Tag Archives: thanks be to god

Presidential Prayer Team; J.K. – Your Defender

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The judgment has been pronounced: Guilty…every one! There is no chance for appeal. The verdict stands. Listen to the very words: “None is righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10)

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:25

The decision of the Supreme Court of the universe is that all have sinned…all have missed the mark and have fallen short of God’s standard. Do not take this lightly! Don’t compare yourself with others. You may not have fallen as short as them, but you are “short” as far as the Lord is concerned.

Thanks be to God that there is a defender…Jesus Christ the Lord! It is He that stands and pleads your case. He has paid the price and set you, the prisoner, free. Take hold of that fact and apply it to your life. Yield your life to Him. It will be the new standard for your life…living to do all to the glory of God. The apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Pray for a new standard in the lives of those who serve as leaders of this country. May they yield to Christ, being thankful to God for His grace.

Recommended Reading: Romans 7:21-8:6

 

Alistair Begg – He Begins and Completes

 

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. Psalm 138:8

It is clear that the confidence that the psalmist expresses is a divine confidence. He did not say, “I have enough grace to perfect that which concerns me–my faith is so steady that it will not falter–my love is so warm that it will never grow cold–my resolution is so firm that nothing can move it.” No, his dependence was on the Lord alone. If we display a confidence that is not grounded on the Rock of ages, our confidence is worse than a dream; it will fall upon us and cover us with its ruins, to our sorrow and confusion.

The psalmist was wise; he rested on nothing less than the Lord’s work. It is the Lord who has begun the good work within us; it is He who has carried it on; and if He does not finish it, it never will be completed. If there is one stitch in the celestial garment of our righteousness that we must insert ourselves, then we are lost; but this is our confidence–what the Lord begins, He completes. He has done it all, must do it all, and will do it all. Our confidence must not be in what we have done, nor in what we have resolved to do, but entirely in what the Lord will do.

Unbelief insinuates: “You will never be able to stand. Look at the evil of your heart–you can never conquer sin; remember the sinful pleasures and temptations of the world that beset you–you will be certainly allured by them and led astray.” True, we would certainly perish if left to our own strength. If by ourselves we navigate the most frail vessels of our lives over so rough a sea, we might well give up the voyage in despair; but thanks be to God, He will complete that which concerns us and bring us to the desired haven. We can never be too confident when we confide in Him alone, and never too eager to have such a trust.

Charles Spurgeon – Thoughts on the last battle

 

“The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:56,57

Suggested Further Reading: Psalm 116

While the Bible is one of the most poetical of books, though its language is unutterably sublime, yet we must remark how constantly it is true to nature. There is no straining of a fact, no glossing over a truth. However dark may be the subject, while it lights it up with brilliance, yet it does not deny the gloom connected with it. If you will read this chapter of Paul’s epistle, so justly celebrated as a masterpiece of language, you will find him speaking of that which is to come after death with such exaltation and glory, that you feel, “If this be to die, then it were well to depart at once.” Who has not rejoiced, and whose heart has not been lifted up, or filled with a holy fire, while he has read such sentences as these: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Yet with all that majestic language, with all that bold flight of eloquence, he does not deny that death is a gloomy thing. Even his very figures imply it. He does not laugh at it; he does not say, “Oh, it is nothing to die;” he describes death as a monster; he speaks of it as having a sting; he tells us wherein the strength of that sting lies; and even in the exclamation of triumph he imputes that victory not to unaided flesh, but he says, “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

For meditation: Death is no laughing matter, but for the Christian it need not be a crying matter either (1 Thessalonians 4:13,14).

Sermon no. 23

13 May (1855)