Preach the Gospel to Yourself Every Day

"So if we want to grow in our love for God and in the acceptable obedience that flows out of that love, we must keep coming back to the Cross and the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. That is why it is so important that we keep the gospel before us every day. Because we sin every day, and our consciences condemn us every day, we need the gospel every day." Jerry Bridges

The blood of Christ has covered my sins. The only way I can love God is to embrace what He did for me through the cross!

Transformed into His Likeness

"No sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience; because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified (put to death) in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power." Robert Haldane

"The cleansing of our consciences from the guilt of sin must precede our efforts to deal with the presence of sin in our daily lives." Jerry Bridges

God's Grace

"God's grace is his active favor bestowing the greatest gift upon those who have deserved the greatest punishment." William Hendricksen

Propitiation

Propitiation in the context of salvation means that which appeases the wrath of God against sin.

How Good is Good Enough?

"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace."

As Christians, we often view our standing with God on how "good" of a day spiritually we are having. How good is good enough? We are Christians, but we are also sinners. Christ came to take the punishment and shame we deserved. "Christ has already borne the curses for our disobedience and earned for us the blessings of obedience. As a result, we now look to Christ alone not Christ plus our performance for God's blessings in our lives." In the Old Testament there was the law and believers were counted as righteous based on how well they kept the law. Jesus came to do away with the law and now we have righteousness based on what He did for us on the cross. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. "The only way we can relate to God is through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ." The grace of God is far greater than the guilt of our shame and this frees us up as Christians to not feel condemnation in what we do, but instead feel joy in what God did through His son!

I have had the vivid picture in my head of something my dad said Sunday in his sermon in Mark chapter 12. The picture of Christ walking ahead of the disciples to Jerusalem. The disciples were "amazed" because everyone knew that whatever was going to happen in Jerusalem wasn't going to be good. Jesus knew what was about to happen. For the first time his relationship with the Father was going to be broken, but he was first in the group. He sprinted to become a curse for us.