Central Grace Church
3596 Franklin Street Rocky Mount, Virginia
Website: www.centralgracechurch.com Email: pedm55@gmail.com
July 14th 2024
10:00 am ---------------------------------Come Now, Let Us Reason Together – Isaiah 1
Wednesday: 7:00 pm ------------------------ What is it To Come To Christ – John 6:37
Cast All Your Care Upon the Lord – By Henry Mahan
“Casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you.” -- I Peter 5:7
Charles Tindley wrote, "Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there." I believe I have learned the first half of this. I do take my cares and concerns, my needs and burdens, to the Lord; but too often, after I have taken them to the Lord, I feel them on my mind as heavily as before! Beloved, this is not the way to trust God. The way to trust God is to cast my care on him altogether and go away resting in the fact that he cares for me, will work it all out for my good and his glory, and, if what I am doing is his work and will, then he will preserve it. If it is not his work, then let it go to pieces, and the sooner the better! I know that the believer is to be burdened for the lost, concerned that his conduct, conversation, and character glorify God, and that he is to approach his duties and responsibilities with a serious and dedicated mind. But, when we put forth our best effort, then let's leave it all in his hands. Let's leave all of our fears and anxieties at his feet. We are but instruments in his hand; it is his world, his work, and his church. His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. His purpose is accomplished in success and failure, in prosperity and adversity, and in life and death!
The New Nature Tempted– By J.C. Philpot
Was the Lord Jesus tempted like I am? How can that be? He was pure, spotless, and holy; but I am full of corruption from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. The Lord of life and glory had a perfect, unfallen nature, a holy human body, and a holy human soul, taken into union with Deity; but I have a fallen nature, defiled in body and polluted in soul. Can there be a resemblance in our temptations?" I would ask, what is it in you that feels the burden of temptation when Satan injects his blasphemies into your mind? Is there not a something in you which is grieved, I was going to say tortured, by these fiery darts? Is it not the new nature? and is not that nature spotless and holy? Is it not born of God, and therefore as holy as God is holy, and pure as God is pure? Thus just in the same way as your pure and holy nature that is born of God is grieved and distressed by the fiery darts of Satan, so was the holy soul of the Lord Jesus ten thousand times more grieved and tortured by the temptations of Satan presented before his pure and spotless mind.
Can’t Live Without the Gospel – By Tommy Robbins
The center of the believer’s life in this world is comprised of, taken up with, and committed to Christ and His Gospel. Paul wrote: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the live I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal.2:20).
The Gospel is the heartbeat and pulse of the believer’s life. There is no life where there is no Christ. There is no Christ where there is no Gospel. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12).
A nominal professor of Christianity has no love for, no heart for, no commitment to the Gospel, and therefore no faith or life in Christ. Then Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have NO LIFE in you” (John 6:53). We live upon Christ by faith as He is revealed in the Gospel. One can no more live spiritually without the Gospel than he can live physically without natural food. “The just SHALL LIVE by faith.”
Whose House Are We if We Hold Fast – Hebrews 3:6
The people of God are called the Temple of God (1 Cor.3:16); the church of God (Acts 20:28); and here the house of God. God dwells in them and they in Him . . . IF WE HOLD FAST. . . if by the grace of God we have laid hold of the gospel of Christ by faith . . . if by grace we have embraced and love the truth of the gospel, and all our hope and confidence of eternal life is in Christ alone. We are God’s people, God’s house if we continue to believe and lovingly embrace the truth firm unto the end. And notice it says . . . “If we hold fast the confidence and the REJOICING of the hope firm unto the end.” We are God’s people if we truly REJOICE in Christ Jesus. This is one of the three marks of the true circumcision (spiritual Israel) in Philippians 3:3. As GOD rejoices in His Son, so doth everyone born of God. He is their joy and rejoicing unto the end. Their joy does not diminish, but rather increases and grows stronger unto the end. The first fruits of the Spirit (Gal.5:22) are love and joy. One who ceases to rejoice in and enjoy the gospel, never really loved it (Him). We are of God if we rejoice in Christ to the end. To die in faith is to hear, believe and rejoice to hear the gospel to the end of our life on earth.