Showing posts with label saviour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saviour. Show all posts

Wednesday

Death, Guilt, Sin & The Saviour's Grace - A Dose of Encouragement







EASTER is just one of the items on the Church Calendar each year.

Or is it?






When we are young Easter may centre around those chocolate eggs and everything that seems to depict cuddly little yellow chicks.

When we are young Easter may centre around a family roast and little egg hunts.

When we are young Easter may centre around one of those twice a year visits to church.

When we are young and actively involved in church Easter may centre around pictures of an empty cross and tomb.



But what about now that we are older?


Are the chocolate eggs and yellow chicks forgotten?


Do we still get together as a family for that big meal?


Do we still go to church on Easter Sunday?


To some of those the answer may well be - YES?

but

Do we still focus our thoughts on the cross & the tomb?



Most of us will not have been able to grow up without hearing about the cross and the tomb but did we really pay attention to the  WHY?



The first "Why" I want to look at is the DEATH.

We know he died and his body was put into the tomb and then we know that the tomb was found empty but often our thoughts of Easter stop right there at the empty tomb and we forget to go on and see what it means for us.  What it has meant right from that resurrection day until now and will continue to mean for all of us for the rest of our lives and for eternity.





Jesus through His DEATH and RESURRECTION defeated DEATH forevermore.
He defeated DEATH for us the ones who deserved death as the punishment for our sins.
He defeated DEATH so that the fear of it would not have to hover over us and taint our lives.
He defeated DEATH so that the devil would not have that to use to control us.




The second "Why" I want to look at is the GUILT.

We know Christ died because people hated Him and would rather He be killed than someone who had already been found guilty of terrible crimes.  Jesus was the one who took Barabbas' guilt there and then that day as the people watched the truly guilty person walk away.  






Jesus through His death and resurrection also took our GUILT that day and we need to remember this.  We the guilty were replaced by the true innocent one, Jesus was and is the true, perfect sacrifice once and for ever for our sins. 

Jesus stepped into our place for us the GUILTY ones who deserve death as the punishment for our sins.
He wiped away our GUILT so that it would not have power over our minds. 
He took our GUILT on himself so that anguish, worry and stress would not destroy us.




The third "Why" I want to look at is the SIN.

We know Jesus was "without sin" from the following verses  


"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."
2 Corinthians 5:21
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Hebrews 4:15
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."
Hebrews 9:28
"Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:"
1 Peter 2:22 
"And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin."
1 John 3:5
 
 
But 
Do we really believe that we are sinners?
Do we really believe that Jesus died for us?
Do we really believe that Jesus was a willing sacrifice?
Do we really believe that Jesus took on our sin?

 


AND
If we really understand & believe that we are sinners.
If we really understand & believe that Jesus died for us.
If we really understand & believe that Jesus was a willing sacrifice.
If we really understand & believe that Jesus took on our sin.


THEN    
We can trust that Jesus did this all to bring us into God's family.
We can trust that Jesus is the only Saviour of the world.








THEN    
We can trust that the Saviour's grace to us is real.


So what is the grace of God?

people often say it is "undeserved favour" from God

but I would like to add a quote from John Piper here 

“Well, it appears that the word grace in Paul’s use not only refers to God’s character trait or disposition or inclination to treat people better than we deserve, but the word grace also refers to the action or the power or the influence or the force of this disposition, which produces real, practical outcomes in people’s lives, like being sufficient for good deeds or enduring the thorn in the flesh or working harder than everybody else, which Paul says about his own apostolic work.”


which directs us to the fact that the Grace of God is an active effect on our lives to change us.






NOW    
We can understand the reason for cross, the punishment, and the Grace.



 








Remember the Death
Remember the Guilt
Remember the Sin

Then 
Remember the 




What a wonderful time is the celebration of Easter regardless of who we are, where we are, who we can see and what we can do.

To dwell in the knowledge that Jesus was the sacrifice for us and had the power to overcome death so that we do not have to carry the sin and guilt but instead we have experienced our Saviour’s Grace when we trusted in Him.









The Day Autumn Arrived - A Dose of Encouragement


I know I wrote a post previously about


but it seems that in September each year (the start of Autumn I suppose) we really do notice all the spiders coming out of their hiding places.





So we get quite used to the fact that they are there for a while.



However just this morning I really was reminded of the spiders in a very different way.


Just look at those webs.






I know they were obviously not made overnight but I hadn't noticed them the previous few days.

Today however there had been a bad fog overnight which lasted until quite late in the morning and as it cleared this was my view in the patio.


The webs stretched all around the gate and the fencing (even some over the bushes)





and they were linked to the patio table and chairs as well.





They made a beautiful pattern between each fence post and also between the patio table & chairs.




I stood in amazement wondering how I had not noticed these webs before, so many of them, and then I realized that they would normally have been difficult to see from inside the house (and I had been inside for a week ill with flu).


Today however was different.

They were so noticeable because the icy fog had left a kind of glistening effect on them.

But

A short while later they were no longer noticeable from the kitchen window.


They had needed this special effect to make them stand out clearly and attract my attention.


We also need a special effect to make us stand out as followers of Christ.


We need a special effect to make us stand out


God has given us His Holy Spirit to produce good fruit in our lives and catch the attention of others, not to be directed to us, 
but to Jesus.


In today's world more than ever we need to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us and draw the attention of the rest of the world to our loving Saviour because that is the job of the Holy spirit and our job too.







So let's think of the arrival of this autumn frost as a sign to remember that God will use His Holy Spirit to make our lives beautiful and attractive to others so that they will say they hadn't noticed that before and want to find out more  -  about Jesus.




Sunday

Why We Worship 6




I am taking time each week to ask myself "Why we worship"




God has set us all a great example.

He has shown us the way we should be in all the relationships that we have.

He teaches us that we should be faithful in word and in deed.








So our focus today is on    1 Corinthians 1:9

always remembering to take verses we consider in the context they were written


I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, 
that you were enriched in everything by Him in all [b]utterance and all knowledge, 
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed [c]in you, 
so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.






Not only has He shown us that a relationship must be built on faithfulness but He has also provided the relationship we all need.  


The relationship with our Saviour.



So let us worship today because







We will be singing "What a Faithful God have I " in church today.

Are you worshipping Him today?





  



Wednesday

What are we waiting for? - A Dose of Encouragement


We have to wait for lots of things, some seem to take an eternity to happen and some not so long.  Some periods of waiting are long but seem shorter because you are in good company as you wait or you have something else to occupy you while you wait. 




 I rarely go anywhere without a puzzle to do, book to read or something to plan & a list to make when I know there might be something or someone to wait for.

I've waited for transport; I've waited for a journey to be completed; I've waited for an event to begin; I've waited for friends to arrive; I've waited for my mother while she was at hospital appointments; I've waited for my kids to get out of school or other events; I've waited for my kids to come home in the evenings; I've waited for my husband to finish a call for work so we can have lunch; I've waited for my father to come through an operation; I've waited for others when they've been busy talking to someone; I've waited for my husband to come home from business trips; I've waited at the dentist, doctor, hairdresser etc.






Then there are the things I've had to wait for that have involved a long period of months or years like waiting for Christmas, a birthday, my wedding day, each of the children to be born, a holiday time to arrive. 

There are also things that we don't consider we are waiting for but they are going to happen, the main example being the death of a loved one. 

During the past month I wasn't waiting for the month to be over but now it is over and the time, as we are always saying, "has just flown".  

          What did I do and what did I not do?  

                     What was I waiting for that happened or didn't happen?

Well we had different visitors, we went to a wedding, we visited family etc.  
Those were some of the things we waited for and they happened.  

But what about the things that didn't happen?  

I waited for a good time to restart being serious about losing more weight - didn't happen, I waited for a good time to clear out the garage - didn't happen, I waited for a good time to think more about writing this blog post - didn't happen until now during the next month. 

          Why did these things not happen?  

                    Simply because I allowed them not to happen.  

Always saying "not right now, too much else to do", or "not today, there will be another day when I feel more like doing it".  The whole month has gone and I could have done those things, but basically it was my choice not to.



We do not know how much time we have on this earth so what are we waiting for?







When I think of how easy it is for me to pass the month and keep simply putting things off to "another day" I can understand how many people put off thinking about the most important question in their lives - 



What will I do about Jesus?   


Putting it off to another day is not just setting it aside without a decision, like it is "pending", instead, it is the same as saying 



I don't want Jesus in my life.  


We cannot say "Jesus just hold on until I'm older, or until I have sorted out the rest of my life" it doesn't work that way.  We are really saying  "no"  to Jesus each time we put it off.


Will we follow what the Bible tells us to do?






Because this is what He wants us to do.




Because this is what makes this life really worthwhile.



Because this is what we have always been waiting for   -   what we were created for.












We do not know how much time we have on this earth so what are we waiting for?


The longer we wait to do something the harder it gets to actually buckle down and do it.

  
 Oh how the devil loves that because it keeps so many people 
just where he wants them  -  away from the Saviour.







If you want to think about this some more or see just how simple it is to believe and have faith in Jesus then please watch the short video  3.2.1  at the top of my sidebar.



Here are some other  Doses of Encouragement