Lucas-15:3-33-nvi

For Reading and Meditation:     Luke 15:1-10

We turn now to look at another aspect of Christianity's uniqueness - the issue of personal salvation. The vocabulary of salvation is distasteful to those of other religions and many insist we should give it up. They say, "It smacks of spiritual smugness and arrogance." But before we answer this criticism we must realize...

It is quite certain that those whom Christ has washed in his precious blood need not make a confession of sin, as culprits or criminals, before God the Judge, for Christ has for ever taken away all their sins in a legal sense, so that they no longer stand where they can be condemned, but are once for all accepted in the Beloved; but having become children, and offending as children, ought they not every day to go before their heavenly Father and confess their sin, and acknowledge their...

Luke 15:11-32

The world would be very much poorer - if the fifteenth chapter of Luke's gospel had not been written. The whole chapter should be studied carefully. It is rich in spiritual instruction. It is all about seeking and finding lost things. Publicans and sinners flocked to Jesus, and He received them graciously and kindly. His enemies, however, found fault with Him for being so friendly to these...

Matthew 5:1-16

Emerson's advice to Lincoln about hitching his wagon to a star - is the lesson Jesus sets for us in the Beatitudes. These blesseds shine like stars far above us, in their brightness and heavenliness. We may say that we never can reach them and that therefore there is no use in our trying to reach them. But the Master would have us strive after the highest...

Luke 15:11-32

The world would be very much poorer - if the fifteenth chapter of Luke's gospel had not been written. The whole chapter should be studied carefully. It is rich in spiritual instruction. It is all about seeking and finding lost things. Publicans and sinners flocked to Jesus, and He received them graciously and kindly. His enemies, however, found fault with Him for being so friendly to these...

Matthew 5:1-16

Emerson's advice to Lincoln about hitching his wagon to a star - is the lesson Jesus sets for us in the Beatitudes. These blesseds shine like stars far above us, in their brightness and heavenliness. We may say that we never can reach them and that therefore there is no use in our trying to reach them. But the Master would have us strive after the highest...

Such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. § We … were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ...

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear...

I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. § I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you. § Your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake. § God in...

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. § We are all like an unclean thing. § I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. § You have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him. § Not having my...