SALVATION IN SPITE OF

No one can be saved by anything they do or don’t do. The scriptures make that as clear as the sun in the sky. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” (Romans 3:20) No one can be righteous and deserve salvation. “There is none righteous, no not one.” (Romans 3:10) So if a sinner will be saved it must be in spite of himself not because of anything he has done. That is exactly how God saves sinners: in spite of everything about us. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The reason many professing Christians will not denounce that which is contrary to the Truth is because they really have no peace themselves. They are strangers to the peace of justification. They do not have a genuine confidence that what they believe is the Truth of God. They are afraid to condemn something because ‘What if I am wrong and it is true after all?’ But if a man ever experiences the joy of justification; if a man ever sees that God is sovereign and salvation is by His sovereign grace….he will not, he cannot tolerate that which denies or calls into question any of that which he holds so dear.

Pastor Todd Nibert

That We May Know Him

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, [even] in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

Beware of the intellectual preacher who is always splitting hairs and pronouncing woe upon all who are not as smart as them. God gives His people an understanding that they may know a Person. Read the text again. Not that they might know some complicated man-deduced system of doctrine.

You do not need to be smart to know God. Thank God for that. Even the little children were encouraged by Him to come and trust Him. The thief didn’t have much time to take a stance on this theological issue or the other. His soul hung upon knowing the identity of the One Who hung on Calvary’s middle cross. The blind man in John 9 could not answer the questions posed him by the religion of the day, but he trusted the Son of God and bowed to Him, believing. Look at the messages preached by the men of the New Testament Church. Where is the striving over words that is done in many pulpits today? They simply declared the identity and authority of a Person.

Knowledge puffeth men up, but love, a relationship with the Person of God’s Son, will build His people up (1 Cor 8:1). A person whose assurance is based upon how much they know, is building their house on the sand. May I simply be able to confess with the Apostle Paul, “I know WHOM I have believed.” May all of our learning be as our Lord exhorted – “take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” I don’t need to know more about the end times. I need to know Him Who is the end and the beginning. I don’t need to know more about issues, but I want to know Him to Whom belongs the issues from death (Ps 68:20).

Pastor Chris Cunningham

Union with Christ

Without union to Jesus Christ saints would not be saints; believers would be unbelievers; the elect would be reprobate; all hope would be lost; salvation would be nothing more than a fantasy; and faithfulness to God would be an absolute impossibility. Everything God’s people are and have is owing to their union with Jesus Christ.