Hymn of the Day
(tune: "The Church’s One Foundation," p.186)
O, Lamb of God, still keep me, Near to Thy wounded side;
Tis only there in safety, And peace I can abide.
What foes and snares surround me! What lusts and fears within!
The grace that sought and found me, Alone can keep me clean.
‘Tis only in Thee hiding, I know my life secure;
Only in Thee abiding, I steadfast shall endure.
Thine arm the victory gaineth. O’er every hurtful foe;
The love my heart sustaineth, In all its care and woe.
Soon shall my eyes behold Thee, With rapture, face to face;
The half hath not been told me, Of all Thy power and grace.
Thy beauty, Lord, and glory, The wonders of Thy love;
Shall be the endless story, Of all Thy saints above.
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Today’s Hymns
This Is My Father’s World - #39
Why - #122 ~ O, How I Love Jesus - 483
Special Dates:
Tricia Drenth – 14 ~ Madilyn Rose Vlastuin – 16 ~ Barney and Tricia – 20
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The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.
-Zephaniah 3:17
What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God's people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can interfere in their behalf. Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not want a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and his power, of our misery and his mercy, of our ruin and his recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the superaboundings of his grace—a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings us to have personal, experimental dealings with God; and it is in these personal dealings with God that the life of all religion consists. -J.C. Philpot
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The solemn, momentous question, particularly in these days of almost universal profession and discipleship, when there is so much profession and religion in the land, is whether it is the form or the reality; whether we are born again, or yet dead in trespasses and sins with all our profession; whether merely in the way of form we bow the knee, and sing His praise, and say Amen to the prayers of others; or whether the heart goes along with the praises and prayers, or whether we only go to this or that meeting, because it is respectable in these days.
In the days of the apostles, they were cast out as mad; but in these days no man is called a respectable man if he does not make a profession of religion in some shape; and people therefore, in order that they may be respected, would take a profession of some sort or other, and therefore, the momentous question is this – Whether it is a reality? Whether it is a heart work? Whether we be born again? Whether it is, after all, only a mere hollow profession?
The question is not whether my name is written on the Church book, but whether it is written in the Lamb's Book of Life; not how my fellow-men look on me, but how God looks on me. –George Mueller
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And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. Revelation 1: 17
John saw the Lord as the Great High Priest. Obviously conscious of the immeasurable distance of sinfulness in the very presence of sinlessness, he fell at His feet as one dead. John saw Him with the eye of understanding and faith, knowing Him to be the only Mediator before God for men, and knew Him as the only One able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. John fell at His feet in submission as one dead to self and in total need of mercy. O may He be pleased to bless us likewise today. -Marvin Stalnaker
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That we are the children of God is the result of God’s eternal purpose without regard to anything we have done or anything that God foresaw we would do. That we have been justified is the result of God’s will made just by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ so that we may say that we are justified by Christ’s blood. That we have believed the gospel is the result of the omnipotent call of the Spirit of God as He gives life to God’s chosen, guiding them into all truth by taking from what is Christ’s and showing it to them. Furthermore, that we persevere in the faith is the result of the Spirit of Christ persevering in all His life-giving, guiding, and revealing work. Without question, every aspect of our salvation is the result of the sovereign purpose and power of the God of our salvation.
But we are mistaken if we think that this means that salvation is experienced apart from our will to be saved - our actually relying on the blood of Christ poured out for us, and our positive response to the call of the Spirit of God. The work of God– His eternal purpose and His outstretched hand of omnipotence - does not wait for us to actualize the mere possibility of salvation, and it is certainly in no way dependent upon our power or actions. But such is the will and power of God that it actually “works in us to will and do of His good pleasure.”
Salvation is not initiated or perfected by our will or choice to be saved, but none were ever saved apart from such a will and choice. Salvation is not commenced or perfected by our perceiving the blood of Christ shed for sinners and trusting in it, but none were ever saved apart from such perception and trust. Salvation does not await our positive response to the call of the Spirit, but none were ever saved apart from such a positive response. The perfection of our salvation is not dependent on our perseverance, but none were ever finally saved without “pressing on,” so that it can be said of him, “He died in faith.”
While we must never act as though our salvation is made of “God’s part and our part,” neither must we allow ourselves to think that the Scriptural calls to hear the gospel, to repent and believe that gospel, to call upon the name of the Lord for His salvation, and to give our whole selves to the pursuit of Christ is somehow irrelevant to the whole matter. Even if our minds cannot properly reconcile all these things, they are all true, so let us walk according to them. - Joe