“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said” ~ Matt. 28:6
As He Said
Category: Scripture
His Offending Creatures
“The complete atonement which Jesus Christ has made for our sins, by the sacrifice of Himself, is the life and center of the evangelical system, and that which endears it so much to the hearts of those who believe. Here we see pardon procured, and the sinner saved, while sin is condemned and punished.
Here we see the most solemn display of justice and holiness, in conjunction with the freest exercise of mercy. Here we see sinful rebels delivered from deserved punishment, and advanced to a state of dignity and honor; and at the same time, the rights of that divine government against which they had rebelled inviolably preserved and maintained.
Through what Jesus Christ has done and suffered for us – we behold the righteous law of God magnified, in justifying those who had violated its precepts, and brought themselves under its curse. In the death of that Lamb of God, we perceive at once – the Almighty’s eternal abhorrence of that which is evil and His infinite love to His offending creatures.
~ John Fawcett
Free Indeed
Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. ~ John 8:36
I love music, but I never learned to play an instrument. Yet, one of my favorite pastimes is listening to music. And though I never personally learned to play a guitar, the drums, a saxophone or piano, I can certainly appreciate the amazing talent, commitment, hard work and devotion that goes into mastering one of these or many other instruments.
Though I love music, I am not free to make music on my own. At least, not through instrumentation. Those who first train on those instruments, and take lesson after lesson for years, are the ones who are free to produce the wonderful sounds of rhythm and harmony who others, like myself, are not free to make on our own. In other words, it is only through the confining discipline of submitting oneself to the rigors of apprehending the musical instrument that one is truly free to play whatever they choose.
Likewise, it is only through submitting yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ that one becomes spiritually free. Until then, we are in bondage, in bondage to sin and confined to the limitations of our own sinful nature. Limited in our freedom to spiritually enjoy the richness of Christ. It is by discipline, apprehending, and submitting oneself to God that one truly tastes freedom.
The world will try to offer you it’s version of freedom. But it is a false freedom. It will seek to entice you with freedom from discipline, from responsibility, and from accountability to God and others. But this is not real freedom. Like the concert pianists who only through years and years of disciplined training is he free to play whatever he chooses, it is only through discipleship to Jesus that spiritual freedom ever comes. Freedom to love, serve and honor the Savior. But, once Christ sets you free, be assured dear friend, you are free indeed.
~ apl
There Is Something Wrong
“Here is the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this – accommodation: the evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age… Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation: loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.”
~ Francis Schaeffer
My Soul’s Praise
Being & Becoming
“For who is God, except the LORD? And who is a Rock, except our God?” – Ps. 18:31
“The doctrine of God’s immutability is of the highest significance for religion. The contrast between being and becoming marks the difference between the Creator and the creature. Every creature is continually becoming. It is changeable, constantly striving, seeks rest and satisfaction, and finds this rest in God, in Him alone, for only He is pure being and not becoming. Hence, in Scripture God is often called the Rock.”
~ Herman Bavinck
Warning Against Growing Cold In Preaching
“When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and I can often observe the effect of this in the best of my hearers: that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too much like my preaching.”
~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor
See God In His Creatures
“It must be well observed that God did not lay aside the relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer; but in some respect, the work of redemption is subordinate to that of creation, and the law of the Redeemer is subordinate to the law of the Creator. In the same way, the duties which we owed to God as Creator have not ceased, but the duties we owe to the Redeemer, as such, are subordinate to them. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God, and to restore us to the perfection of holiness and obedience. And just as he is the way to the Father, so faith in him is the way to our former employment and enjoyment of God. I hope you perceive what I intend in all this: namely, that to see God in his creatures, and to love him, and to converse with him, was the employment of man in his upright estate. This has not ceased to be our duty. In fact, far from it: it is the work of Christ to bring us back to it by faith.”
~ Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor
Fire & Music
“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”
~ Psalm 19:1
“By reading the Scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.”
~ Thomas Merton
The True Son of Man
“From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
~ Matthew 4:17
The Christian message has ceased to be a pronouncement and has become instead a proposition. Scarcely anyone catches the imperious note in the words spoken by Jesus Christ. The invitational element of the Christian message has been pressed far out of proportion in the total scriptural scene. Christ with His lantern, His apologetic stance and His weak pleading face has taken the place of the true Son of Man whom John saw—His eyes as a flame of fire, His feet like burnished brass, and His voice as the sound of many waters. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal our Lord as He really is, and He does not paint in oils.
~ A.W. Tozer
A Prayer Life 