I can glean from this gifted
servant of God.

Stan