Galates-3:1-26-bds

For Reading and Meditation:     Galatians 3:1-25

The Christian Church has always struggled to get the balance right between faith and works. Romans is the great book on "faith" while James is the great book on "works." I know some Christians who never read the book of James, taking sides with Martin Luther who called it a "book of straw." Martin Luther may have been...

For Reading and Meditation:     Galatians 5:1-15

Permit me to pause in our meditations on the chief differences between the Christian faith and non-Christian religions to turn our eyes inward to the state of affairs within the church. We have not been as careful as we might in relation to this matter of vertical conversion. Oftentimes we have been more interested in...

God is, and must be, the eternal enemy of sin. He cannot be reconciled to it: it is the abominable thing which He hates. He cannot look upon it but with abhorrence.

How then can God receive, bless, or commune with us? Only through a Mediator. Jesus fills this office; He stands between God and us; He honours all the Father's perfections; and renders us and our services acceptable through His glorious righteousness and precious blood. God can only love us, receive us, commune with us, or...

The fatherhood of God is common to all his children. Ah! Little-faith, you have often said, "Oh that I had the courage of Great-heart, that I could wield his sword and be as valiant as he! But, alas, I stumble at every straw, and a shadow makes me afraid." List thee, Little-faith. Great-heart is God's child, and you are God's child too; and Great-heart is not one whit more God's child than you are. Peter and Paul, the highly- favoured apostles, were of the family of the Most High; and so...

John 19:1-16

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. § Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. § Christ Jesus … became for us wisdom from God– and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. § Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus...

The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one. § Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.To will is present with me, but how to preform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will do, I do not do; but the evil I will not do, that I practice. § We are all like an unclean thing, and all our...

One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. § You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. § That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.He is not ashamed to call them brethren. § Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother. § Go to My brethren and...