GOSPEL NUGGET 516

"We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"

In a Creator-creature sense, God, as our Creator, is our Master, and we, His creatures, are His servants. It is our duty to obey and serve Him. His commands are just, right and good. Even our own consciences approve of it. We ought to do what is just, right and good. It is our responsibility. No one thanks a person for doing what he ought to do. We don't get brownie points doing it.

The doing of God's commands and serving Him are our duty. It is our responsibility. We don't get salvation points from God doing it. We don't cause Him to be indebted to us in the exercise of what we ought to do. We don't ingratiate ourselves to God doing our duty.

Many people believe that salvation is God's "Thank You!" to sinners who serve Him and do their duty. Not so. Salvation is God's undeserved favor, offered to those who don't deserve it, to be received freely by faith in the Savior and what He did on the cross.

Lu 17:7 "And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down to eat'?

8 "But will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink'?

9 "Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.

10 "So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.'"

GOSPEL NUGGET #515

To think that the primary issue of God with a sinner is his conduct is to miss the deeper and graver issue of man's separation from God. Man's primary problem is not his need to be nice, sweet and charming. You can be all that and still be bound for hell.

Cempark is one of the nicest places to be in all the world. The people are calm, serene and quiet. They don't fight against each other. Year in and year out, there are zero crimes in the neighborhood. Practically, the residents are perfectly well-behaved.

Cempark is short for cemetery park. The whole place is a cemetery and the residents are all dead people. I don't have a problem with their conduct. They are all very fine folks to me. The problem is that they are all dead.

You can have all the good manners and right conduct in the world but if you have not trusted in Christ and what He did on the cross for salvation, you will still end up in hell, forever separated from God.

First things first, come to Christ, have life and be reconciled to God!

GOSPEL NUGGET #514

“Joining the jihad is our way of taking a shortcut to heaven.”

These are the words of Islamic jihadists. Islam teaches that in order to secure heaven and be joined with the Houris or the beautiful women of Paradise, one must be a martyr for Allah. That is, one must be involved in a holy war or jihad and die in it. In the Hadith of Muslims, one of their sacred books, it says that that a martyr's privileges are guaranteed by Allah; forgiveness of their sins with the first gush of their blood.

In other words, you are saved by sacrificing and giving your life to God, shedding your blood for Him. Salvation is not free. It must be earned at the cost of your life-blood.

How different it is with the way of Christ! He Himself sacrificed His life to God for us. He gave Himself to make salvation free for us all. Salvation for free at the cost of His life-blood.

Come to Christ for salvation so free. Come to Christ---God's only cut to heaven. 

GOSPEL NUGGET #513

Can You Really Trust And Count On Yourself To Make It To Heaven?

Many people bank on themselves, who they are and what they have done, to make it to heaven and be with God forever to enjoy Him. They have faith in themselves and in their performances even though they admit that they are sinners.

Can a criminal be confident about his case before a thoroughly just judge who knows all about his crimes personally? Can a sinner be positive and upbeat about his record before a holy and just God when even his own conscience accuses him of his sins and transgressions?

Face to face with the Ten Commandments, with all its demands that includes perfect obedience even down to the inward motions of our hearts, can we really be satisfied with ourselves and be bold with ourselves that we will be saved?

If pride and self-righteousness are set aside, truth be told, we know that we can't make it. We can't trust in ourselves to be saved. We have failed so many times. We have missed the mark that God wants us to hit all the time. It's an open and shut case---we are sinners, plain and obvious, deserving judgment.

No, we cant rely and trust in ourselves. But God has given us the Lord Jesus Christ, our Representative and Substitute. He died for our sins and rose from the grave. In Him, not in ourselves, we can put our trust for our salvation. Have you?

GOSPEL NUGGET #512

Werewolves and Villagers

The game Werewolves and Villagers is fun. The villagers must identify and hunt for the werewolves before it will kill all of them. The werewolves only come out under the cover of night when everybody goes to sleep. In the daytime, they look pretty normal, they don't show their fangs, they pretend like they are ordinary folks in the village.

This is a picture of us all. There is a werewolf in all of us. In God's sight, none of us is a villager. We know that we are spiritual werewolves deep within. We know what we did in secret under the cover of night when no one was looking no matter how we deny or cover it. We are "...brute beasts...to be caught and destroyed. " 2 Peter 2:12.

We may ascend the stairs of respectability in the village or in society. We may be voted as the Most Outstanding Villager Of The Year but at the core of our being we are all sinners. We have devoured someone at least at one point in our lives either in outward behavior or in our hearts and minds.

What we need is a new nature. We need to be transformed. And that can only take place if we are transformed into a new creature by faith in Christ. Come to Christ in faith and be born again into a new creature, yes, into a true villager in the community of God's people and village.

GOSPEL NUGGET #511

EX 28:40 “For Aaron’s sons you shall make tunics; you shall also make sashes for them, and you shall make caps for them, for glory and for beauty.

Let's apply this verse to salvation:

The purpose of the tunics or coats, sashes and caps is for glory and for beauty. They are all a picture of Christ. In ourselves, as sinners, we are dishonorable and ugly, spiritually speaking. In God's sight, we can only weave for ourselves "filthy rags" with the righteous deeds that we do.

ISA 64:6 ...all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment...

But once, we put on Christ, by faith in Him, He becomes our glorious and beautiful garment. He becomes our glory and our beauty before God. And so, put on Christ! Trust in Him for salvation and be gloriously and beautifully arrayed in Him in God's sight.

GOSPEL NUGGET #510

Joh 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?"

Let's apply this to spiritual salvation:

Before a sinner is saved, he must first see his need for salvation. In a lot of cases, this requires a long time. It takes us, fallen creatures of pride, a long time to come to the end of ourselves. That we are helpless and incapacitated to save ourselves is the last thing that we will ever realize, if ever.

We'd love to think that we are okay, when the truth of the matter is that we have been "lying there" for a long time in that condition. Not until we humbly acknowledge our condition that God, in His mercy and grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, will come with His salvation.

Are you one who, in pride, is constantly resisting His conviction? Or are you one who has been brought to acknowledge your sinful and helpless condition before God?

Have you realized that that you are not well in the eyes of God that you can readily say a humble "Yes" when He comes and says: "Do you want to be made well by faith in Me and in what I did on the cross for you?"