Daily Gospel: 4/9/11

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

 - Colossians 3:1-4

Daily Gospel: 4/8/11

I don’t change when gospel concepts start surprising me, wonderful and essential as that is.  Gospel concepts spread the table, so to speak, for the feast of Christ himself, who fills me and heals me and energizes me.  I change, really change, when I feel loved by him.  I change when I feel accepted by him.  I change when I feel set free by him.  That goes beyond concepts.  It is an experience.  That experience follows the logical and psychological trajectory set by the doctrines.  But what I need is the touch of Christ himself.

 - Ray Ortlund

Why I Read

If you didn't grow up in the 90's, you probably don't get this.

Via Dan Phillips

Daily Gospel: 4/7/11

You may know a good deal about Christ, by a kind of head knowledge. You may know who He was, and where He was born, and what He did. You may know His miracles, His sayings, His prophecies, and His ordinances. You may know how He lived, and how He suffered, and how He died. But unless you know the power of Christ’s cross by experience—unless you know and feel within that the blood shed on that cross has washed away your own particular sins—unless you are willing to confess that your salvation depends entirely on the work that Christ did upon the cross—unless this be the case, Christ will profit you nothing. The mere knowing Christ’s name will never save you. You must know His cross, and His blood, or else you will die in your sins.

 - J.C. Ryle, Practical Religion, “The Cross of Christ”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998], 248, 249.

Via J.C. Ryle Quotes

Daily Gospel: 4/6/11

This is the great glory of Christ—he vastly outshines the first man Adam. The spectacular sin of Adam is not as great as the spectacular grace and obedience of Christ and the gift of eternal life. Indeed, God’s plan from the beginning, in his perfect righteousness, was that Adam, as the representative head of humankind, would be a type of Christ as the representative head of a new humankind. His plan was that by this comparison and contrast, the glory of Christ would shine all the more brightly.

Verse 17 puts the matter to you very personally and very urgently. Where do you stand? “For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Notice the words very carefully and personally: “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.”

 - John Piper, preaching on Romans 5:12-21, italics original.

Via Desiring God

Daily Gospel: 4/5/11

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.

 - "Rock of Ages", Augustus M. Toplady

Daily Gospel: 4/4/11

I have taken my good deeds and bad deeds and thrown them together in a heap, and fled from them both to Christ, and in him I have peace.

 - David Dickson

Daily Gospel: 4/3/11

(John 7:38)“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Literally, it says, out of his belly. But the point is our inner being, call it belly, heart, soul, spirit. What does this mean?


It means that when you come to Jesus to drink, you don’t just get a single drink, but you get spring, a fountain, a well. You get Jesus. Rivers of water will flow because a River-Maker is in you. That’s the point. You will never have to search again for a source of satisfaction for your soul. Every river that needs to flow for the joy of your soul will flow from Jesus. When you come to him, you get him. And he never leaves.

 - John Piper,
 
Via Desiring God

Daily Gospel: 4/2/11

We must use the assurance of faith in applying the blood of Christ; we must labour to purge and cleanse our consciences with it.


If we find that we have sinned, we must run at once to the blood of Christ to wash away our sin. We must not let the wound fester or exulcerate, but immediately get it healed. . . . As we sin daily, so he justifies daily, and we must daily go to him for it. . . . We must every day eye the brazen serpent. Justification is an ever-running fountain, and therefore we cannot look to have all the water at once. . . .

O let us sue out every day a daily pardon. . . . Let us not sleep one night without a new pardon. Better to sleep in a house full of adders and venomous beasts than sleep in one sin.

 - William Fenner, A Treatise of Conscience, in Works, 108f.; quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Crossway, 2010; repr.), 115

Via Dane Ortlund

Daily Gospel: 4/1/11

Cling to the Mighty One, Cling in thy grief
Cling to the Holy One, He gives relief
Cling to the Gracious One, Cling in thy pain
Cling to the Faithful One, He will sustain

 - Anonymous. Set to music by Indelible Grace.