Seeing Jesus in Genesis

“Adam and Eve faced temptation about a tree in a bright, sunny garden, a paradise with no pressure. But Christ faced temptation about a tree in a dark garden, a garden given the name that meant ‘oil press,’ and certainly he felt squeezed like an olive in a press on that dark night, to the point that his sweat was like drops of blood.

If Adam and Eve obeyed God about the tree, they would live. If Jesus obeyed God about the tree, he would die.

Jesus obeyed. And through his obedience he gained for us far more than Adam lost for us through his disobedience.

Adam lost for us the beautiful ‘naked and not ashamed’ of the garden. But at the cross, Christ hung naked and full of shame. It wasn’t his own shame. It was your shame and my shame. He ‘endured the cross, despising the shame’ (Heb. 12:2) so that ‘everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame’ (Rom. 10:11).”

~Nancy Guthrie, The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis
Of First Importance

Jesus Knows

“The Good Shepherd Jesus knows you well, though you may not think it. You never shed a secret tear over your own corruption, you never breathed a single prayer for forgiveness and helping grace, you never made a single struggle against wickedness, which He did not remark and note down in the book of His remembrance.

You need not fear His not understanding your needs, you need not be afraid your prayers are too poor and unlearned to be attended to. He knows your particular necessities far better than you do yourselves, and your humble supplications are no sooner offered up than heard.

If you transgress He will grieve—but He will chasten and bring you back; if you bear good fruit, He will rejoice and give more grace; if you sorrow He will bind up your broken heart and pour in balm. He is ever watching and observing and listening. No believer is so humble and lowly, but He is acquainted with all their ways.”

~J.C. Ryle, "The Privileges of the True Christian"
Of First Importance

Murmuring Suits None So Badly As Saints

“Is not Christ your treasure? Is not heaven your inheritance—and will you murmur? Has not God given you a changed heart, a renewed nature, and a sanctified soul—and will you murmur?

Has He not given you Himself to satisfy you, His Son to save you, His Spirit to lead you, His grace to adorn you, His covenant to assure you, His mercy to pardon you, His righteousness to clothe you—and will you murmur? Has He not made you a friend, a son, a brother, a bride, an heir—and will you murmur?

When you were dead, did not He quicken you? When you were lost, did not He seek you? When you were wounded, did not He heal you? When you were falling, did not He support you? When you were down, did not He raise you? When you were staggering, did not He establish you? When you were erring, did not He correct you? When you were tempted, did not He support you? and when you went in dangers, did not He deliver you?—and will you murmur?

What! you who are so highly advanced and exalted above many thousands in the world? Murmuring suits none so badly as saints.”

~Thomas Brooks, "The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod"
Of First Importance

A Heaven With God

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world. (Matt. 25:34)

What if instead of ‘You blessed ones, Come,’ He had said rather, ‘You blessed ones, Go, to a kingdom I have provided for you. Angels, conduct from My presence this ransomed people I have redeemed. Furnish them with crowns and thrones in that distant celestial city; and since I am to be no longer with them, be you to them a holy brotherhood — make them partakers of your joys!’

How would every face droop in sadness! Heaven would have a blight passed over it. Its ransomed worshipers would exclaim, ‘Our thrones are denuded of their glory — our crowns of their luster, O Savior, without You!’

But it is not so. His very opening declaration dispels their dread. ‘Come!’ Wherever your heaven is, it is to be a heaven with me: we are to share our crowns and thrones together. ‘Him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me on My throne’ (Rev. 3:21). ‘Enter you into the joy of your Lord’ (Matt. 25:23).”

~John MacDuff, "The Final Gathering of the Flock"
Of First Importance

He Died Because of Us

“Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.”

~John Stott, The Message of Galatians
Of First Importance

Genuine Faith Renounces Sin

“Faith in Christ carries in itself a renunciation of that rival power that King Jesus conquered — sin. And where that renunciation of sin is not present, neither is genuine faith in the One who defeated it.”

~Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel?
Of First Importance

Jesus Now Defines Us

“One of the most important things to remember in the Christian life is that we must always live in light of who God is, what Jesus has done, and what has happened to us as a result. Usually we tend to define ourselves by our successes or failures, our reputation, our sin, our intelligence, beauty, and abilities (or lack of them). Moreover, we often define other people by their weaknesses, failures, and sins. Hence we are quick to gossip and condemn others. The good news calls us to view ourselves and other Christians very differently. Jesus now defines who we are. Through Jesus’ work on the cross we have been declared perfect, blameless, and without fault. We have been forgiven and made right with God. We have become the dearly loved children of the living God, and nothing can separate us from His love.”

~Neil H. Williams, Living in Light of the Gospel Story
Of First Importance

The Gospel Points & Calls

“Even as we slog through the trials, persecutions, irritations, temptations, distractions, apathy, and just plain weariness of this world, the Gospel points us to heaven where our King Jesus — the Lamb of God who was crucified in our place and raised gloriously from the dead — now sits interceding for us. Not only so, but it calls us forward to that final day when heaven will be filled with the roaring noise of millions upon millions of forgiven voices hailing Him as crucified Savior and risen King.”

~Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel?
Of First Importance

Don't Believe in a Small Gospel

“A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small.

A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small.

A gospel that isolates one of the benefits of union with Christ and ignores all the others is too small.

A gospel that must be measured by your own moral conduct, social conscience, or religious experience is too small.

A gospel that rearranges the components of your life but does not put you personally in the presence of God is too small.”

~Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
Of First Importance

Jesus Has Completed the Work

“If the Lord Jesus Christ had not literally risen physically from the grave, we could never be certain that He had ever really finished the work. If He has died for our sins, we must not only be certain that He has died, but that He has finished dying, and that there is no longer death. When God raised His Son from the dead, He was proclaiming to the whole world, 'I am satisfied in Him: I am satisfied in the work He has done. He has done everything. He has fulfilled every demand. Here He is risen—therefore I am satisfied with Him.'

Not only that. The Resurrection proved that He has conquered every enemy that was opposed to Him, to God, and to us. He has not only satisfied the law and conquered death and the grave, He has vanquished the devil and all his forces, and hell and all the principalities and powers of evil. He has triumphed over them all, and He proves it in the Resurrection. The devil cannot hold Him; death and hell cannot hold Him. He has mastered them all; He has emerged on the other side. He is the Son of God, and He has completed the work which the Father had sent Him to do.”

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones, quoted by Adrian Warnock in Raised with Christ
Of First Importance

We Are a New Creation

“Because Christ lived perfectly, died sufficiently, and rose victoriously, you and I can come out of hiding. We are free to own up to, without fear, the darkest of our thoughts and motives, the ugliest of our words, our most selfish choices, and our most rebellious and unloving actions. We are freed from our bondage to guilt and shame. We are freed from hiding behind accusation, blame, recrimination, and rationalization.

Confession is powerful and effective. It turns guilt into forgiveness. It turns regret into hope. It turns slavery into freedom. It turns you from mourning over your harvest to planting new seeds of faith, repentance, and hope. You see, you are not trapped! Things are not hopeless! The Lord, the great Creator and Savior, is the God who never changes, but at the same time he is the God who promises and produces deep personal change. The changes he makes in us are so foundational that the Bible’s best words describing them are ‘new creation.’ God’s plan is to change us so fundamentally that it is as if we are longer us; something brand new has been created!”

~Paul David Tripp, Lost in the Middle: Midlife and the Grace of God, pg. 124
~Of First Importance

Our Hope, Glory, & Confession

“The cross insists on our self-humiliation; it insists that we recognize how weak, how lost, how hopeless we are, which is hard for all of us to swallow. Paul says the only hope is that Jesus came that he might give us a righteousness that we would never have in or accomplish for ourselves. Paul declares that his hope is to be found in Christ, ‘not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith’ (Phil. 3:9). That is our hope. That is our glory. That is our confession. Christ’s righteousness, not my own, and if I want to add to Christ’s righteousness, then I have offended him.”

~W. Robert Godfrey, in Precious Blood: The Atoning Work of Christ ed. Richard D. Phillips, pg. 92-93.
Of First Importance

Believers' Assurance

“Believers are assured that everything works together for good because the God who set his covenantal love upon them, predestined them to be like his Son, called them effectually to himself, and justified them will certainly glorify them. All the sufferings and afflictions of the present era are not an obstacle to their ultimate salvation but the means by which salvation will be accomplished.”

~Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans pg. 455.
Of First Importance

Christ's Righteousness: The Eternal Rock

This is beyond excellent.  You simply must read it!

“Christ’s righteousness is infinitely perfect, equal to the highest demands of the divine law—and therefore a firm, immovable ground of trust. We may safely venture the weight of our eternal all upon this rock. It will stand forever, without giving way under the heaviest pressure; without being broken by the most violent shock. Let thousands, let millions, with all the mountainous weight of guilt upon them, build upon this foundation, and they shall never be moved.

The firm foundations, the stately columns, the majestic buildings of Nineveh, Babylon and Persia, and all the magnificent structures of antiquity, though formed of the most durable stone, and promising immortality—are now shattered into ten thousand fragments, or lying in ruinous heaps.

But here in Christ is a foundation for immortal souls—a foundation that will remain the same to all eternity. His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, His strength an everlasting strength, and Himself the everlasting Father. He ever lives forever to make intercession for His people, and therefore he is able to save to the uttermost, to the uttermost point of duration, all who come unto God by Him.”

~Samuel Davies, “Jesus Christ, the Only Foundation”
Of First Importance

Justice Revealed & Defended

“By Jesus’ sacrifice, God reveals and defends His justice in two ways. First, Jesus’ suffering for the sins of His people means that any sins unpunished beforehand are now fully punished in Christ. God leaves no sin unpunished. Mercy and grace do not come at the expense of justice. Second, because the sins of the faithful are fully punished in Jesus, God may justly declare righteous those who have faith in Jesus. That’s what it means to be justified in God’s sight — to be declared righteous by faith in Jesus. The cross, rightly understood, is God’s own answer to any objection that He is unfair to substitute Jesus for the unrighteous.”

~Thabiti Anyabwile, The Gospel for Muslims
Of First Importance

An Answer to My Doubts

Would I know the fullness and completeness of the salvation God has provided for sinners? Where shall I see it most distinctly? Shall I go to the general declarations in the Bible about God’s mercy? Shall I rest in the general truth that God is a God of love?

Oh, no! I will look at the crucifixion at Calvary. I find no evidence like that: I find no balm for a sore conscience and a troubled heart like the sight of Jesus dying for me on the accursed tree. There I see that a full payment has been made for all my enormous debts. The curse of that law which I have broken, has come down on One who there suffered in my stead; the demands of that law are all satisfied: payment has been made for me even to the uttermost farthing. It will not be required twice over.

Ah, I might sometimes imagine I was too bad to be forgiven; my own heart sometimes whispers that I am too wicked to be saved. But I know in my better moments this is all my foolish unbelief; I read an answer to my doubts in the blood shed on Calvary. I feel sure that there is a way to heaven for the very vilest of men, when I look at the cross.

~J.C. Ryle, "Calvary"
Of First Importance

Christ the Manifestation of the Father

“We have only to track the divine footsteps of the Redeemer on earth, there to behold ‘as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ What do we see?

A Being, indeed, of infinite holiness—unsparing and uncompromising in His rebuke of iniquity, sternly denouncing sin in all its forms, driving with a scourge the sacrilegious traffickers from His Father’s house, proclaiming the impending and certain doom awaiting incorrigible sinners, the workers of iniquity; even predicting by discourse and parable the dreadful verities of a judgment-day, and pronouncing everlasting doom on the impenitent and unbelieving; on all traitors to their trust, on all neglectors and squanderers of committed talents; thus repeating, in words not to be misunderstood, the very truth which fell on the ears of Moses in his Rock-cleft, as the sublime voice and vision were dying away—’And that will by no means clear the guilty.’

But yet, in combination with this, we are called to contemplate one of infinite purity, beneficence, tenderness; whose delight was to feed the hungry, to heal the diseased, to help the helpless, to comfort the bereaved; feeling for them; weeping for them-—in His parables, giving a welcome to the Prodigal; in His daily communion, never scorning a suppliant’s request, or a penitent’s tears; listening, even in His expiring agonies, to a cry for mercy from a felon at His side; accepting the widow’s mite; making generous allowance for the lack of watchfulness at His own greatest crisis-hour on the part of trusted disciples; pardoning, with the tenderest of rebukes, the aggravated sin of a faithless follower; the prayer, trembling on His dying lips, of forgiveness for His murderers.

Reader! take in, at a glance, this wide comprehensive view of the Savior’s life and ministry, and in it you have a picture and impersonation of the character of God. ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.’ ‘From henceforth,’ says Christ, pointing to Himself, ‘You know the Father, and have seen Him.’”

~John MacDuff, Clefts of the Rock
Of First Importance

My State Before God

“When thinking of my state before God the question is not, Am I perfect in myself before the law? but, Am I perfect in Christ Jesus? That is a very different matter. We need not enquire, Am I without sin naturally? but, Have I been washed in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness? It is not Am I in myself well pleasing to God? but it is Am I accepted in the Beloved?”

~ Charles Spurgeon, Morning & Evening, Sept. 6 devotional
Of First Importance

Serious Indeed

“Our sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross. . . . It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not to feel ashamed of ourselves. . . . For if there was no way by which the righteous God could righteously forgive our unrighteousness, except that he should bear it himself in Christ, it must be serious indeed.”

John Stott, The Cross of Christ
~Of First Importance