Christ Our Refuge

The Bible is very clear in its declaration that individuals who are not “in Christ” are lost and under condemnation. If you are not “in Christ Jesus” you have not escaped the condemnation and the wrath of God.

The apostle John wrote, “He who believes in Him [Jesus] is not judged” (John 3:18a). Paul wrote “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). John goes on to say, “he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (v. 18b). The person who does not believe is already condemned and that condemnation of unbelievers is now in the present time.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).

The sole basis of this justification and declaration of “no condemnation” is the assurance found in the words “in Christ Jesus.” We were all condemned in Adam, but in the second Adam there is no condemnation.

Christians do sin and fail to bring glory to God, and we do suffer the natural consequences of our sins. However, we do not suffer condemnation because Christ was condemned in our stead.

The legalist tries desperately to please God by obeying the law in his own strength, however it is impossible. On the other hand, the Christian who is under the control of the Holy Spirit experiences the sanctifying work of the Spirit in his daily life.

By an act of simple dependence upon Jesus Christ the believer realizes his position in Christ. “By nature I am in myself, and in sin and I am, therefore, condemned; but when the grace of God awakens me up to know my ruined state, then I fly to Christ. I trust alone in His blood and righteousness, and He becomes to me the cleft of the rock, whereas I hide myself from the storm of vengeance justly due to me for my many offences. The Lord Jesus is typified by the city of refuge,” writes C. H. Spurgeon.

Is your righteousness one which you have worked out yourself, or is the righteousness of Christ imputed to you? Do you look for salvation by self, or for salvation by Christ? “If you can truly say, ‘I hide in Christ,’ then this text warbles sweeter music than ever fell from angel’s lips.” “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Spurgeon added, “Inasmuch as you have believed in Him, you are in Him.”

The promise holds true because the believer is “in Him who can never be condemned. . . If you are in Christ, there is for that very reason no condemnation to you.”

Christ fulfilled the law for you, and since you believed on Him you are justified in Him. “By Christ’s righteous life and substitutionary death, justification has come upon all who are in Him.”

“We are accepted in the beloved,” says the apostle Paul. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

“Will the Lord condemn those whom He has made righteous?” Will He condemn those for whom He has covered with His own perfect righteousness?”

God has placed the believer in a living vital union in Christ. We have been made one with Christ through a living relationship.

Since we died in Christ and rose with Him, how then shall we be put to death again for the sin for which we have already died in Him? We who are in Christ are justified because Christ is justified by His rising from the dead, and by His taking the position of honor and glory at the right hand of God. “He is our representative and we are one with Him, and what He is that we are. Our union is inseparable, and therefore our condemnation is impossible.”

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

In My Darkest Moments That

It was in my darkest moments that Gods love shone the brightest in my heart. Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah

Christ Our Righteousness

Christ Our Righteousness

One of the great majestic names of the LORD God is “The LORD Our Righteousness” (Jer. 33:16).

Jesus Christ is our righteousness (1Corinthians 1:30).  We do not and cannot attain a right relationship with God in our own righteousness because our self-righteousness is as filthy rags.  We are guilty sinners in the need of a perfect righteousness (Rom. 3:23; Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:20-23).

When we speak of Christ our righteousness, we are using a great forensic term referring to our acquittal by God.  All that we have as Christians we have received as a free gift of God through Jesus Christ.  We are justified once and for all by grace through faith in Christ.  It never has to be repeated because it is a non-repeatable event.  When we are united to Christ, we have a righteous and holy standing before God.  We are “in Christ.”  We have a vital union in Him.  We enjoy a right relationship with God because of the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Christ is the basis of our perfect acceptance with God (2 Cor. 5:21).

God has robed us with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.  He is the basis of our acceptance with God.

Godet said, “It is the act of grace whereby God removes the condemnation pronounced on the sinner, and places him relatively to Himself, as a believer, in the position of a righteous man. The possibility of such a Divine act is due to the death and resurrection of Christ.”  His death is the foundation of everything God does for the sinner.

The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:12 that we are through the atoning death of Christ declared righteous before God.  This “righteousness” of God in Christ is that quality, which is ours when God acquits the believer, based upon the finished all-sufficient death of Christ (Rom.4: 22-25). God acquits the believer for Christ’s sake, not ours.

This righteousness, like justification, is always forensic.  God is Judge, and we must stand before Him.  We can only plead guilty because we are guilty.  God treated Jesus Christ as if He were the guilty sinner, and deals with the believing sinner as though he or she were righteous.  Christ did not deserve the curse; we did.  The imputed righteousness of Christ to the sinner is a demonstration of the wisdom of God. It is a display of His justice, mercy, grace, love, and power as would never enter into the mind of men.  It is a manifestation, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Cor. 1:25).

The cross and the resurrection is the power of God unto salvation. Let us glory in the cross of Jesus Christ and God’s saving grace.

Because our right standing with God is His work, He alone can get all the glory.  God pronounces the verdict based upon whether we have accepted or denied Jesus Christ as our Savior.  Man cannot satisfy the Judge unless he is righteous.  There is no denying of the fact that no man is righteous before God.  No man can produce the righteousness God requires.  It has to be given to him if the sinner gets it.  Under these circumstances, his faith is counted to him as righteousness (Rom. 3:23; Gal. 3:26).  Christ Himself becomes the righteousness we need (2 Cor. 5:21).  God the Righteous Judge views us not as we are in our sinfulness, but in Christ.  He is our perfect standing before God.  It is only the righteousness of Christ that can possibly satisfy the perfect demand of the law of God.

Christ is our righteousness; none other will satisfy God.

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

Has All He Needs.

He who has the Holy Spirit in his heart and the Scriptures in his hands has all he needs. Alexander Maclaren

Will Come Close to You.

“Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46:10 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Come close to God, and God will come close to you. James 4:8 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

“If God doesn’t want something for me, I shouldn’t want it either. Spending time in meditative prayer, getting to know God, helps align my desires with God’s.” Phillips Brooks

“We can be tired, weary and emotionally distraught, but after spending time alone with God, we find that He injects into our bodies energy, power and strength.” Charles Stanley

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.” R.A. Torrey

“Spending time with God puts everything else in perspective. “If a man wants to be used by God, he cannot spend all of his time with people.” – A. W. Tozer

Prayer: Poppa, please slow me down so that I may hear your Holy Spirit speak to me and discover my heart’s true longings and therefore recover my energy and my purpose for living according to Your will.

Poppa, thank You for caring about me and all things that come into my life.

Thank You for helping me trust in Your sovereignty and enabling me to be content in whatever state I am in.

I humbly ask these blessings and give thanks for these blessings in the name of the greatest blessing You have given me, Jesus Christ. Amen

May you have a grateful heart towards He who has given so much to you. indeovi vas ( may you live with Jesus in Latin ) Seleh- stop and think about it.

This photo and article @ Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah 2023 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it but it may not be sold without authors consent

There are Those Times

There are those times that come along,
When things just don’t go right,
When fairness seems to slip away,
And wrong things fill our sight.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to see,
Beyond the hurt we feel.
It’s hard to see the blessings too,
And know that they are real.

Because the heavy loads you have
Weigh more at times like these,
I ask if I may carry too,
And offer with a “Please?”

I want to make a difference though,
To bring a smile this day,
And maybe if by writing this,
A smile will come your way.

So hold your chin up strong and proud,
‘Cause it’s the thing to do,
And know that I’ll be standing near,
Because I love you!

Your best friend

Jesus

~James O’Brien

You are Storing up Terrible

But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will judge everyone according to what they have done. Romans 2:5-6 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Prayer: Thank you Jesus that You are a judge who passes judgment in a fair and unbiased manner. May the wicked be repaid seven time more for their vile deed which causes so much suffering to the innocent. I sincerely request this in the name of the Supreme Judge, Jesus Christ. Amen

May you have a grateful heart towards He who has given so much to you. indeovi vas ( may you live with Jesus in Latin )

Seleh- stop and think about it.

This photo and article @ Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah 2023 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it but it may not be sold without authors consent

Christ Our Propitiation

Please don’t let that title scare you off. That is a beautiful and profound word.

Christ’s death turns away the wrath of God. The apostle Paul said Christ is our propitiation. He is a propitiatory sacrifice. It refers to what Christ did on our behalf before God.

We are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (Romans 3:24-25).

God gave His Son as the means of the propitiation, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). A. T. Robertson said, “God could not let sin go as if a mere slip. God demanded the atonement and provided it.” It was “by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

The word “propitiate” in its classical form was used of the act of appeasing the Greek gods by a sacrifice, of rendering them favorable toward the worshipper. The sacrifice was offered by the pagan worshiper to buy off the anger of the god and buy his love. Note very carefully that this idea is not brought over into the New Testament. The LORD God does not need to be appeased nor is His love for sale.

In the New Testament it refers to the act of getting rid of sin which has come between God and man. The word hilasterion is used in the Greek translation of Leviticus 16:14 to refer to the golden cover on top of the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ark, below this lid, were placed the tablets of stone upon which were written the Ten Commandments, which Israel had violated. On the Day of Atonement before the Ark stood the High Priest representing the people who had sinned. When the sacrificial blood is sprinkled on this cover, it ceases to be a place of judgment and becomes a place of mercy. The blood comes between the violated law and the violators, the people. The blood of Jesus satisfies the just requirements of God’s holy law which mankind broke, pays the penalty for man, and thus removes that which had separated between a holy God and sinful man, sin, its guilt and penalty. This is far removed from the pagan idea of propitiation. Jesus Christ is God’s High Priest who was both the Mercy Seat and the Sacrifice, which transforms the former from a judgment seat to one where mercy is offered a sinner on the basis of justice satisfied.

Bengel observed that God, “’placed before the eyes of all’ unlike the ark of the covenant which was veiled and approached only by the high priest.”

The LORD God set forth His Son, the Lord Jesus, as the One who would be the satisfaction for our sins. Because God is satisfied with the payment of the sin debt, His wrath is turned aside, away from the believing sinner. Christ absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf. He bore our punishment as our substitute.

When God looked down upon the sacrifice He judged man guilty, the payment was paid in full, and in His righteousness could therefore acquit the believing sinner who put His trust in the Lamb of God. That mercy seat is the place were God met man in His grace since the sacrifice turned away the wrath of God because His righteousness was satisfied. The guilty sinner is spared because of the death of Christ in our place. When God looks down upon the believing sinner He sees not our sins and guilt, but the blood of Jesus. He is our expiatory sacrifice that satisfied the righteousness of God. His death paid our debt in full and a holy God was satisfied.

All of the lambs in the sacrifices in the Old Testament pointed to God’s perfect Lamb who would wholly remove our death penalty.

How do we know this is all true? We know we can trust God because a holy and righteous God tore the veil in the temple from top to the bottom. The moment Christ died it was like God the Father reached in and took hold of His outer garment and tore it from the top to the bottom in His mourning for His only Son. God tore the veil in two to open the way into His presence for all who believe on His Son as their sinless sacrifice who died as their propitiation. Bloody sacrifices came to an end in the temple because the death of Christ alone met all the holy demands of a thrice-holy God.

Have you placed your trust in God’s Lamb?

Or My Nothing.

Jesus is either my all or my nothing. He will accept nothing less. Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah

You Will Always

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. 2 Corinthians 7:10 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

The last sentence pierced my heart with great sorrow.

I know someone who is suffering greatly mentally, physically and spiritually every day.

All of her life she has been a user and abuser. She loved to cause fights. She just used and abused men and women. Now, she is old and her body is all broken down and she needs help.

Jesus sent His servant home to take care of her and she did nothing but abuse him and laugh about it.

Now, she is in constant pain.

Godly men and women have tried to get her to repent and stop it but she refuses to even admit her wicked deeds. I know the Lord has spoken to her in dreams and in sermons.

Again she just ignores Him as she did the others.

Jesus’ patience has run out for her.

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. Romans 1:18–20The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,  one for which you are not prepared. Isaiah 47:11 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

About three years ago her health took a nose dive and she has been suffering every day.

Yet, she still, refuses to repent.

Her son feels no sympathy for her because she showed no sympathy towards him and indeed made jokes about his suffering which she caused.

Warning: be careful of the seeds you sow tomorrow because you will indeed be eating the harvest of them.

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Galatians 6:7 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Prayer: Thank you Jehovah Ghmolah ( The God of Recompense. Ezekiel 7:9 ) for paying back the wicked for the vile deeds which they delighted in causing the innocent to suffer. I praise You in the name of The Supreme Judge, Jesus Christ. Amen

May you have a grateful heart towards He who has given so much to you. indeovi vas ( may you live with Jesus in Latin )

Seleh- stop and think about it.

This photo and article @ Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah 2023 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it but it may not be sold without authors consent