Sep 19
17
Salvation, eternal life is nothing less than the life of God in you! It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
All the religions of this world focus on preparing people to live in this world. The gospel of Christ focuses on preparing people to live in the world to come. Pastor Don Fortner
Law and Grace
Here are a few contrasts between law and grace.
Law manifests what is in man—sin; Grace manifests what is in God—love;
Law demands righteousness from men; Grace brings righteousness to men;
Law sentences a living man to death; Grace brings a dead man to life;
Law speaks of what men must do for God: Grace tells of what Christ has done for men;
Law gives a knowledge of sin; Grace puts away sin;
Law brings God out to men; Grace brings men into God.
Pastor Scott Richardson
Knowing God John 17:3
What really stamps man’s character and condition is his ignorance or knowledge of God. That marks his character here and fixes his destiny hereafter. Is he evil in his thoughts, evil in his words, evil in his actions? It’s all the result of him being ignorant of God. On the other hand, is he pure in thoughts, gracious in actions? It is but the practical result of his knowledge of God. To know God is the solid ground of endless joy. To know Him not is everlasting destruction.
The knowledge of God is everything. It quickens the soul, purifies the heart, satisfies conscience and sanctifies the entire character and conduct. I cannot know God and not have life. The loss of the knowledge of God by Adam was death to him, but the knowledge of God is life…“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
The mission of the Son of God, who came from the heart of the Father, was to reveal what God the Father really is (grace and truth)…the very thing which man lost in the fall. Truth reveals God as He is, and this truth is connected with the revelation of perfect grace. When the sinner finds that the revelation of Who God is becomes the basis of his eternal salvation, that revelation is unspeakably joyful. “This is life eternal that they might know Thee.” He can only be known in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of the invisible God. We’d better find out who God is.
Pastor Scott Richardson
We might preach until our tongues rotted, until we should exhaust our lungs and die—but never a soul would be converted without the Holy Spirit’s power attending the Word. If the Holy Spirit does not renew the hearts of our hearers, we cannot do it. If the Holy Spirit does not regenerate them, we cannot. If He does not send the truth home to their souls, we might as well speak into the ear of a corpse.
C. H. Spurgeon
Some preachers want to arouse man’s activity. We want to kill it once and for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his activities are not able to save him. Some seek to make the man stand up. We seek to bring him down and make him feel that he is in the hands of God and that his business is to submit to God, bow to the claims of Christ, and cry, “Lord, save me or I perish.”
Pastor Henry Mahan
CALLED UNTO THE FELLOWSHIP
1 Corinthians 1: 9: God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Union with Christ is the only way we can have spiritual life. Christ said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (Jn 15: 4-5)The branch does not give life to the root but the root the branch. So it is when God the Father calls us into fellowship with Christ. We receive spiritual life from Christ the Life (Jn 17: 21-23) Believer, you are a “habitation of God through the Spirit!”
This is as amazing, as it is essential, when God forms Christ in us then we become “partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet 1: 4) Only by partaking of Christ’s divine nature do we escape “the corruption that is in the world through lust.”We partake of all that Christ is and all that he accomplished by his obedience. This blessing of the last Adam is figured in the first. When Adam broke the law, all Adam’s children were in Adam’s loins. Therefore, we all became unrighteous by Adam’s disobedience. Once born of Adam, we became partakers of Adam’s sinful nature. The result is our nature is enmity against God. So all the credit goes to Adam for making us unrighteous and unholy by his disobedience.
Likewise, when Christ fulfilled the law, all his children were in Christ’s loins. Therefore, we became righteous by Christ’s obedience. Once born of Christ, we became partaker of Christ’s holy nature. So Christ gets all the glory for making us righteous and holy by his obedience(Rom 5: 19).The result is that we believe and confess Christ and love God and our brethren. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1Jo 4:10-16).
Clay Curtis
THE FELLOWSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
1 Corinthians 1: 9: God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
When God gives us the same faith, by the same Spirit, by the same Truth, by the same grace then “we have fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” and “fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn 1: 3-7).
The fellowship of believers is in God’s Son, Jesus Christ in the gospel. (Php 1: 5) Having been given the Light of Christ, we have “no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph 5: 11). Christ is the tie that binds us in Spirit and in Truth. Fellowship with Christ means each believer jointly partakes of everything that Christ possesses. When the Son of God took on him the seed of Abraham under the law, his life was our life, his suffering our suffering, his death our death, his resurrection our resurrection. Now, through the new birth and faith in Christ, we experience the truth that his righteousness is our righteousness, his holiness our holiness, his acceptance with the Father our acceptance, his inheritance our inheritance—“ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). Every chosen, redeemed, regenerated child of God is one, even as Christ and the Father are one! This is what makes our assembly a peaceful place. We are not in competition with each other. We are not trying to earn better rewards than one another. We are one! Therefore, we “fellowship in ministering to the saints” (2 Cor 8: 4). We seek the good of one another. When one suffers, we all suffer; when one rejoices, we all rejoice.
Knowing what great inseparable unity God has graciously given us in and by his Son, Christ Jesus our Lord, let us endeavour to keep this precious unity. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor 1: 10). How could we do otherwise, knowing that it is through the precious blood of our Redeemer who laid down his life for us that God has called us unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord!
“Who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Gal. ii. 20.
See, my soul, how Paul is for ever using Jesus, and feasting for ever upon him. Oh! seek grace to do the same. He saith, Jesus loved him; Jesus, the Son of God, loved Paul.
Now love from any object is valuable, but from the first, and best, and greatest of all Beings, what invaluable love is this? And who did Christ love? “Why me,” saith Paul: “who was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious.” And how do you know, Paul, that Jesus loved you? ” He gave himself for me,” saith Paul.
“Gave himself?” Yes, himself. Not his gifts only, not his grace, not his mercies, though all creation is his. And whatever he gave must have been an undeserved mercy; for I merited hell, when he bestowed upon me heaven. But even heaven, with all its glories, is nothing, saith Paul, to what Jesus gave me; for he gave “himself for me.” Oh! my soul, wilt thou not look up, wilt thou not be encouraged to hope, to believe, to hang upon Jesus, for the same. Oh! for faith to believe.
Precious Jesus! thou author and finisher of faith, grant me this mercy! And while I read these sweet words concerning thee, who loved and who gave thyself for poor lost sinners – Oh! like Paul, and with the same assurance of faith, cause me to add me, me: Jesus “loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Robert Hawker
“BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED”
Acts 16:31
Salvation is obtained by faith alone. It is not obtained by faith and baptism, faith and obedience, faith and experience, or even faith and faithfulness. Salvation is obtained by faith alone, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true, faith is obedient. Faith is confessed in baptism. Faith does bring both feeling and experience, and cause faithfulness. But these things come as the result of salvation and life in Christ. They are not the cause (Eph. 2:8-10).
What is this faith? The Amplified Version gives a helpful translation of this verse. “Believe in and on the Lord Jesus Christ, thatis give yourself up to Him, take yourself out of your own keeping and entrust yourself to His keeping, and you will be saved.” Believing on Christ is not “a bare historical faith, as only to believe that he was the Son of God, and the Messiah, and that he was come in the flesh, and had suffered, and died, and rose again, and was now in heaven at the right hand of God, and would come again to judge the quick and the dead, for there may be such a faith and no salvation” (John Gill). Paul’s commandment, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”, requires us to LOOK TO CHRIST ALONE FOR SALVATION AND LIFE, TO RELY UPON CHRIST, TRUSTING HIM AND COMMITTING THE CARE OF OUR IMMORTAL SOULS TO HIM, AND TO EXPECT PEACE, PARDON, RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND ETERNAL LIFE FROM HIM. To believe on Christ is to TRUST HIM, VENTURE EVERYTHING UPON HIM, COMMIT EVERYTHING TO HIM, AND RECEIVE HIM. FAITH IS LEAVING OUR SOULS IN THE HANDS OF CHRIST.
THIS FAITH IN CHRIST IS THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD (I John 3:23). I see no reason why I should be allowed to believe, to trust Christ and be saved by him. But God commands me to do so. Therefore I do believe. Without anything to commend myself to God, I trust Christ. Live or die, sink or swim, I trust him. And doing what God himself has commanded me to do, I cannot perish! THE SURE RESULT OF FAITH IS ETERNAL SALVATION. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and THOU SHALT BE SAVED.” You cannot believe Christ and perish!
Don Fortner