- My *Greatest* Needs -

• The Atoning Blood of God manifest in the flesh
• The Tender Mercy of God my Father
• The Abundant Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
• The Fear of God and the Comfort of the Holy Spirit
• The Exceeding Great and Precious Promises of the Scriptures
• The Presence and Blessing of the LORD
• The Communion and Work of the Holy Ghost
• The Fruit of the Holy Spirit
• The Return of the Lord Jesus Christ

Satan's Devices

The world's biggest liars are religionists and atheists and their spiritual father is a Liar (John 8:44) and the father of lies. Satan's root motive is spiritual murder (your soul) and his method is deception (a lie). The devil seeks to deceive you, deprave you, and at the end destroy you. The cleverest lies have some truth in them, and sound much like the truth. The devil lies about the biggest Subject. The biggest Subject is God. If you're wrong about God, that makes you horribly and terribly wrong. If you believe the wrong thing, it will lead you to DO the wrong thing. The thought is the father of the deed. If you sow a thought, you reap a deed; sow a deed, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap an addiction; sow an addiction, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny. Your path to Hell all begins with your thought life. Your thoughts will follow a voice, don't listen to Darwin's voice, it will lead into the Lake of Fire.

Satan would rather push a lie, than push narcotics or pornography. Satan is the biggest liar about the biggest truth, and the biggest truth is about God. The devil is the cleverest liar, the master liar. The biggest Lie is about God, and that is the lie that does the greatest damage. Satan lies about God - he desires to distort the concept of the true and living God. The devil's gospel - you can be your own god, run yourself, trust yourself. You must personally and individually receive and trust Jesus Christ. The devil deceives and blinds every atheist. If Satan doesn't deceive you, he will distract you. He will get you to tune out the truth, and turn down the volume of your conscience.

The devil wants you to despise God's goodness and think negatively about God. The devil says, "God is not good, he doesn't want you to have the best things. God is strict and cruel. Everything that is pleasure is a no-no. Christianity is a penalty God wants you to pay to get to heaven." The devil puts negative thoughts in your heart about God. Psa 84:11; I Timothy 6:17. No good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly. God gives us richly all things to enjoy. God is good all the time. Anything that brings pain, suffering, heartache, and tears is the fruit of sin. The Gospel of Christ is a feast, not a funeral.

The devil wants you to deny God's truthfulness and think skeptically about God.The devil wants you to question God's faithfulness to His promises. The root work of Satan is to get you to doubt or deny the words of God. Modern man will do anything but quit his doing and trust Christ's doings. Man will believe anything but Jesus Christ.

* Relativism - To believe that truth is relative rather than absolute. There is no absolute truth, all truth is relative. A relative makes ad-hoc decisions every day; it depends on what's going on that determines the decision.

* Rationalism - Whatever can be proved by science in the laboratory is truth. Thus saith the mind and wisdom of man.

* Pragmatism - to value knowledge purely for the sake of its observable practical consequences. To be oriented toward the success or failure particular way of life. If it works, it is truth.

* Post-modernism - There's no such thing as real truth. We make up truth as we go along. Man has no moral compass. There never was truth, there never will be any truth. Every generation makes up its own truth.

People don't know what to believe today. But it's still wrong to steal because God says so. It's still wrong to lie, because the Ten Commandments says it is a sin.

The devil wants you to defy God's righteousness (Jesus Christ) and think carelessly about God. You don't have to worry about God, He's not that holy. There's no judgment, God is not all that righteous. You don't have to fear God. Don't worry about those Ten Commandments, that's just archaic religious superstition. But remember - God is righteous and holy, God is not only good, God is righteous and holy and just. God will punish sin. You love the forbidden. Law without penalty is only advice. God is not giving advice. The devil's gospel is that there is no eternal punishment for sin. 

 Whatever happened to Hell? If you disobey God's law and refuse the Gospel, and reject Jesus Christ, you're going to die and go straight to Hell. There is a real burning hell where lost sinners go forever. Jesus Christ said more about Hell than any other preacher in the word of God. He's was a hell fire and damnation preacher, you probably wouldn't want to go down to your local church today and here Jesus preach. Man today wants to outlaw Hell as cruel and unusual punishment. But God's punishment for sin is still the Lake of Fire.

Eastern religions say you can be reincarnated. Atheism says you die like a dog. Works religions, many sects of Christianity, say that you cannot know for sure where you are going until after you die. Experiment with death. Ye shall not surely die. There's no personal God that you are accountable to. There's no eternal judgment. You can keep doing it till you get it right - you know Karma. The animals or bugs just might be your relatives. But there is a death, and a judgment, and a holy Creator Judge you will inevitably have to face. You can deny God's righteousness and think carelessly about God, but you will soon have to face Reality in Eternity.

The devil wants you to debase God's greatness and think suspiciously about God. When things go wrong, the devil wants you to think suspiciously about God, and when things are going well, the devil wants you to think carelessly about God. The devil says, "You can't trust God. You can't know what is right and wrong, and what's good or bad. All you have is that Bible that was written by men. Experience is the best teacher. Go ahead and try it. How do you know it's bad? Experiment with sin. Rattlesnakes, hot stoves, and electrical outlets are not dangerous. False religion, sex perversion, eastern meditation, alcohol, pre-marital sex - try it, you might like it. Your eyes will be opened and see if it's really hurts you. God has a monopoly on wisdom and He doesn't want you to know anything. If it's good for you, you can keep doing it. But if it's bad for you, you can just quit it. God doesn't want you to experience life, He doesn't want you to be liberated, He wants to keep you under His thumb. If you trust Jesus Christ with your soul, you will never reach your full potential. Remember, experience is the best teacher, not God's words. Just experiment with sin and with death and see what happens for yourself, don't listen to that old Bible. Don't let that old archaic book scare you."

But when it comes to sin and death, Experience is a very poor teacher. Those who know the least about sin are those that are most deceived by sin. They have a reprobate mind, they can't tell what is good or bad. They put darkness for light and evil for good. They make themselves the sum and substance, the total decider of what is good and bad. You'll ruin your life if you experiment with sin, and you will damn your soul is experiment with death. Well, everybody's doing it. Remember - the best lie sounds most like the truth. You can be your own god. The world says, "We're all our own god, or everything is god and has a little divinity in it, or there is no God." The devil says, "You can run yourself, be independent, do your own thing, don't worry about the future, you have nothing to fear." You say, "If I do wrong, God's too good to punish my sin." Oh no, God is too good not to punish your sin.

The Creator God is just and holy, and because of our sins (the rejection of Jesus Christ), we are all under the wrath and judgment of the holy Creator God (John 3:36). All men are wretched and vile, we break all of God's laws (James 2:10), and we desperately need a Savior, and that Savior must be God Himself. If you trust anyone else than Jesus Christ with your soul, you will inevitably spend eternity in Hell. There is a burning Hell, and a Just Judgment is coming for you. Hell is not just a place for bad people, but also for religious, moral, upstanding, and respectable people who think they just as good as Jesus Christ. No one can ever enter Heaven unless they have been Born Again, that is, spiritually made alive by the power of the Spirit of God through Salvation (John 3:1-7). You must be removed from the family of Satan, and adopted into the family of God through the mercy of God. All the unbelieving world will become guilty before God (Romans 3:19).

You will be brought to trial before God, you will undoubtedly answer to your Maker, for you are a sinner and you are liable to judgment and for punishment. Every sinner deserves to go Hell, and remember, the Lake of Fire lasts forever. Man doesn't like the truth about the final judgment and a place called Hell. But you are accountable to God. Human nature seeks to resist, reject, mock, twist, deny, or redefine its moral accountability to the Creator. Human nature despises the truth of the final judgment of God. The Righteous - Eternal - Final Judgment of God is the most despised - offensive - repulsive truth of Biblical Christianity to the lost world. But you will be summoned to God's eternal courtroom at death by none other than Jesus Christ Himself and stand trial at the Great White Throne Judgment. There will no bribery, partiality, respecter of persons, or spin in this courtroom. God's verdict of punishment in an everlasting Lake of Fire will be right and just. If you reject Jesus Christ, you get exactly what you deserve. Hell is deserved by every sinner. Jesus Christ forgives and saves sinners now, but He will judge and condemn sinners at the Great White Throne Judgment. Your Judge is alive right now, He was crucified for you, He rose from the dead for you, and He is now ascended on high ready to forgive you. The end of a Christless life winds up in a terrifying court and a terrible verdict. Stop playing at religion, you can never be good enough in your own righteousness to live with God forever.

At the Judgment, there will be nowhere for you to run and nowhere to hide. It will be forever too late then. The books will be opened and you will be judged according to your works (open and secret sins will all be brought to light). The book of conscience, the book of your secrets, the book of idle words, the book of thoughts, the book of deeds, and the book of life will be opened. You deserve a fair trial and you're going to get one. My friend, you have only one hope and that is - Settle Out of Court. Admit you are guilty and accept the justness of God's verdict against your sins - you are a sinner and you should be rightly and justly condemned to die an eternal death in the Lake of Fire. But be wise, flee to the Calvary's Cross where the Creator was crucified for you, claim His merits and blood, His bloody death, His resurrection from the dead was for your soul. Take Jesus to be your payment and your Substitute - on the Cross, He took what your sins deserve. You will either be standing before Christ at the Judgment or behind Him. You don't want to stand trial in Eternity before your Omniscient Creator. Settle out of court with the One Savior who paid your sin's penalty.

Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16). Christ Jesus was Jehovah in human form with God's blood pumping in His veins (Acts 20:28). Jesus, the Son of God is equal with God the Father. Jesus was both God and man. Christ is the only Person who can reconcile vile sinners back to the Holy Creator. Salvation is the deliverance of sinners from the wrath of God. The Savior is the One who delivers sinners from the judgment they deserve. Only Jesus saves sinners and forgives sins. Only God could be the sinner's Savior. God's justice is divine justice and it is infinite. Therefore, only a divine and infinite Blood Sacrifice (Atonement) could fully satisfy God's divine and infinite justice. Jesus bore your sins in His own body and endured and withstood the wrath of God on Calvary's Cross. Jesus rose from the dead, and now is able to save you to the uttermost, if you will quit your doing and simply trust the Finished Work of Christ Jesus. Then God's Righteousness will be applied and credited to your account by simple faith in God's precious blood.

In You

* Hope: But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear (I Peter 3:15).

* Every good thing: That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus (Philemon 1:6). Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:21). And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (II Peter 1:5-8).

* The testimony of Christ: Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you (I Corinthians 1:6).

* The truth of the Gospel: For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth (Colossians 1:5-6). Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father (I John 2:24).

* The anointing of God: But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him (I John 2:27).

* God Himself: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth (I Corinthians 14:25). One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:6). For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world (I John 4:4).

* God's good work: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).

* The mind of Christ: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).

* Christ Himself: And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Romans 8:10). Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (II Corinthians 13:5). My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you (Galatians 4:19). To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).

* The Grace of God: And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you (II Corinthians 9:14).

* Christ's Joy: These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full (John 15:11).

* God's word: And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not (John 5:38). For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe (I Thessalonians 2:13). I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one (I John 2:14).

* The words of Christ: I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you (John 8:37). If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you (John 15:7). Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16).

* The Love of God: But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you (John 5:42).

* The Life of God: Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you (John 6:53). So then death worketh in us, but life in you (II Corinthians 4:12).

* The Spirit of truth/The Spirit of God/The Spirit of Christ/The Holy Ghost: Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you (John 14:17). But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Romans 8:9). But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you (Romans 8:11). Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (I Corinthians 3:16). What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19).

* The Gift of God: Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery (I Timothy 4:14). Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. (II Timothy 1:6).

* Unfeigned Faith: When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also (II Timothy 1:5).

* The Truth: For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth (III John 1:3).

Are You Still Lost?

If you've ever been in a big city and lost your way, it is a humbling thing to admit to your wife that you're lost and have to stop and ask for directions. Life is a big place, and us sinners have lost our way in our sin and pride, it is a very humbling thing to stop and ask our Creator for directions and help.

Lost means to be left in a place unknown or forgotten; to be ruined, defiled, wasted or squandered; to be employed to no good purpose; to be confused and bewildered; wandering in the maze of sin; not able to find the right way or the place intended; to be alienated, insensible, hardened beyond recovery; to have gone astray and missed the way, preoccupied; to be shipwrecked, foundered, and sunk. Jesus is come to seek and save that which was Lost. If you're lost, you are without Christ, an alien and stranger from God's promises, and an enemy of God. Don't keep messing around and lose your own soul. I earnestly recommend to you Jesus Christ. Sin makes you feel all alone. You're not going to make it to heaven without Jesus Christ.

There's a God, and He's so good to His enemies. Your Maker is still kindly inviting you to the Cross where He bled and died especially for your sins and rose again from the dead. The very most degrading sins you've ever committed in secret - Jesus bore those sins in His own body on the Cross. God died for your worst sins. Jesus became Sin for you. Jesus became the worst thing you've ever done. You are so lost without Christ. You have no one, and you are doing NOTHING without Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Your soul is desperately lost in Sin. If you lose your keys, those keys are unable to do what they were made to do until they are found again. Likewise your soul is lost in Sin, and as long as you refuse to repent of loving sin and trust only in Christ's Righteousness, your precious soul will remain lost, and you will never do what your Maker made you for. You are a COMPLETE failure every day you remain lost in your sins refusing Christ's blood.

You don't just do bad things, you are BAD, you are evil, bent, corrupt, perverted, proud, and selfish. Your sins don't just come out of nowhere, your vile thoughts and dirty ways come from own your own stinking sinfulness. God died for your worst sins. Christ Jesus, the LORD of Hosts, is the only Person that save you from the force of evil and the power of sin that is reigning down deep inside you. There's a God, and He’s so Good - His name is JESUS CHRIST.

The Gospel of the Grace of God

Here's the message of Hope found in the Scriptures called "The Gospel of the Grace of God." This is the only cure for your guilty past. Every man's sins weigh him down with Guilt; every sinner must be saved by the Blood of a Substitute; only the imputed Righteousness of a Sinless Man can make a doomed sinner Guiltless. Only the atoning Blood of God Incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, can erase your sins from the sight of Almighty God.  Sometimes we don’t believe that.

We bank our happiness on other things that man has invented or dreamed up. But remember, God still saves sinners today - For His mercy endureth forever.  But God Almighty says to us, “I’m better than you think I am, and you’re much worse than you think you are; Come now, let us reason together, saith the LORD.” Our friends and family disappoint us. Our own good intentions let us down. Sooner or later our very bodies will give out on us. We must look beyond ourselves and stake everything on Christ Jesus, who alone saves guilty sinners. The Gospel is very good news for bad people like us. How can God love sinners who deserve His justice and wrath?

The greatest miracle of the Gospel is right in the center of it. In Romans 4:5, Paul says that God “justifies the ungodly.” That’s a real problem. When God justifies the ungodly, He upsets the whole moral order of the universe, doesn’t He? Everyone knows that God punishes bad people and rewards good people, right? It’s His job, but the Gospel disagrees.  The Gospel says, “God justifies the ungodly.” What does that mean? It means that God declares guilty people innocent freely. It means God treats bad people as if they were good people. This goes beyond human reason; this takes a divine miracle. It doesn’t matter if you’re a conservative or a liberal person. However you may define virtue and vice, you have a sense of right and wrong – this is called conscience. You form judgments, and you expect God to. But how can God justify the ungodly?

God knows all the secrets of our hearts. *Psalm 44:21* There is no rest in our bones, because of our sin-guilt. Our iniquities have gone over our head, as a heavy burden, they’re too heavy for us. Our sinful wounds stink to us and are corrupt because of our foolishness. We are troubled and bowed down greatly, mourning all the day long, there is no soundness in us, our hearts are sore broken and disquieted. Our hearts pant for forgiveness and our strength to do right fails us. *Psalm 38:3-10* Only God's Blood which flowed from Christ's veins can perfectly cleanse a sinner and completely pardon an ungodly soul. Christ Jesus freely gives instant, complete, irreversible eternal life to the sinner that turns from his self-righteousness and trusts Christ's Righteousness. Confess your misery to the Lord of Mercy.

Justification is a miracle God does for sinners. Every one of us is ungodly, and we know it. We’ve all failed to be the people we ought to be. We all regret something we have done in the past. A deep uneasiness about ourselves is why we live in denial. When we discover self-excusing evasion in our politicians, we demand an honest reckoning for their wrongdoing. But do we require the same unsparing justice on ourselves? Cover-up is the self-righteous strategy of every guilty conscience.

We always try to blame others. A troubled conscience lies behind our finger-pointing and self-justification. We try to reassure ourselves, we try to shift the blame to others. Our problems are always someone else’s fault. Parents blame their children, husbands blame their wives, and so on. We try to pass the buck, because we can’t bear our guilt. We so desperately want for someone to bear our guilt for us. We dump on others without realizing what’s happening in our thoughts. Our real problem is moral guilt before God. Our guilt is intolerable, unbearable. Our guilt feels like a ton of bricks on our heart at times. If we have to answer to God for what we have done, we’ll be condemned and crushed by our human guilt. Guilt is the perilous stuff that weighs upon every human heart.

Every sinner always tried to hide and cover up his sins. We lie about it, we cover it up, we try to run away, we change the subject, we shred the documents, we clear the history on the web browser, we delete the emails, we destroy the evidence, and we get angry and say, "How could you even think I would do something like that?" We are like the little child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, we just smile and hope that mommy won't spank us.

Every one of us has wanted a second chance after some failure. Every one of us understands that. We’ve all been trapped in consequences we didn’t intend, but we did set them in motion. Every one of us looks back at something in our past and agonizes, “If only I could relive that moment. If I could only trade in my record for a better one!” Dark is the stain of sin and guilt that we cannot hide, what can avail to wash it away? Look to Lamb of God at Calvary's Cross! there is flowing a crimson tide - whiter than snow you may be today. God's grace will pardon and cleanse within - His grace is greater than all our sins. God's mercy exceeds our sin and our guilt, look to Calvary's Lamb now, there where the Blood of God was spilt.

Lady Macbeth washed her hands of her part in murder and moaning she said, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! Here’s the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Man tries to medicate his conscience with earthly antidotes for human misery such as entertainment, religion, romance, overwork, and self-achievement. What will make our unbearable guilt go away? Who can bear it for us?

Every one of us needs a Scapegoat. Jesus Christ was willing to be the Scapegoat for all of us sinners. In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ says to us, “I am that willing Scapegoat for your guilt. Up on the Cross, I was crushed under your unbearable sin and guilt. I took all your guilt, because I love guilty sinners. If you’ll simply trust Me, here’s the deal: All my innocence and purity will be yours, and all your guilt and shame will be Mine forever. Deal or no deal? Will you continue to try and cope with your guilt by your own devices? Trust Me now, and I will wash your sins away with My precious blood and bear your guilt away with My infinite mercy.”

When we try to shift blame to one another, we create a mess. But there is redemption and spiritual release from sin’s bondage in God’s blood shed on Calvary’s Cross. God justifies ungodly sinners only through Christ’s Finished Work on the Cross. God accepts unacceptable sinners. He desires to save undesirable wretches. God honors shameful people, God adopts the beggars and outcasts into His family. God treats fools as princes and harlots as princesses as Jesus steps into our place at the Cross and bears our real moral sin-guilt far away upon Himself. That’s how God our Judge becomes God our Justifier. You need God Himself to forgive you, and only the Lamb of God can bear away a sinner’s guilt. God Almighty wants to glorify His Son by washing your sins away with Christ’s sin-pardoning blood. The only barrier that is keeping you from Christ is when you cling to your guilt by clinging to your human goodness (self-righteousness) or your love for sins. This is God’s way of release for guilty people – and there is no other.

Christ Jesus really was a man of sorrows, but they weren’t His own. He didn’t deserve them. They were our sorrows. This is the love of God which passeth knowledge, this is the unspeakable gift of God. Jesus substituted Himself for us at the Cross. God has done what we’d have no right to do – God has shifted all the blame to Jesus Christ for our sins as He died for guilty sinners. God pointed His holy finger at Jesus Christ on the Cross and said, “You must pay for the world’s sin.” God passed the buck to Jesus and laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

This is what the Bible calls imputation, from the Latin verb imputare, which means “to charge (to someone’s account).” Guilt must be paid for; it can’t be swept under the rug. When you are wronged or injured – even in a fender-bender – the aggrieved party demands justice, someone has to answer for it, it’s someone’s fault, either you or the other person. The damage and cost don’t just go away. If it’s going to be put right, someone has to pay the cost. And so it is with God. There is no way He can turn a blind eye to our evil that is damaging to His holiness.

We have all sinned against God’s holy law. God is holy and strictly just; He must punish all sin. How does God confront this problem? How is the damage to Him paid for? Out of infinite love and divine mercy for us, God becomes a Jewish man and charges our infinite sin-debt to Himself, a Sinless Substitute. Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, put Himself in the place of sinners, the unbearable weight of our sin and guilt was charged to His account, He suffered for it, He sank under it, He endured all the wrath of God for us. For God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. This is the Love of God.

Hail to the King we love so well, Immanuel, Immanuel (God with us). Death, sin and hell no longer reign, and Satan’s power is burst in twain; Eternal glory to His name. Glory and honor and majesty, wisdom and power be unto Him, now and forevermore. KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, all hail Immanuel! My soul doth magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. Where will ye leave your glory? *Isaiah 10:3* Leave all your glory at the foot of the Cross of Christ. Paul did - "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." *Galatians 6:14* ‘Twas there at Calvary the debt was paid, our sins on Jesus were laid; the grace of God was there shown, through Christ the Blessed Son, Who did for human sin atone – Hallelujah for the Cross!

-- Simplify Your Life --

Sin less, Behave more.
Talk less, Listen more.
Backbite less, Praise more.
Worry less, Pray more.
Complain less, Thank more.
Want less, Appreciate more.
Procrastinate less, Accomplish more.
Resent less, Forgive more.
Take less, Give more.
Harm less, Help more.
Argue less, Relax more.
Criticize less, Exhort more.
Envy less, Love more.
Spend less, Save more.
Eat less, Move more.
Retaliate less, Reconcile more.
Stress less, Meditate more.
Forget Christ less, Worship HIm more.
Sin less, Behave more.

Up and At 'Em!

• Wake up - Ask the Holy Spirit to quicken you and give you His enlightenment. *Psalm 139:23-24*
• Wise up - Seek wisdom from above which is first pure. *James 3:17*
• Straighten up - Come to Jesus now through faith in His blood, and let Him straighten out your crooked ways. *Isaiah 59:8; Philippians 2:15*
• Listen up - Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.  *James 1:19*
• Grow up - Long for spiritual, moral, and practical maturity.  *Ephesians 4:15*
• Own up - Admit you've done wrong, and be the first to ask for forgiveness.  *Proverbs 28:13*
• Get up - Arise from apathy and indifference and come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will give you light and rest.  *Genesis 19:27; Luke 15:17-18* 
• Speak up - That is, for JESUS, magnify His wonderful and matchless name.  *Luke 9:6; Acts 8:4; Jeremiah 20:9*
• Dress up - Put on the whole armor of God; put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ; be clothed with humility; adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. *I Peter 5:5*
• Nourish up - Feed on the words of faith and of good doctrine. *I Timothy 4:6*
• Lift up - Encourage someone today, and bear ye one another's burdens. *Hebrews 12:12*
• Gird up - If you think soberly, humbly and purely, your words will show it. *I Peter 1:13*
• Take up - Jesus said, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." *Luke 9:23*
• Shape up - Put off the old man and his evil deeds; put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. *Colossians 3:8-10; II Corinthians 5:17*
• Cheer up - Be of good cheer, for if you are born again and your sins are forgiven, Jesus Himself is living in your heart. Christ the Lord is risen today; so turn that frown upside down. *Matthew 9:2; John 16:33*
• Follow up - Mend those fences - make sure you try to right the wrongs you've done to someone in the past. *Ephesians 4:32*
• Look up - Jesus may come any day now, so keep looking and longing for His imminent return when we will be caught up, when Jesus says, "Come up hither!." *Luke 21:28; I Thessalonians 4:16-17; Revelation 4:1*