Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” – Mark 9:24

I really believe that Christ is all in salvation and yet I constantly look within for evidences of salvation. I really believe that God is sovereign and yet I worry and complain. I really believe that God is the first cause of all things, yet I can harbor anger and resentment. I really desire likeness to Christ, yet I still have a desire for sin. Why these contradictions? Because I have two natures - the nature of the first birth and the nature of the second birth. One that always believes; one that never believes. One that always sins, one that never sins. These two natures operating in my one consciousness. Hence my cry, “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.”

Pastor Todd Nibert

Electing Love

We preach election because there is not a single blessing that comes to us from the hand of our Redeemer that is not stamped with the hand of God’s electing love. The Scriptures say, “God hath chosen you to salvation.” Again, “He hath chosen us that we should be holy.” Again, “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know His will.”

It is not in ourselves that these blessings are constrained. We have them because of OUR UNION WITH CHRIST, and we are united with Christ because of the Father’s divine and sovereign choice. Let us never imagine that the atoning sacrifice of Christ was intended to make an angry God willing to be merciful. That is not the truth. Jesus Christ died, not to create mercy and love in the heart of God, but to open a just and righteous way for that mercy and love which is there from all eternity.

God’s mercy and love went forth to us before the Saviour came. THAT’S WHY HE CAME! Spiritual blessings are heavenly blessings. They come from heaven and are of a heavenly nature. We enjoy these in Christ because He has purchased them for us and has gone there to possess them for us in His own name.

All things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1Cor. 3:21-22).

It all starts with God’s sovereign choice.

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1985)

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” (1 Thess. 5:2).

A true believer does not desire to know more than God Almighty permits him to know. While others expend countless hours studying world events, trying to somehow connect them to the return of Christ (some to the point of naming the exact date), and then making those events to be the center-point of a “gospel” message, the believer studies the Word which is the revelation of Christ. While a believer is certainly watching expectantly for the return of his Lord, he is not taken up with the events surrounding that return. A believer is taken up only with the Christ Who is returning. Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

Humbled or Angered

“Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee” (Proverbs 9:8).

Someone has said, "Faithful reproofs, if they don't profit you will provoke you." God's prophet, John the Baptist, faithfully rebuked Herod for taking his brother's wife (Matt. 14:4). Herod's response to the truth of God was anger and murder toward God's prophet. On another occasion, the prophet of God, Nathan, rebuked King David for taking Bathsheba to be his wife and for the murder of Uriah the Hittite, her husband (2 Sam. 12:7-14). David, instead of being angry, was humbled and confessed before God that he was a sinner and begged for mercy. David expressed this in Psalm 51, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Now here is the question for us. How do we react to the rebuke of Holy Scripture? Are we humbled and broken hearted? Do we beg God for mercy and forgiveness or do we get angry and upset? Believers are humbled, those who don't believe God are only angered and enraged.