July 21, 2013

God's Peculiar People

God's peculiar people we,
Sanctified and called to be
The sheep of God's Be-loved Son,
Not our own, but His alone.
Purchased by the blood of Christ,
Precious to the Lord of Life.

God has chosen whom He will,
His purpose He doth fulfill.
Makes them willing in His day.
All their sin debt Christ did pay.
For His praise, for His glory,
For His pleasure, He chose me.

Let not pride within me say
That I am better than they.
In need of mercy I am;
A dog, a worm, a vile man.
But God in His Sov'reign love
Chose this sinner from above.

(By Gary Spreacker, Tune: ‘Rock of Ages’, p 126)

Most men believe that they possess a free will which puts them on a basis of actually being more powerful than GOD, since they consider that they can thwart the purpose of GOD and prevent HIM from doing what HE desires to do, by an exercise of their will. They believe that they can keep HIM in a constant mode of damage control as they go about to upset HIS carefully laid "plans". In this same vein of thought they think that they can choose to believe or not believe as easily as picking out a pair socks from their dresser drawer.

Now it is true that they can choose not to believe, which they do, quite by nature, since they are dead in trespasses and sins from which they cannot extricate themselves. In this they act in the same fashion as a hog who chooses to wallow in the mire. Regardless of what you teach the hog or how clean you might make him, he will exercise his "free will" to choose the mud. In looking at a hog it is easy to discern that he really has no "free will" at all since he is a slave to his "hoggish" nature. In this same fashion men are slaves to their own nature as well. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)

- Mike McGuiness

~~~ O ~~~

There is enough in Jesus Christ to serve us all. If two, or six, or twenty men be athirst, and they go to drink out of a bottle, while one is drinking, the other envies, because he thinks there will not be enough for him too; but if a hundred be athirst, and go to the river, while one is drinking, the other envies not, because there is enough to serve them all.

- William Bridge

CONFIDENCE IN CHRIST

"And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming." (1 John 2:28).

What sweet comfort this precious promise of God gives to the heart of the believer. Our Lord shall return with glorious splendor to receive us to Himself forever (John 14:1-3). Now, and in that blessed day we shall have absolute and eternal confidence to stand before the holy throne of God totally justified and complete in Christ (Col. 2:9-10). True saving faith has all confidence in Christ, not in self (Heb. 12:2). We say with the Apostle, "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3).

Believers not only have all confidence in Christ, but we also shall never be ashamed of His gospel now, nor before Him at His glorious coming (1John 3:2: 4:17). Every believer can boldly say with the Apostle, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Rom. 1:16).

Christ Jesus is not ashamed to love us (1John 4:10), to own us (Heb. 2:13), to die for us (Heb. 2:17) and to present us faultless before His holy throne (Jude 1:24). "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11). How could we ever be ashamed of Him? "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:26).

Therefore, those who rest in the Lord Jesus Christ shall have great confidence in Him and shall never be confounded, confused or ashamed to own Him as Lord and Saviour, now and forever. "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded" (1Peter 2:6; Rom.9: 33; Isa. 28:16).