THIS POOR WORLD IS NOT YOUR REST

(James Smith; via gracegems)

Your trials, though many, painful, and tedious--are but proofs of your heavenly Father's love! They are sent in mercy--to convince you that this poor world is not your rest.
Your Father's wisdom chose them,
His love sent them, and
His mercy will sanctify them to you!

Tried believer--are you looking to Jesus? He can hush the storm, and still the tempest. He is always near in trouble. Is your eye fixed upon Him? Does your heart repose on His tender love and faithful Word?

Do you recognize your heavenly Father's hand in your trials? His hand is in them, whether you see it or not. He sends, bounds, and removes them--as He wisely desires. And it has often comforted the saint to realize that the hand of God is in every trial, trouble, and disappointment.

Do you sweetly acquiescence in God's will, in faith that whatever He permits in our life, is right and best for you?

to know grace

To know Christ, is to know grace. If you cannot proclaim Biblical grace, then you cannot proclaim the Christ of the Bible. Beware of those who preach "another Christ" by preaching "another grace" when there is no other grace (Christ) than the one Paul preached.

REVERENCE HIS HAND

"Affliction does not rise out of the dust or come to men by chance; but it is the Lord that sends it, and we should own and reverence His hand in it." - Thomas Boston

Where Arminians agree

Important to note: classic Arminianism and Calvinism actually agree that God choose not to save everyone.-Michael Horton

BEST WORK

Quote from Scott Price's sermon I posted...
Satan does his best work in the pulpit; thanks CDO

Our Heart Our Desire

Our heart our desire
Is to see the nations worship
Our cry our prayer
Is to sing Your praise to the ends of the earth
That with one mighty voice
Every tribe and tongue rejoices
Our heart our desire
Is to see the nations Worship You:  Don Moen

Scripture is about Christ.

The whole of Scripture is about Christ.

The NT is contained in the OT.
The OT is explained in the NT.
The NT is concealed in the OT.
The OT is revealed in the NT.
The OT anticipates the NT.
The NT authenticates the OT.
In the OT the NT lies hidden.
In the NT the OT lies open.
The OT foreshadows the NT.
The NT fulfills the OT.
In the OT they were always seeking.
In the NT they found.
The OT predicts a Person.
The NT presents that Person.
And the Person is the Lord Jesus Christ
Who fully validated the OT.
The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible)
presents Figures os Christ.
The Psalms present the Feelings of Christ.
The Prophets present the Foretellings of Christ.
The Gospels present the Facts of Christ.
The Epistles present the Fruits of Christ.

by ROY GUSTAFSON

PRESS ON

If it were me, and my frail mind, and I saw the crowd of John 6 turn away and walk with me no more, I would be sorely sorely depressed. Why read another book, why write another sermon, why pray another prayer, why witness to another soul, why bother, why embrace more rejection and "let down", why rejoice, smile, and be happy, why care.

Yet Jesus knew even before His Incarnation that such would be the case throughout His life. A crowd which follows then falls away. Lepers who come for healing and who leave forgetting. Pharisees who give compliments, and continue plotting. Peter who makes promises, but denies Him thrice. Those disheartened on the road to Emmaus even though He, risen, yet ate with them. May the grace and power of God grant us the mind of Christ, and that it may put to death what is earthly in us.

 

 

Luke 18:7

Shall GOD not avenge HIS OWN elect who cry out day and night to HIM, though HE bears long with them ? (Luke 18:7)

 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
(Exodus 2:23-25 ESV)

ALL OF CHRIST

If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him.”
If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing.
If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion;
if purity, in his conception;
if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain.
If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion;
if acquittal, in his condemnation;
if remission of the curse, in his cross;
if satisfaction, in his sacrifice;
if purification, in his blood;
if reconciliation, in his descent into hell;
if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb;
if newness of life, in his resurrection;
if immortality, in the same;
if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven;
if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom;
if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge.

In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other.

from Calvin's Institutes.

REMEMBER THE INCARNATION

Man’s maker was made man,
that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the Truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.

- Augustine of Hippo (Sermons 191.1)

Peace in His Plan

I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize the Lord is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult, His grace is sufficient.

~Hudson Taylor

You Shall Come

"Oh! I love God's "shalls" and "wills." There is nothing comparable to them. Let a man say "shall," what is it good for? "I will," says man, and he never performs; "I shall," says he, and he breaks his promise. But it is never so with God's "shalls." If he says "shall," it shall be; when he says "will," it will be. Now he has said here, "many shall come." The devil says "they shall not come;" but "they shall come." Their sins say "you can't come;" God says "you shall come." You, yourselves, say, "you won't come;" God says "you shall come." 

~ Spurgeon

God's Provision

God will meet all your needs

"And my God will meet all your needs according
to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19

Until we are brought into the depths of poverty,
we shall never know nor value Christ's riches.

If, then, you are a child of God, a poor and
needy soul, a tempted and tried believer in
Christ, "God will meet all your needs."

They may be very great.

It may seem to you, sometimes, as though there
were not upon all the face of the earth such a
wretch as you—as though there never could be
a child of God in your state . . .
so dark,
so stupid,
so blind and ignorant,
so proud and worldly,
so presumptuous and hypocritical,
so continually backsliding after idols,
so continually doing things that you
know are hateful in God's sight.

But whatever your need be—it is not beyond the
reach of divine supply! And the deeper your need,
the more is Jesus glorified in supplying it.

Do not say then, that . . .
your case is too bad,
your needs are too many,
your perplexities too great,
your temptations too powerful.

No case can be too bad!

No temptations can be too powerful!

No sin can be too black!

No perplexity can be too hard!

No state in which the soul can get, is beyond
the reach of the almighty and compassionate
love, that burns in the breast of the Redeemer!

PEARLS FROM J.C PHILPOT

utterly beyond

"God has surely promised His grace to the humbled, that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends, absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and works of Another - God alone."

-Martin Luther

CIRCULAR REFERENCE

This illustration came to mind last night; A bird sees the writings of Shakespeare, and after bobbing around it, begins to rip out the paper and turns it into shreds to build a nice nest. Of course, how resourceful this intelligent bird is. So likewise another branch of evolution, monkeys to mankind studies astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, and morality, continually assuming that their "facts and theories" are all reliable uses of the materials around them; when in reality they have perverted the real purpose of the resource. Man can no more expect to properly and accurately understand chemistry and we can expect a bird to understand Shakespeare, just as the bird is the circular reference to his application, so man is the circular reference to his application, and both are wrong.

CONFIDENCE IN SELF???

How confident are you that if you were born in the Amazon Jungle 2000 years ago that your free-will could cause your regeneration considering you would never hear/read a solitary verse of Scripture in your life. General Revelation leaves men without excuse, but it is not sufficient to regenerate; If you disagree you have destroyed any basic significance or purpose in evangelism, and have placed faith and confidence in the sinner's mind, instead of the Savior's mercy (Romans 9 mercy).

POWERFUL LOVE

"A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him. We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the greatest desire of our soul. … But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he wills unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven."
-- John Owen, "Works" (London, 1826), 2:63

Fix your eyes on Jesus

Remember the rejected Christ, remember the risen Christ, remember the returning Christ, remember the reigning Christ, remember the redeeming Christ, remember the rejoicing Christ. He rejoices over the Bride that He purchased and cleansed with His own blood. Fix your eyes on Jesus, be done with all lesser things, Fix your eyes on Jesus, while , Holy, Holy, Holy the angels sing.

Do you credit God

Do you credit God for your faith, or do you credit your self?  Do you credit God for the application of your faith on the proper person and object, or do you credit your self?  Was you regeneration based upon a condition that you were able to meet, or solely based on the grace of God found in the person and blood of Jesus Christ?

Can God save someone physically before He saves them spiritually? Yes, and He does so often. Can God save a man before He glorifies them eternally? Yes, and He does so often. Can God save someone before they believe? Yes. What is regeneration? A salvation from a stony heart to a heart of flesh, salvation from spiritual blindness, to spiritual sight, salvation from spiritual deafness to spiritual hearing, salvation from spiritual insanity to that of a sound mind. 

 Romans 10 itself, like Romans 1-9, is EXTREMELY FULL of the man's rejection of God. Romans 10 is replete with how the Jews did not have faith in God. So those born as Gentiles who were born without a clue of the Hebrew Language, Hebrew Text, who did not see Jesus heal, speak, and minister, must have a mountain of pride to assert, "those Jews made the wrong decision to believe Jesus, but it makes sense to me, and I cannot credit God with my faith, I have got to credit myself for believing; which therefore was prior to my salvation. May we never credit our self for either "our faith and believing" or the "application of faith"; either the Father granted me faith on the grounds of Jesus and the merit of His Blood, or the Father granted me the new birth on the grounds of something I contributed, namely "my faith" being the pivotal linchpin to meet God's condition for regeneration; in this case regeneration is no longer of grace, but of works, and one will have reason to boast not only before other unbelieving Jews, but even before God Himself. Look at me, my faith my the distinguishing difference; I cannot imagine that Isaac was born to Abraham instead of Pharaoh because Isaac did something future his conception; likewise for John the Baptist leaping in the womb;