We will serve THE LORD’S SUPPER following the messages this morning. All believers are invited to partake of this blessed memorial ordinance given by our Lord to the church. After the worship services, we will serve lunch in our dining hall. All are invited to eat with us.
WHILE CHRIST IS ON HIS THRONE
On His throne, Christ is in the height of His mediatorial glory, and He administers all grace to all the heirs of promise in a way perfectly consistent with righteousness, justice and truth! He reigns over and administers all things in order to give to His sheep all that HE has merited for them by HIS obedience and death. While CHRIST is on the throne, every believing sinner is safe and on his way to glory. --Copied
One who believes he cannot be saved due to the severity of his sins is hardly closer to the kingdom of God than the man who believes that his own righteousness and works shall save him. The first man may look like a truly repentant person, but he is not. The only difference is that the first man is waiting for some improvement in himself to make him worthy of salvation, while the second man believes he has already attained that improvement. But this they have in common – Neither one is trusting Christ, neither one has received and submitted to the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only ground of salvation. If they had, they would rest in Christ, knowing that God is just to justify sinners based on His righteousness alone. If they had, based on Christ having satisfied law and justice on their behalf, they would truly repent of ever thinking that our sins could keep us from salvation or that our obedience could recommend us unto God. —Copied
If we could peer into heaven and see that great number of departed and glorified saints, I think we would see Abraham and his nephew, Lot, Joshua and Rahab the harlot, Samuel and Samson, the penitent thief and the glorious Apostle Paul, ALL dressed in the very same raiment — that beautiful garment of salvation, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ which was freely given them (Isa. 61:10). After all, nothing less will make a sinner acceptable in God's sight and qualified for heaven! What more is there? Can anything be added to the righteousness of Christ? Can anything make a sinner more approved of God? The Lord Jesus Christ is ALL the believer's justifying righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21).
—Copied
Prayer is not a law duty to an absolute God, but a gracious intercourse with a covenant God — not practiced that He may love us, but because He loves us; not to make us His children, but because we are His children. It should be performed always in this faith. If there be infirmities in it, such as wandering, coldness, or the like, we are to remember that we are not heard for the beauty of our prayers, nor answered for the fervency of them. That which makes our persons accepted obtains acceptance for our services also. We and all we do are only accepted in the Beloved. “For through HIM [Jesus Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph. 2:18). Our access is through Jesus Christ. Trusting to His finished salvation we enter into the presence of the Father, and guided by the Holy Spirit we pray in faith. Whatever we ask in the Son’s name, we know that we have the petitions which He desired of Him. This spiritualizes prayer, and puts glory upon it, because there is heavenly fellowship with God in it, with the Father through the Son, by the one Spirit.
— excerpt from “The Walk of Faith” by William Romaine
As we all know, God Who is absolutely sovereign in all things, Who has declared the end from the beginning, and Whose purposes and decretive will cannot be frustrated, has ordained all the means necessary to accomplish His will. One of the means God has ordained is the fervent prayers of His people. God purposes and promises to bless His people, but He also has ordained that they should make use of the blessed means and privilege of prayer. God blesses His people through prayer. God answers prayer. It may or may not be the answer we desire, and the blessing may or may not be what we expect, but it is a privilege and an act of faith and worship for believers to pray. The power, efficacy, and prevalence of prayer does not arise from any intrinsic worth and merit in the act of prayer, but from the grace of the Spirit Who influences and directs to it, from the powerful mediation, precious blood, and efficacious sacrifice of Christ, and from the promise of God and Christ, Who have engaged that whatever is asked according to the will of God and in the name of Christ shall be done.
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