March 3, 2013
~~~ Fellowship Dinner March 17th (DV) ~~~
Hymn For The Day
Sons of God redeemed by blood,
Raise your songs to Zion's God;
Made from condemnation free,
Grace triumphant sing with me.
Calvary's wonders let us trace,
Justice magnified in grace;
Mark the crimson streams and say,
Thus my sins were washed away.
Wrath Divine no more we dread,
Vengeance smote our Surety's head;
Legal claims are fully met,
Christ hath paid the dreadful debt.
Lamb of God! Thy death hath giv'n
Pardon, peace and hope of heav'n;
It is finished; let us raise
Songs of gratitude and praise.
(Tune: "Depth of Mercy" #233)
What A Mystery Are You!
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me," Rom. 7:21. Are you not often a mystery to yourself?
Warm one moment-cold the next! Abasing yourself one hour- exalting yourself the following! Loving the world, full of it, steeped up to your head in it today-crying, groaning, and sighing for a sweet manifestation of the love of God tomorrow!
Brought down to nothingness, covered with shame and confusion, on your knees before you leave your room-filled with pride and self importance before you have got down stairs!
Despising the world, and willing to give it all up for one taste of the love of Jesus when in solitude-trying to grasp it with both hands when in business! What a mystery are you!
Touched by love-and stung with hatred! Possessing a little wisdom-and a great deal of folly! Earthly minded-and yet having the affections in heaven! Pressing forward-and lagging behind!
Full of sloth-and yet taking the kingdom with violence! And thus the Spirit, by a process which we may feel but cannot adequately describe-leads us into the mystery of the two natures perpetually struggling and striving against each other in the same bosom.
So that one man cannot more differ from another, than the same man differs from himself. But the mystery of the kingdom of heaven is this-that our carnal mind undergoes no alteration, but maintains a perpetual war with grace. And thus, the deeper we sink in self abasement under a sense of our vileness, the higher we rise in a knowledge of Christ, and the blacker we are in our own
view-the more lovely does Jesus appear.
- J. C Philpot
Many people dabble with the doctrines of grace. They like to discuss them and debate them. They like to read what men say about them. But in their heart, they have little regard for them. This is evidenced by what they don't do:
1. They don't see them as essential in salvation.
2. They don't desire to hear them preached regularly.
3. They don't support a ministry that upholds them.
4. They don't identify with the people who believe them.
5. They don't commit all their energies & resources to the
advancement of them.
6. They don't hesitate to call "brethren" those who despise them.
7. They don't reveal any work of grace in them.
8. They don't love & follow the Person they reveal!
The "doctrines of grace" are but the "doctrine of Christ!" Believed in the heart, they produce a commitment to Christ Jesus that cannot be hidden!
- Pastor Gary Shepard
~~~ O ~~~
OUR SUFFICIENCY IS OF GOD
"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves." We are not sufficient to communicate the Spirit, truth, or grace, of God to men; nor sufficient to discern, read, think, or judge, aright of a work of grace upon the hearts of men.
"But our sufficiency is of God." Our light, knowledge, grace, that we have, are of God's free gift; and so is all the success that has attended our labours. And, as for our discernment into your hearts, and knowledge of the goodness of your state, they are of God also; which he gives us light to see; and knowledge to judge of, and a persuasion in our own hearts that our judgment of you is true. Moreover, he told me "to speak boldly at Corinth,
for he had much people in that city." And it was by us that ye were called.
God may use others, even men of one talent, graceless men, to cast a little light upon his word, and on your minds, and to furnish his spiritual exchangers with some sound expressions for prayer and conversation; but he never uses nor honours these in converting souls to himself; for, "if ye have ten thousand instructors, ye have not many fathers; I have begotten you," through the gospel; therefore our sufficiency is of God.
- William Huntington (1745-1813)
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