Sunday, March 27, 2016

For Resurrection Sunday



Q.  What does the resurrection of Christ profit us?
A.   First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, that He might make us partakers of the righteousness which He has obtained for us by His death; second, we also are raised up by His power to a new life; and, third, the resurrection of Christ is to us a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection.    -- The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day Seventeen, 1563

Sunday, March 20, 2016

For The Lord's Day - Palm Sunday



“Secular wisdom may lead us to the truth about the revolution of the planets, but it cannot explain the nature of God, man, sin and redemption. It cannot lead us to the truth of how we are saved from God’s wrath, for it refuses to believe that divine wrath is a reality. ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’ (Romans 1:18a), said the apostle Paul, because it does not fit the questions – much less the answers – of secular wisdom… the message of the cross assumes the terror of the law, divine wrath toward sinners (and not just their sins), and the need for a substitutionary sacrifice to assuage divine justice. It assumes the greatest problem facing humanity is original and actual sin – personal rebellion against a holy God – not stress, low self-esteem, and a failure to realize one’s potential.” - Michael Horton in Sola Scriptura

Sunday, March 13, 2016

For The Lord's Day

“The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh. We should follow Christ; the path he traveled was the right way to heaven. We should take up our cross and follow him, in meekness and lowliness of heart, obedience and charity [love], diligence to do good, and patience under afflictions.” -- from The Christian Pilgrim, Jonathan Edwards

Sunday, March 6, 2016

For The Lord's Day



"There is only one sense in which it may be said that Jesus “died to sin” and that is he bore its penalty, since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Having paid sin’s wage (or borne its penalty) by dying, he has risen to a new life. So have we, by union with him. We too have died to sin, not in the sense that we have personally paid its penalty (Christ has done that in our place, instead of us), but in the sense that we have shared in the benefit of his death. Since the penalty of sin has been borne, and its debt paid, we are free from the awful burden of guilt and condemnation. And we have risen with Christ to a new life, with the sin question finished behind us.” John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 270