Glory in the Cross of Christ

Every religious person is going to glory in something. He will glory in his pedigree, his morality, his gifts, his office, his revelations, or his sufferings. With a strong “God forbid”, Paul made a clean sweep of all these grounds for boasting and declared, “I will glory only in the cross of Christ.”

You know without my telling you that he referred not to a tree, or a necklace, or a symbol on a church steeple, but to the great atonement of our Lord; to the substitutionary, vicarious suffering of Christ and to the glorious gospel which came from the cross.

I wish today’s religion would TOTALLY ABANDON the superstitious use of crosses and begin again to preach the true cross of Christ; the gospel of His glory

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1985)

IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS

A pastor was talking to the mother of a little girl who had just recovered from a near-fatal illness. The woman said, “Wasn’t God good to give us back our child?” The minister was about to voice his agreement when an arresting thought entered his mind. The woman was surprised when he answered, “Yes, but would not God have been just as good, or just as kind, if your child had not been spared?” The mother hesitated. Her face clouded over. At last, though half-heartedly and without conviction, she conceded that her pastor was right.

It takes an unshakable confidence in the wisdom, power, and love of God to give “thanks always for all things” (Ephesians 5:20). This does not mean we delight in pain and suffering. We simply cling to His unchanging attributes. It’s easy to be happy when everything seems to be going our way. We readily express thanks to God when we receive the things we desire. But there’s often an opposite response when we find ourselves in adverse situations and our heavenly Father does not grant our requests. The trusting child of God, however, learns to praise the Lord in every circumstance.

Romans 8:28 has become so familiar to many of us that we sometimes fail to appreciate it. But it’s a comforting truth that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”

“Thanks for thorns as well as roses
Thanks for weakness and for health
Thanks for clouds as well as sunshine
Thanks for poverty and wealth!”

Pastor Todd Nibert

“I will cry unto God most high, unto God that performeth all things for me”. Ps. 57:2

In foreknowledge, He performeth all things for me in that He loved me with an everlasting love, before He caused me to love Him.

In predestination, He performeth all things for me in that He chose me before the foundation of the world.

In redemption, He performeth all things for me in that He purchased me with His own precious blood.

In regeneration, He performeth all things for me in that He sent His Spirit to open the eyes of my understanding and make me willing in the day of His power.

In sanctification, He performeth all things for me in that He gave me a holy nature and continues to work in me causing me to look to Christ for all my righteousness.

In glorification, He performeth all things for me in that He is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, and I am in Him waiting for the redemption of my body. Thanks be to God who hath done all things well.

Pastor Greg Elmquist

What I want to happen to you I also want to happen to myself, namely that God the Holy Spirit would bring us down so low that we can’t see a single good thing in us, that when we look inside our hearts we could see nothing but that which would condemn us. O that we would come to God as criminals in prison clothes with a rope around our neck and confess that we have nothing of our own but sin. Remember, God will have us real before Him.