Pastor Joe Sugrue - Grace and Truth Podcast

Tuesday October 15, 2019

Most people on earth live in a fantasy. A fantasy in our day made more concise by television and social media. Awareness of reality requires the seeing eye which comes to those who are born-again in Christ. Christ has lifted the mist from our eyes and shown us through His own eyes. Conscious of His life and His home (heaven and holiness), everything in the world is more beautiful than it was, despite its perversion by men of the world. It is more beautiful because it is related to the reality of the next world, making every thought clearer, love deeper, joy more abounding, hope more certain. The old eye only sees the brochure of the desirous vacation spot. The ink on the paper is made a deeper blue and a brighter yellow or orange, but when we arrive at the actual spot, it is nothing like it. The eyes of Christ see the reality of the world, and God is in it, in all and through all,...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2120

Sunday Octorber 13, 2019

Isa:24:14 They raise their voices, they shout for joy; They cry out from the west concerning the majesty of the Lord. 24:15 Therefore glorify the Lord in the east, The name of the Lord, the God of Israel, In the coastlands of the sea. 24:16 From the ends of the earth we hear songs, "Glory to the Righteous One," But I say, "Woe to me! Woe to me! Alas for me! The treacherous deal treacherously, And the treacherous deal very treacherously."

Isa 25:5 Like heat in drought, You subdue the uproar of aliens; Like heat by the shadow of a cloud, the song of the ruthless is silenced. 25:6 The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine. 25:7 And...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2119

Thursday October 10, 2019

American critic Leslie Fiedler: [We have a weariness in striving to be men] "the more desolating because there's no God to turn to. God has been abolished by the media pundits and other promoters of our new demythologized divinity. We continue to insist that change is progress, self-indulgence is freedom, and novelty is originality. In these circumstances it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Western man has decided to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down. Having convinced himself that he is too numerous, he labors with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer, thereby delivering himself the sooner into the hands of his enemies. At last, having...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2118

Wednesday October 9, 2019

By looking at how Christ handled and overcame suffering, though none of it was by His own cause, we can discover how to overcome our self-induced suffering.

We can only do what God has done for us. We can only walk in righteousness when God has made us righteous. We can only live sanctified when God has sanctified us. We can only exist without condemnation when God has forgiven us and removed our debt of sin. We can only love when God has put His love in us. We can only produce the fruit of the Spirit when the Holy Spirit indwells us.

Col 3:1 If...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2117

Tuesday October 8, 2019

By looking at how Christ handled and overcame suffering, though none of it was by His own cause, we can discover how to overcome our self-induced suffering.

If you do not overcome your own patterns of sin, you will never be equipped to overcome the sins that others do against you, the suffering that you haven't caused.

We have to live the life of the kingdom of God in the face of much opposition. It takes discipline ("I buffet my body"), perseverance ("I press on toward the goal for the upward prize"), diligence ("fervent in spirit, serving the Lord"), and always in dependence on God bottomless grace ("yet not I, but the grace of God with me"). All of these things Christ did during His life. He sets the example for us to follow. And the...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2116

Sunday October 6, 2019

The mystery is that in this age we are fellow heirs, fellow members of Christ's body, and fellow partners in Christ's life. We are subjects of the King and His kingdom and no other life is available to us.

Being who we are in Christ, having what we have in Him, it might seem that it should be smooth sailing in a heavenly life that is easy. Even though knowing all this to be true, Christians still struggle. They have to fight the good fight, take hold of the eternal life in them, buffet their bodies and make their slave, study to show themselves approved, confess, repent, etc.

Why do we struggle?

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2115

Octorber 3, 2019

The relative vocabulary of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, is rather small. One Hebrew scholar that the biblical lexicon is so restricted that it is hard to believe it could have served all the purposes of everyday existence in a highly developed society.

A language that evinces a strong commitment to using a limited set of terms again and again, is making an aesthetic virtue out of repetition.

The Bible is not as concerned with using a lot of synonyms as modern writers are. There are plenty of synonyms, but comparatively fewer than we find in modern writing.

That is not to say that the Bible doesn't seek to write poetically, with imagery, with idioms, and with things like style and tempo. It does all of these things, but it is...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2114

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

God says to go 'there' and promises that in seeking I will find.

Paul wrote that Christ was exalted in Paul's body, whether by life or by death. To him, life was Christ and dying was gain.

Paul knew real weakness and real deliverance. The Christian life for him was not in word only. And that has been true for all prophets of the OT and apostles, and any mature believer.

Mar 8:31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mar 8:32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2113

Tuesday October 1, 2019

Christianity is meant to be lived, not just spoken.

1Jo 3:16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2112

Sunday 29, 2019

The fastest growing churches in the world are in China and Iran. A leader of the Iranian church in an interview said that the greatest evangelist sent to their country was the Ayatollah. 40 years of rule under Islamic law was, according to them, a utopia, and the people saw firsthand for an entire generation that it was nothing close. He further went on to say that the persecution against the church that began with the rule of the Ayatollahs only destroyed the churches that did not contain disciples of Christ. Churches that were just about converts and Christianity light were easily removed, but the followers of Christ were only strengthened and their evangelistic message was emboldened.

Christianity is meant to be lived, not just spoken.

1Jo 3:16 We know love by...

for full notes: http://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2111