Purposed Grace Articles

Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Is this a contradiction? Can you have faith and unbelief at the same time? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, wherever you have real faith, you will always have unbelief right alongside of it. Why is that? Because we still have an evil nature. That evil nature does not believe. That evil nature cannot believe! It is the new nature that believes. If we only have one nature, faith and unbelief at the same time would be impossible. But because every believer has two distinct natures, called by our Lord the flesh and the spirit, our cry is continually, “Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” [AMEN!]

Young parents: Raising children is not easy. It requires wisdom, patience, consistency, and most importantly, love. Many mistakes will be made along the way. No honest parent can look back without many regrets. I have heard it said that it is the most important job with the least amount of training one can have. Yet, as believers, we do have a perfect example in our loving Heavenly Father. May the Lord give us the grace to follow Him.

Once a child of God has been graced to receive: blessings, being kept, God’s face to shine upon them, graciousness, God’s countenance lifted up upon them; they can not but have the “Peace” of God that passes all understanding! This last phrase: and the Lord give thee Peace; is the by-product or I should say the result of all that the Anointed One has done for the sheep of His fold.

One of the hardest tasks for a child of God is to describe The Lord Jesus, as He is known to them. How do you articulate what is so wonderfully known to you, how do you express in words what Christ is to you, what He means to you?

Some tell us that Christ came on earth, merely to set us a pattern which we must imitate. He is indeed our pattern and glorious example of the church, and may we imitate Him; but if this is all, it will leave us to be lost. He became flesh and dwelt among us; He endured many contradictions against Himself; He was tempted and resisted the devil. “Then,” say you, “What must we bring to God as a ground of acceptance with Him? Must we not bring our obedience?” No. What is your best obedience? Your righteousness is filthy; and by doing so, you wish to make God filthy likewise? Nothing less than a perfect obedience will do. And where will you find it? Not in yourself; it is in Christ, and in Him alone. What a deal of talk there is about co-working with God; you must do your part and then God will do His. This was the case some thousands of years before Christ; and as to His disciples, when the work came to be done, they all fled.

Let thy meditations, my soul, this morning be sweetly exercised upon thy risen and exalted Saviour. For if thy Lord be indeed risen, then will it undeniably follow, that as He died for our sins, so He arose for our justification, and is thereby become the first fruits of them that sleep.

It is most certainly true, God remembers all the actions that ever men have done, do, or shall do; He remembers the nature and quality of all actions as they are; He remembers such actions as done at such times; and He knows they are thus and thus in the nature of them; and yet, so it is, that ‘He remembers not thy transgressions; that is, though He remembers the things thou hast done, yet He doth not remember them as they are thine; He remembers whose they are, He himself has passed them over, He decreed that they should become the sins of Christ; and when He passed them over to Him, they ceased to be thine any longer [beloved].

My heart breaks as I watch people compromise The Gospel. But I must say again...There is only One Gospel!

Beloved, God’s elect, God’s people: we trust not in ourselves, nor in men, we trust not in our own righteousness, we trust not in our own strength, but rather ever so blessedly by God’s grace in Christ, we trust in God’s name, in His righteousness, in His power, in His strength. Oh LORD we trust in you! LORD, let your people ever shout for joy, because “thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name, be joyful in thee!”

Reader, do you know what comfort is to be found in having the Spirit of God reveal to your heart the meaning of this one blessed word, double? You see, our good and ready to forgive God declares that His people have received of His hand double! Not only has God forgiven His people for the iniquity of trying to establish their own righteousness (while they were dead spiritually); He has also forgiven them of all their transgressions! [Psalm 86:5, Romans 10:3-4, Isaiah 64:6, Ephesians 2:1]