Weekend Gospel message to follow for All Hands (08-10FEB19)

Heads-Up --- Please find enclosed encouragement in "SO GREAT SALVATION" by the perfect and finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ in saving poor, needy and wretched sinners by His sovereign free grace -God's unmerited favor- from their sins and from Hell:

“It is only when a sinner comes to Christ as nothing and with nothing that he receives anything. This is a necessary thing because Christ is ALL! He alone has all the preeminence. He is all the “fullness.” The only way for us to have Him is for the Holy Spirit to empty us of ourselves! And what a painful thing that is to proud, self-righteous sinners! Yet, it must happen if we are to be saved. Grace brings us to Christ with nothing and He takes nothing and makes it something! Something in Himself! What He did in the natural creation He must also do in the new creation. He does not redo but makes all things new! We come with nothing and are made something. We come as poverty stricken souls and receive the riches of His grace. 

We come void of any righteousness and are made the righteousness of God in Him. We come as empty vessels and are filled with His fullness. We come as those who are spiritually bankrupt and receive the bounty of His grace. We come as those who are orphans and receive sonship in Christ. We come as those who are without strength and receive His strength. We come as those who are ignorant and are given the knowledge of Christ. We come as those who are failures in every way and become those who are more than conquerors through Christ. We come blind and receive sight to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ. We are lost and yet found. We are lame and yet are enabled to walk by faith. We are like the air in a glass which is forced out when the glass is filled with water.  Self must be forced out and Christ must fill us. We must be brought from “I, I, I” and “my, my, my” to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It is His choice of me and not my choice of Him that saves me. It is His will to save me and not my will to be saved that secures my salvation. It is His wisdom not my works, His death and not my life, His blood and not my body that makes my soul to be at rest. We come as a pauper and are made a prince. We come as those who are “unrighteous” to “the LORD our Righteousness.” As a matter of fact, the only reason we come to Him is because He first comes to us!  Remember Naomi’s words: “I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty”. She thought she was full when she left but the Lord emptied her so that He might fill her with the good things of His grace! Lord empty us of self and fill us with Christ!”  


-Gospel report by preacher Gary Shepard




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