Your great sin requires great Merit. Your great guilt requires great Blood. Infinite guilt begs for infinite mercy and pardon. Boundless iniquity cries for boundless Grace. All your hopes of self-salvation are delusive. Give up, have done with self, and take Christ freely. Drop into His arms, and Jesus will take you and save you freely. He died to save your soul, He lives to accomplish it. You can't mingle man's works with God's works, you can't mix man's merits with Christ's merits. If you try, the mercy of God will pass you by, and the wrath of God will continue to abide upon you, and eventually will destroy you. Christ freely offers Himself to you only if you will take Him for Nothing. You cannot buy Christ with your good works. You have no merits at all anyway. Your good works are only another form of your sin, another shape of your iniquity. The Gospel is just this - trust Christ's works, and you are saved immediately and irreversibly. Rely on what Jesus did, and you are delivered from the penalty of your sins. Leave off trusting to ceremonies, doctrines, creeds, traditions, forms, efforts, doings -- simply rely on Jesus Himself, and you are Born Again. *John 3:7*
Your sins justly merit eternal damnation, that's all. Trust only in what Jesus did for you. Do not attempt to mix your doings with Christ's finished work. Your very best works are stained with sin and selfishness. Your best performances and obedience must be washed in God's Blood. You must be saved by grace or not at all. Your works can never help Christ. You have a divided hope if you are relying on any of your works. "Jesus only, Jesus only!" is the deathblow to all of man's religious efforts. Jesus must entirely save you, or not at all. Christ will not go shares in your salvation. Christ never went halves with a sinner yet. Your pet sin and favorite lust has made you a darling child of Satan. Your vain boasting is excluded. Evil, Justice, Love, and Forgiveness all converged at Calvary's Cross in the Lamb of God. Jesus bore our evil sins in His own body on the tree, He endured the Justice and Wrath of God we deserved, He loved His enemies, and will now freely forgive all that come to Him for mercy and pardon.
Christ Jesus' mercy must save you - pure mercy, unmixed mercy. Trusting only in Christ will remove all your sin-debts, take away all sins, and save you eternally. Faith is simply trusting in Christ, then seeking to please Christ out of gratitude to Him. Trusting in Christ is too hard for your proud spirit, you are much too proud to be saved freely. Love was crucified by human sin on the Cross. Christianity is intolerant, it doesn't allow a second method of salvation. Christ's Precious Blood is the only way of escape from the Hell you deserve. Trusting in Jesus alone is the narrow path to Paradise, the strait gate that leads to New Jerusalem. If you make a mistake with Christ, it will be eternally fatal. Jesus wants no help from you, let Him do it all, do not bring anything with you to the Cross, or you will be turned away. No soul ever perished trusting in Jesus' blood. Confidently rest your soul on the finished work of Christ. Away with your good works, good thoughts, for they are filthy rags and dung. Trust implicitly on Christ's blood. Don't trust in two things, partly in Christ, and partly in your good works. Jesus doesn't need your assistance, don't intermeddle with your salvation.
The Christian has two eyes, both are wholly fixed on Christ, faith and obedience. The one road to Heaven is faith in Christ Jesus alone. There are two steps to Heaven: out of self, and into Christ. Faith is the constant trusting in the Savior's words, person, and Blood. Simply hold your empty vessel to the place where the water of life flows, and let Jesus freely fill your empty soul with Himself. Faith simply and solely fixed on Christ's Perfect and Finished Blood Atonement takes all your sins away forever. This must be your testimony - "This is my beloved Savior in whom I am well pleased, Worthy is the Lamb." Your best prayers, resolves, reformations, works, or tears can never merit you eternal life. Eternal life is a free gift for the ungodly. Salvation is only due to God's grace, not your works. Cast your guilty soul simply on the merits and blood of Jesus. Christ is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.
Take Jesus at His word and trust to Him. Trust only in what Jesus did for you. Repent of your sins committed against God. The moment your soul trusts Christ, that very moment all your sins are forgiven freely. The wrath of God's justice is only propitiated (appeased) by the bleeding Sufferer on the accursed tree. Man-made religion will damn your soul. Religion can never have anything to do with your Salvation.
The Lord Jesus Christ sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, the soldiers plowed His back with bloody furrows, they pricked His precious temples with the crown of thorns. He was mocked and spit upon, He bore Calvary's Cross, despising the shame, He was nailed to the tree naked, hung up in the blazing sun for everyone to gawk and jeer at hatefully. The Son of God was murdered on account of your sins. Jesus yielded Himself up to a gruesome bloody death for you, He descended into the heart of the earth, then three days later, He rose from the dead, ascended up to Heaven, and is now sitting on the right hand of the Father, interceding for those who trust in Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, the soldiers plowed His back with bloody furrows, they pricked His precious temples with the crown of thorns. He was mocked and spit upon, He bore Calvary's Cross, despising the shame, He was nailed to the tree naked, hung up in the blazing sun for everyone to gawk and jeer at hatefully. The Son of God was murdered on account of your sins. Jesus yielded Himself up to a gruesome bloody death for you, He descended into the heart of the earth, then three days later, He rose from the dead, ascended up to Heaven, and is now sitting on the right hand of the Father, interceding for those who trust in Him.
Simple faith in Christ's Precious Blood is the only way of salvation. His blood dropped from Calvary's Cross for your sins. Jesus will receive the biggest of sinners. Your vileness and guilt can only be washed out with God's blood. The wrath of God demands payment for your sins. If you reject Christ, you don't have enough sense to fill the eye of a needle. Lord, show me myself, Lord show me Yourself; Lord reveal my sins to me, and then reveal the Savior. Jesus was lifted up to die in the thick darkness, He was offered up to make an Atonement, and poured out His life's blood for your sake. Depend on Christ for all things, and on self for Nothing. Human merit is rotten and empty to the core. Christ is the meritorious One, not you; trust only to His bloody Atoning Sacrifice for sinners. Trust only in the merit of Him who bled and died on Calvary's tree. Christ was perfectly obedient His entire life on my behalf and has imputed all His merits to my account that I might be exceeding rich, through Him who for my sake became exceedingly poor. *II Corinthians 5:19-21; 8:9*
Without Christ, all have you to stand on are your Demerits which are many. By nature, you can only merit perdition and the Lake of Fire. Human nature attaches merit to its own works and foolishly hopes to win heaven as a reward of its own doings. When a sinner believes in Christ, the merit of His blood takes away his sins, and the merit of His obedience is imputed to him for Righteousness freely without works. As soon as we believe on Christ alone, the works of Christ are our works. God looks upon the believer as though the perfect obedience of Christ has been performed by ourselves. God considers us to be as Righteous as Christ. God looks upon us as though Jesus' life has been our life. God accepts, blesses, praises and rewards us as though all that Jesus did had been done by us. This is Justification.
