GraceUnlimited

God saved you to glorify you. God saved you to make you like Jesus, His glorious Son. Are your goals for this year focused on this reality- Are you working toward endless happiness- Would your day today be different if you truly believed that you will rise from your grave and live forever in a state highly influenced by what you do this year- How will you live now even if you don't get to be a radical Christian martyr- Who do you have in your life for example, who knows the real you- Are you looking for godly examples to follow- Find someone. Read Christian biographies. Look for someone whose sole focus is on Jesus Christ. This is critical because we are in a war and real destruction is coming. The reality is that most people will be destroyed. The war is not as obvious to us now, but it is still real. This is what makes it dangerous. We are citizens of the kingdom and our King will return and finally fully rescue His people from attack. He will transform us from ashes to glory. How will this change what you do today and this year-

You have likely been victimised in this evil world. You know how you have typically responded. Paul explains how Christians should respond to evil. We need to remember our own evil and need for salvation too. Are you graceless- If yes, then it is likely that you don't understand your need for grace. This salvation comes only through God's salvation. We tend to treat people the way they treat us, but we should treat people the way God treats us. God has lavished on us far more than we deserve or can imagine. His kindness has a goal. He is making His children heirs- Heirs together with God's Son- Sharing ownership of everything Christ owns. Such a reality should change us. It should change the way we face the evil around us and in us.

No Jesus means no salvation. No Holy Spirit means no salvation. Many Christians do not know what the Holy Spirit does to save them. He begins spiritual life through regeneration. He grants spiritual understanding. he grants us a heart of repentance. He grants faith that can see spiritual realities. Without the Holy Spirit you have none of these. The Holy Spirit takes up residence those whom He saves. The indwelt believer is considered baptised in the Spirit. The Spirit adopts, gifts and seals Christians. He motivates them and helps them to want God and want to serve Him and other people. Christians are not better than unbelievers, they have received astounding grace. Therefore we should be supremely gracious to other people. We should be depending on the Spirit enable us to be kind to other people, to be worshiping and joyful people, and to be stable and contented people.

People desperately cling to the idea that they are basically good, but still cling to personal sins. The gospel is not a message that you can do something to save yourself. Think about what you were like before you were saved. Foolish. Godless and self-seeking. Deceived. Helpless. Consider what you deserved apart from God's saving grace. You deserve the dreadful weight of God's wrath. Also, look at when God responded to you. When you were still wicked, not when you began to reform yourself. Because of this, God's salvation my life is shocking. We don't deserve it. We didn't even want it. God saves the wicked. Then we could ask why God saved us. It was not because of anything in me, but because of something within God Himself. His mercy. His grace. His patience. Him, not me. Christianity is for broken-hearted people. People who see their dreadful separation from God.

We are about to consider the most important truth in the world. It is important because it is important to God. The whole Old Testament foretells and establishes the environment for God's salvation. The whole New Testament describes Christ's accomplishment of that salvation and how it comes to God's people. It closes with the final consummation of His salvation. It is also important because it focuses on your and my eternity. Wrath and salvation are opposites. This is personal. This is eternal emancipation or fiery damnation. This consideration should be the primary occupation of our minds--to not consider this seriously is to be a fool. It also has a major impact on the way you live your life right now. It fills your life with rich character qualities and the satisfaction in living that those qualities bring. This life is not about me. It is about God and His glorious salvation. Understanding the whole spectrum of salvation matters in the fight against personal sin, in its whole spectrum. Do you know what the Bible says about salvation- Is it changing your life because you can see the connection between salvation and you life-

In the middle of a really long sentence, Paul stops to quote a hymn. This hymn, that majestically exalts Jesus, is also the the hymn that soothes the fears of Christians living in a dark world.