"We know our sins are pardoned because Christ suffered punishment for them; we know that we never can be punished ourselves, for Christ suffered in our stead." - Charles Spurgeon
"The gospel is the good news that Christ has done everything necessary for our salvation, and that we need only trust in him for forgiveness and eternal life." Edward Fisher, (The Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 101)
Learn to put your hand on all spiritual blessings in Christ and say, ‘Mine’.
~F. B. Meyer~
What immense spiritual wealth is ours in Christ! Some to experience today and some tomorrow. Some are ours because of spiritual birth as a child of God. Some are to be experienced only by deliberate faith appropriation.
~A.W. Tozer~
“When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.” —
Oswald Chambers
Once in a while, God breaks into our daily routine with a person or a word that shakes us up because it challenges us or is in opposition to the way we are used to doing things. The question is will we pause long enough to listen and adjust?
You can blame circumstances, but backsliding always begins in the heart. ~A.W. Tozer~
Many times we wonder why God doesn't use us -- it's because of what we're full of. Paul, in Romans 1:29-31, gives us a pretty complete list of what we don't want to be filled by: "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless."Wait a minute, you say, "I haven't murdered anyone." Isn't it funny how we pick the most extreme from the list to argue about? But what about listening to some juicy talk about a colleague at work (gossip); yelling at someone on the freeway who cut you off (quarreling); showing off your new car for the wrong reason (boastful); ignoring the needs of the family down the street (heartless)? What do you want to be filled with? The answer for all of us is to be full of God's grace and power. So how do we get there from here? The answer is Jesus -- He has already paid the price (for our sin), there is only one thing we need to do -- have faith (belief) without limits in the promises of the Lord.
Humility is to make the right estimate of oneself. ~C. H. Spurgeon~
Our Lord loves sincerity and hates hypocrisy. Still, it takes the working of God's grace to affect the sincerity that God desires. "We conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God."
For a bit of humor, some churches post 1 Corinthians 15:51 on a nursery wall, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” The true meaning of this verse should also bring a smile to your face.
Some people attend church thinking it will make up for the things they have done wrong in life. Others believe giving financial sacrifices will cover their sin and make them in good standing with God, but He will not honor them. God is displeased with people’s sacrifices because of their bad attitudes, their murmuring, and complaining, or their rebellion and stubbornness.
Nothing is more fatal to us than to refuse to give ourselves in obedience to God.
~John Calvin~
Tim LaHaye once said, “People recognize something's going to happen, and they'd better get ready.”The ‘something’ he was talking about is revealed to us in the prophecies of the end times. Consider the encouragement of the apostle Paul who said, “Know the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now, our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).
You may have cares that go back weeks, months, or even years, but by dragging those cares around, you will only cause yourself to be loaded down -- "stuck" in a cycle of merely existing, rather than living the abundant life that Jesus has given you.
Faith does the same against the devil as unbelief does against God. ~John Bunyan~
God, in mercy, will never allow children of His to be comfortable in sin. -Will Metzger~
“Show your contempt for the problem and your concern for the person.”
*** “One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention.” *** “Be sensitive to the plight of others. You have to know about the tragedies as well as the triumphs, the failures as well as the success.” *** “The more you care, the stronger you can be.”
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