IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL

I love to be in a congregation singing the song, It Is Well With My Soul. But how can a sinner sing that song and mean it? Only in Christ. It is well with my soul if Christ took my sin away from me and died to put those sins away under His blood. If my sin is gone, my sin can never condemn me. It is well with my soul if Christ was punished for my sins as my substitute. God will never punish me if Christ was already punished for me. It is well with my soul if I am justified by faith in Christ not my failed works of the law. It is well with my soul if the Holy Spirit has given me faith in Christ because “whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:26).

Pastor Frank Tate

WHAT IS YOUR REASON?

If a minister compromises the message of grace and the gospel of our Lord Jesus, we begin to search for reasons. If a prominent church member becomes entangled in the world, business, or any number of interests which take him away from the fellowship or causes him to neglect things spiritual, we begin to search for reasons. One might produce a variety of reasons for this departure from Christ and strong attraction to the flesh, but there is ONE CHIEF REASON--THIS PERSON HAS NEVER SEEN CHRIST JESUS, OUR LORD! He has never beheld, in his heart, the great glory, beauty, and sufficiency of Christ. The Lord Jesus has never become to him, "My beloved!" As Solomon said, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine" (Song of Sol. 6:3). John said, "He that SEETH THE SON and believeth on Him hath eternal life" (Jn. 6:40).

To see Christ as He is, is to lose interest in all others! To see Christ as the ultimate joy, peace, rest, and glory is to cease from all other works and pursuits and enter His rest. To see Christ as God's only anointed Redeemer, complete Saviour, and effectual atonement is to trust Him and Him alone to save and keep us. To see even the REPROACH of Christ to be greater riches than all the treasures of this world is to walk away from them with no regrets and never look back! To even look back is to perish with Lot's wife. But he that seeth the Son knows that nothing back there is worth comparing to Him! Pastor Henry T. Mahan

BY THE GRACE OF GOD 1 Corinthians 15:10

What but sovereign grace; rich, free and super-abounding grace has made the difference between you and the world who cannot receive Him? But for His divine operations upon your soul, you would still be of the world, hardening your heart against everything good and godlike, walking on in the pride and ignorance of unbelief and self-righteousness, until you sank down into the chambers of death!

J. C. Philpot

CONTINUE IN PRAYER

“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak” (Col. 4:2).

Our Lord said in Luke 18:1, "that men ought always to pray and not to faint." Prayer is not a mechanical performance to be seen of men; the Pharisees prayed that way and were not heard before God (Matt. 6:5). Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude of the heart, and a dependence of the soul upon Almighty God. It is also seeking to spread out our heart's desire before God and asking it to be granted according to His sovereign purpose. Real prayer is communion with God through the only Mediator, Jesus Christ the Lord; who is sitting at God's right hand making intercession for us (Heb. 7:25; 1 Tim 2:5). Prayer is never intended to change the purpose of God, but rather to make us know and realize what the purpose of God is. I have often heard people say, "that prayer changes things." I hope it changes our wrong attitudes, our sinful desires and our ungodly conduct, but prayer never changes the purpose of the eternal God (Isa. 46:9-12). He said, "I am the Lord I change not" (Mal. 3:6).

Well then, since God is sovereign and has decreed all things, then why are we instructed to pray? God has decreed all things, but all He has decreed come to pass through the means He has ordained (Acts 4:27-28). God has elected a people unto salvation (2 Thes. 2:13), but He has also decreed that His people shall be saved from their sin by the appointed means, Jesus Christ (Gal. 4:4); His grace and sacrifice (Rom. 3:24). The gospel then is one of the appointed means to accomplish His eternal purpose and prayer is another. Even the prayers of His people are included in His eternal purpose. Therefore, instead of prayer being useless and vain; they are part of the decrees by which God exercises His eternal purpose.

What distinct privilege the Lord has given unto to His covenant people to call upon our great God and Father in prayer. “For we have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15).

“Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1Thes. 5:17-18).