August 19, 2007

By Augustus Toplady

Dear Lord, into Thy faithful hands,

My welfare I commit;

And to Thy righteousness alone,

Birthdays: Mariel Moore, Aug. 20^th.

ENCOURAGEMENT IN LOVE

When I examine myself and take inventory of my thoughts, motives, desires, and actions, I am continually disappointed in the sinfulness and weakness of my best efforts to love God and my brethren in Christ. As recorded in John 21, our Lord asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Peter’s only reply could be, “Lord, you know all things. You know I love you.” Peter knew his love was nothing to boast in, but he knew he loved the Lord. The Lord told Peter that the greatest expression of love to Him was love to the brethren – “Feed my lambs, my sheep.” When I see how weak and pitiful I am in this matter of love, how can I be encouraged not to give up but to love more? It is not by considering the sinfulness and weakness of my own love. It is by considering the greatness and perfection of God’s love to me -- “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Think of the free, undeserved, unconditional love of God towards us (SINNERS) in sending His only-begotten Son to die for our sins and give us the bounty of His grace -- “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). The more we know of HIS love for us, the more we will be encouraged to love one another more.

Bill Parker – Pastor Thirteenth Street Baptist Church

THE JUST FOR THE UNJUST

God caused the (sinless) Christ to become sin. He caused Him to become what He was not, NOT by imparting sin to Him, or infusing sin in Him, BUT by imputation. Christ bore the imputed sins of His elect as the sacrificial lamb bore the sins of Israel under the Old Covenant. He died "the JUST for the unjust". ( I Pet 3:18). He "through the eternal spirit offered himself WITHOUT SPOT to God". (Heb 9: 14).

Mark Pannell – Eager Ave. Grace Church

FOR THE ELECT’S SAKE

2 Timothy 2: 1-13

The Bible doctrine of Divine Election is probably the most hated of doctrines to rank and file religionists. The fact that God, and not man is the determining factor in salvation grates against what we are by nature. Legalists will not surrender their works, (their contributions) in this matter of salvation. Man, by nature insists on controlling his destiny, and until and unless God intervenes, will continue on the broad way that leads to destruction. Salvation, to him is his election of God and not God’s choosing him.

Adam started this practice when he sewed his fig leaves together to cover his nakedness, and this practice continues to this day, even by the Elect of God before regeneration. Unless the God of Election had chosen sinners to salvation, none would be saved. Unless God chose some unto eternal justification and glory and gave them to Christ, none would be saved. Unless God chose the man, the manner, the method and the means of salvation none would be saved. No sinner in his highest and loftiest imagination could have conceived such a plan of redemption, as has God. We know this to be true because even the wisest sinner by nature, when presented with the gospel cannot see the value of it. God’s salvation is the only salvation where sinners are saved and God remains just.

The truth is, Election is unto salvation. God chose some out of Adams fallen race and saved them by His grace which is in Christ Jesus. God’s Elect were chosen before they fell in Adam. God was not unjust to choose some and leave the rest to their own demonic desires. He is not unjust to send sinners to eternal misery who refuse His salvation and insist on their own way in spite of His repeated warnings and threats in the Scriptures to repent and believe the truth. He is not unjust to punish sinners who insist on thinking their faith and repentance is the cause and not the effect of salvation. And He is not unjust to save those whom He has “loved with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3) The truth is, if He had not elected some unto salvation, none would be saved.