I urge you to ‘examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith’. I would do nothing to rob any true believer of the joy of confident assurance. But I must warn all men to guard against religious presumption. It is Satan’s cheap counterfeit. False faith can be very deceptive. False faith produces good works. It…
True faith is the heart knowledge of, trust in and submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. God has revealed Christ to us in the gospel, by which we know our desperate need and his saving power and fairness. Trusting Christ alone as our all-sufficient Savior, we commit ourselves, body and soul, to him. And where…
Beloved Christian reader, in matters of grace you need a daily supply. You have no store of strength. Day by day must you seek help from above. It is a very sweet assurance that a daily portion is provided for you. In the word, through the ministry, by meditation, in prayer, and waiting upon God…
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” That is easy to read, but it is not so easy to feel. How is it with your heart this morning? Are you in the lowest depths of sorrow? Does corruption rise within your spirit, and grace seem like a poor spark trampled under foot? Does your…
When the army of Julian the Apostate was on the march to Persia some of the soldiers got hold of a Christian believer to torment and torture him in brutal sport. After they wearied of it, they looked into his eyes and said to their helpless victim, with infinite scorn in their voices, “Where now…
‘Saul assayed to join himself to the disciples’ Read Ephesians 4:1–16 Saul had been converted by the grace of God on the Damascus Road. He had publicly confessed faith in Christ at Damascus, both by personal testimony and by public baptism. Then he came to Jerusalem and ‘he assayed to join himself to the disciples’.…
“My soul, sit down, and behold the justice of God as bound to punish sin; see that punishment all executed upon thy Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy, and kiss the dear feet of him whose blood has made atonement for thee. It is in vain when conscience is aroused to fly to…
If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, hath uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word—Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities…
Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered—which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God’s children yield to him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster’s toil,…
The faith of the Scriptures leads joy by the hand, and chases away despair.
While America’s evangelical Christians are rightly concerned about the secular worldview’s rejection of biblical Christianity, we ought to give some urgent attention to a problem much closer to home–biblical illiteracy in the church. This scandalous problem is our own, and it’s up to us to fix it. Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem…
The true believer is a person in whom Christ dwells. The new birth is nothing less than Christ coming into a man’s heart, taking possession, ruling and causing that man to become a follower of him. Anything less than this is not Christianity. The new birth creates a desire in the heart to be like…