If we want to save others, we cannot save ourselves

"Chief priests' mockery is ... ironically true: 'He saved others, but he cannot save himself'. Ultimately, since Jesus is dying as a ransom for many, he cannot save himself if he wants to save the others" - From The Cross from a Distance by Peter G Bolt.

It is true for us. If we want to save others, we cannot save ourselves. If we want to bless others, we cannot bless ourselves. We cannot both keep our lives and give life unto others.

True Gospel with True faith is what saves

There is True Gospel and counterfeit "gospel", and likewise there is True Faith and counterfeit "faith".

So there are few possibilities:

1) You can listen to a counterfeit "gospel" and believe in it with a counterfeit "faith", and be damned forever.

2) You can listen to a counterfeit "gospel" and truly believe in it and give your life for it, and be damned forever.

3) You can listen to the True Gospel and have a counterfeit "faith", and be damned forever.

4) You can listen to a True Gospel, and have a True Faith that is given by God, that which continues, and that which works by love to God and man.

This last is what is needed for salvation. Let us pray for faithful preaching of the True Gospel of Christ crucified in our preachers, and also pray that the faithful preaching will be matched by True Faith, which is only the gift from heaven.

Justification

"I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing" Galatians 2:21

What does this passage mean? It means: If there was ANY possibility whatsoever that one could be seen as righteous before God's eyes by doing good works, then there was no reason for Christ to come. If that were so, Jesus could have just come and told us: "Just try harder, and then you will go to heaven".

But there was no possibility for a man to be justified by the law. God saw that it was IMPOSSIBLE for man to be righteousness before Him by works. This is why God sent His Son to die, so that all who would simply receive Christ's righteousness by faith would be counted as righteous before Him.

There is nothing we can do to make us look right before God. Even our best works are like filthy rags, contaminated by our imperfections. But it is Christ's righteousness that makes us to look beautiful and lovable in God's eyes. Praise be to God, who imputed the Righteous Christ with sin and guilt, so that He may impute us sinners with His righteousness.

Faith: looking to Christ and not on our deadness

"He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised" Romans 4:19-21

"Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Romans 8:24-25

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" Galatians 5:22-23

God gave his promise to Abraham that he would become "the father of many nations". Abraham kept on believing in that promise, even though his was a "body of death", and his wife was past child-bearing age. Yet Abraham did not look to his own deadness, but he looked to God whom He thought could do the impossible, and bring life to his and his wife's dead bodies.

Likewise we Christians believe in God's promise of resurrection of our bodies, when we shall be revealed and declared to be the children of God, when we shall finally be "righteous", not just counted as righteous. We shall be completely free from sin, and we shall be like angels of the Most High, never dying again, but living forever in eternal enjoyment of our Saviour who saved us by His death.

We Christians believe that though we are dead and barren of any fruit of righteousness in and of ourselves, but we trust in Christ to live in us, and to bear in us the fruit of the Spirit. We don't look to ourselves and forever wallow in our wretchedness and our corruption, but we look to the life of the risen Christ to supply us with the Holy Spirit from heaven. We believe that God can bear in our sinful flesh the Isaac of righteousness, so that we may give glory to Him.

Thus we cry to God always "Abba, Father!", asking that He may give us the heavenly Water of the Spirit always, that we may be enabled to live this life always for Him. This is the life spent waiting for the hope of righteousness that is to be revealed when Christ shall come.

"For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness" Galatians 5:5

We're not forsaken because Christ was forsaken

Psalm 37:25: "I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread"

Why is this above possible?:
Mark 15:33-37:
"And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last."

Christ the Only Righteous One was forsaken for us on the Cross. He begged for thirst, and they gave him vinegar for drink. This is why we wicked, evil sinners can be brought into a relationship with God by faith in Christ, and forever be NOT forsaken by Him. Christ was counted to be a sinner on the cross, so that we can be called Righteous, so that we may have the blessing of God's unfailing love. Praise be to Jesus Christ

Christ's death opened heaven for us

Mark 1:10

"And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove."

Mark 15:38

"And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom."

The Temple of God in Jerusalem was a representation of the real Temple of God: Heaven. When Jesus Christ died, the curtain of the temple that veiled the Most Holy place was torn in two.

The meaning is this: As Jesus died the substitutionary death for us, He opened heaven itself, so that the Holy Spirit may descend upon us who believe in Christ, so that God may call all of us His beloved children, with whom He is pleased. Christ opened heaven for us, whereas before it was shut off from as with an iron wall. He shattered it by His blood, by which He paid for the price of our sins. Amen

Top two lies of the devil:

1) That you can go to heaven by your own works, and merit yourself eternal life. That you can please and move God to remove your sins away from you by some action of yours. That God will forgive you your sins by the amount of your penance and good deeds.

2) That you can go to heaven by having a superficial, man-made, intellectual, false faith in Christ, that does not prove itself by works of love, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. That God doesn't mind if you continually live in unrepentant sin and ungodliness for all your life as long as you confess that you believe in Christ. That you can have a dead faith without works and still make it into the Kingdom of God.

We will do well to avoid these two lies from hell, and ask God that He give us true faith in Christ always, that proves and expresses itself through deeds of love.

How to not be afraid of being shamed for Christ

Encouraged by these verses:

"A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull)" - Mark 15:21-22

While Simon from Cyrene carried the cross for Christ, who were the crowd hurling insults, spitting and making sport of? Rather, to WHOM were the mockeries directed at? Was it to Simon, or to Jesus? It was to Jesus Christ. Herein is encouragement for those of us, including myself, that are afraid of being ashamed for the name of Christ: Their mocking is not directed at you. Their cursing is not directed at you. We remember what Jesus said: "They cannot hate you, but they hate Me". When we speak of Christ to people, it is not us that they are hating. They are hating Christ. Their insults are directed at Christ, because it is Christ - God - that they hate, not us.

What Christ is saying to us is, 'I will take the shame for you, I will take all the insults, and shame, and mocking, as I have done on the way to Calvary, but take up the cross beside me'.

Christ is with us in all the mocking and insulting and abusing that we take for His Name, for it is Him those crowds are hating, not us directly. Thus we take shade under His wings, even in persecution.

Lord, help us to take up the cross, knowing that you are with us, to shield us from their arrows. Amen

Real freedom is serving God

Thoughts on Exodus: Real freedom is being liberated from serving the wrong master, Sin, to be enabled to serve the only Good Master, Jesus Christ.

Once we are liberated from our old master Sin by the Holy Spirit and the power of the Gospel, Sin doesn't reign over us, but it becomes our enemy. Once we have joined the kingdom of Christ, we have become enemies to Sin, though Sin still dwells in us. But Sin shall be destroyed when we die or when Christ comes, and we shall be completely free, to serve our Good King forever and ever.

There dwells in the believer both sin and Christ

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works."

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."

"For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do."

"Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul."

There dwells in the believer both sin and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. There is a war going on. The believer himself has been crucified. The believer himself no longer lives, but it is either sin that will live, or Christ that will live in the believer. The believer's heart has been changed, that now the believer does not want to sin, but wants to do righteousness. Yet the ability to do good is absent in the believer. It is the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the believer and does the good through the believer.

The believer therefore must live fully dependent on God, that God enable him to do those things that he wants to do. If God gives not the strength, the man can only do those things that he does not want to do. Prayer is therefore the natural progression of those who have the desire but not the ability to do the good that they so long to do:

Lord, deliver us from the body of death, and let us live for you. Send forth Your Holy Spirit to us! Help us by the Spirit to do those things that we want to do!

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."

Is God unfair in His election?

I was reading a few commentaries on Exodus, and reading on the passage where God says Israel is to be His "Treasured Possession". One author views this view of Israel's election as "problematic", since it presents a "particularistic vision of a people that God cares for more than any other", and argues it raises questions such as "Why has God chosen to rescue this one group among all the downtrodden peoples of biblical antiquity?" The author goes on to say that there is a "moral tension inherent in the notion of the exclusivity of Israel's relationship with God" (Exodus, Carol Meyers, Page 146-147).

Let me ask - what is meant here by "moral tension"? Does that mean that there is something "immoral" or "unethical" about God's choosing Israel above all peoples? This is indeed a distorted understanding of God! There is no "moral tension" with God choosing Israel above all peoples: God would be perfectly righteous if He had never chosen Israel, nor Abraham, nor Noah, and completely wiped out all human beings from the face of the earth. He would still be fair, and He would still be good, and He would still be just. Why? Because we have all from Adam sinned against Him, and violated His standards. We all deserve to be rejected.

But it is His GRACE that has chosen us who believe from before the foundation of the world, and which will continue to save those whom have not yet come to the faith of Jesus Christ, all whom God has predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. And it is not as though His choosing of Gentiles have failed, for a partial, temporary hardness has come upon the nation of Israel came after Christ's first coming, so that the fullness of Gentiles may be brought in. So, in this sense, God is "fair", in giving all the world the chance to be saved, not just Israel.

But God is righteous in choosing His people over others because Jesus Christ has died for their sins. Jesus Christ has been rejected for His people, so that God may show favour to His people whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world. When we understand that Jesus Christ experienced the wrath, the curse, the rejection and the hatred of God for His people, then the issue of election is no longer "problematic" or a "moral tension". God shows "favouritism" to His people, yet He still remains "fair", because Jesus Christ was forsaken by His Father on the Cross for the elect.

The Bible even in the New Testament leaves "Israel" as the chosen people of God, Gentiles being wild olive shoots that have been grafted into Israel's election through Jesus Christ our Lord: "For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." Galatians 6:15-16.

Jesus, born to be worshiped

"And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him" Matthew 2:11

"And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”"

Mark 15:39

"While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy"

Luke 24:51-52

Jesus Christ was born to be worshiped, was killed to be worshiped, and was raised from the dead to be worshiped. Jesus exists to receive our worship.

Prone to leave the God I love

"O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above."

- Robert Robinson "Come, Thou Fount"

Sin is cosmic nonsense

' As Provan (2001: 39) says, "There is an order in nature itself that is worthy of imitation by mankind" so that sin may be not only the transgression of a law but "the embrace of cosmic nonsense"'

- Victor P. Hamilton from Commentary on Exodus