CHRIST the FINISHER: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2). The Lord Jesus will finish in us what He began (Php 1:6). On September 4, 1869, at age 37, Hudson Taylor found a letter waiting for him from John McCarthy, a fellow missionary. His life was transformed by the truth […]
“Help me, O Lord my God! Oh, save me according to Your mercy” (Ps 109:26). My father’s family lived in coal mining country in Lanarkshire, Scotland. My great-grandfather often brought the gospel into the mines by volunteering to work a shift for one of the miners who was unable to work. I heard of one […]
Sanctification comes from the same root meaning as holiness. In its primary sense, it means to be different, then to be set apart, then to be wholly for God, and finally that process by which those who have been declared right shall be made right. “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering […]
The queen mother may portray redeemed Israel, the mother of the Man-child (Rev 12) and wife of Jehovah. Concluding his portrait of the King-Bridegroom, the psalmist paints in some of the courtiers. “Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir” (Ps 45:9). Without question, heaven is the […]
CHRIST the DELIVERER: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (Rom 11:26-27). The Lord Jesus did not agonize at Calvary to save us from the sins we find distasteful and inconvenient. He “gave Himself […]
“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory […]
The Reason Why, a gospel booklet written in 1913 by Robert Laidlaw, a New Zealand businessman, 50 years later had reached a worldwide circulation of 16 million copies in 30 languages. Thousands of letters poured into his office from around the world, letters like: “Have read your booklet. Your booklet has given me rebirth. As […]
Jesus said, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” (Mt 9:15). Not everyone enjoys reading the account of a society wedding recorded in the local newspaper. But this wedding is different. The Bridegroom is so sure of the details that this description in Psalm 45 was recorded at least […]
CHRIST the MAN of SORROWS: “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3). C.H. Spurgeon writes, “Sometimes God sends His love letters in black-edged envelopes. He allows us to taste the bitterness of want and the desolation of bereavement. If you have lived many years, you […]