IN HIS LIGHT

For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. Psalms 36:9

The greatest evidence of spiritual blindness is the failure of men and women to see the worth and glory of Christ and all that is in Him compared to the things of this world. They concern themselves with what they call “living” and ignore Him who is the Life. They hide in their refuge of lies and deny Him who is the Truth. They follow the way that seems right to them (the end thereof which is death) and turn away from Him who is the Way. God alone can deliver the sinner from this blindness. But when can it be said that God has opened their eyes? It is when they see by faith through the word of truth that Christ is ALL! When such a view of Christ’s divine and redemptive glory fills their view. When Christ crucified becomes to them their life. When the Lord Jesus becomes to them the sum of all Truth. When He is to them delight in nothing else but the glorious Savior! His glory, as it did to Paul, blinds them to everything else. Gary Shepard

PEACE BECAUSE OF FORGIVENESS

Having been declared righteous, then, by faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1 YLT

What can give peace to a sinner’s conscience except a well-founded assurance that his sins have all been forgiven. Many have sought the absolution of sins through various priests, plans, practices, programs and preachers. But the words and rituals of men do not bring real peace to the conscience. Such peace must come from God himself and this peace God does give to all Christ died for. He sends to His people these “glad tidings of peace.” He sends His messengers “preaching peace.” This is the only peace there is, peace with God through Christ who “made peace by the blood of his cross.” On the basis of His finished work, the one sacrifice for sins forever, believers in Christ have peace of conscience. We have it because HE made it. He reconciled us to God. Our peace is in the Prince of peace! “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:” (Col.1:14) Peace was made through the cross death of Christ and peace is experienced through believing on Him and trusting the work He accomplished! Gary Shepard

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Acts 20:28

Let us be perfectly clear on what the Scripture's actually declare concerning the work of redemption. Christ DID NOT shed His precious blood indiscriminately for every person that will ever live, putting it in some mystical "blood bank" and then waiting for those who of "their own free will and accord" will draw out their portion. This is heresy! This verse in Acts tells us clearly that God HAS PURCHASED the church of God (not all men, ONLY HIS ELECT, those chosen and given to Christ in the everlasting covenant of grace BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD), and the PURCHASE PRICE was "His own blood." The TRUE GOSPEL my friend is not a invitation, IT IS A DECLARATION of an ACCOMPLISHED REDEMPTION by a Sovereign God through the person and work of His appointed Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Richard Warmack

The religion of nature is the religion of pride. Pride is of the devil. Pride works by a lie, and keeps the soul in unbelief of the truth. Hence, we naturally think some change in us, some good done by us, causes God to be our Father, and we consider ourselves as his very good children. This notion obtains in the mind of many, and is the cause of their rejecting the everlasting covenant of the three-one Jehovah, and denying the covenant relations and transactions of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They are so filled with themselves, with their Stuff of inherent righteousness, freewill, moral agency, and one knows not what unscriptural jargon, that they see not all fulness in Jesus, where it pleased the Father it should dwell. Lord! empty us of all selfishness, that we may receive out of thy fulness. The Father, by covenant love, took on him that near and dear relation to all his chosen, when his eternal, coqual Son, covenanted to become man, to sustain the curse for man, to satisfy justice, and obtain every blessing for sinners: this pleased the Father. And as man had lost all holiness, happiness, and blessedness by the first Adam, and was quite empty of all good,all fulness is treasured up and dwells in the second Adam, the Lord from heaven: this also pleased the Father. The Father of whom? “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Rom. 8:9.) Here the covenant office of the blessed Spirit is engaged, to convince us of sin, to empty us of self-sufficiency, and to shew us the fullness that dwells in Jesus for us. Hence, here is a plain answer to that question, How may I know whether I have the Spirit of Christ or not? Do you see yourself stripped of all righteousness, emptied of all good, prone to every evil? This is the teaching of the Spirit. Do you see the fulness that dwells in that glorious Man, Christ Jesus? that you must receive pardon of sin, justifying righteousness; adoption, to be a child of God, by faith in him; sanctification, and eternal redemption out of his fulness? Are you pleased at this? Are you satisfied to come, day after day, as a self-emptied sinner, hungry and thirsty, to receive out of his fulness? Can you say so? Then, you have the Spirit of God; for what pleased the Father, pleases you. O! rejoice in this. You may say with the apostles and all saints, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:3.)