GOSPEL NUGGET # 270

Imagine a man fighting for his life in a deep and angry ocean. Furious, the ocean just won't let him go. It wrestles him mad. Its waves batter him to no end. One moment, he is down, another moment, he's on the surface.

To and fro, he is slapped and thrown from one place to another and thrashed about here and there. On and on it went, until he could feel his strength ebbing away. He could not take it anymore.

What or who can save him?

* How about we call for a priest there and have him baptized, adding more water to the water? Will it save him?
* How about we give him a cellphone so that he can call someone and donate his riches to the poor? Will it deliver him?
* How about some pep talk "C'mon, you can do it! Just believe in yourself! Never give up! We are our own saviors." Will it work?

None of these things will do. The man is completely helpless. What he needs is a deliverer who will come and save him.

Applying this to spiritual salvation, it is not baptism, or good works or self-effort that can save us. We need a Savior.

Here we are sinners under the wrath of God, helpless and hopeless in ourselves to save ourselves, but the Lord Jesus Christ came and died for our sins and rose again. And He comes to us extending His saving arms saying: "Will you trust Me and what I did on the cross for you? Will you take hold of Me by faith?"

GOSPEL NUGGET #269

GOSPEL NUGGETS

Isa 55:1 "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.

If you are thirsty for the waters of salvation, the joy that comes with it ("wine") and its spiritual nourishment ("milk"), you can buy all of it without money and without price.

True Story

One time a Sunday School teacher could not understand what the verse is saying. He thought to himself: "How is it possible to buy without money?"

A little six-year old girl answered it for him. "You can buy without money by charging it to someone else."

And that is exactly the nature of salvation. You want salvation? It is very costly! None of us can afford it. You can't have it in exchange of your good works, morality and religious activities.

But you can have it by charging it to the Lord Jesus Christ who provided the payment of salvation when He died on the cross for you. God, as it were, is offering all of us a credit card with the name "Jesus" on it.

And so even though you have nothing in you to have God's salvation. You can come and "buy" salvation by charging it to the Savior! Swipe it on Him!

Repent and trust in Him and the payment He made on the cross for the sinner's salvation!!

GOSPEL NUGGET # 268

What If God Decided To Give Salvation To You As A Free Gift? (True Story)

A man was reading the Bible when another man approached him and asked: "Are you saved?"

The man replied: "I could never be good enough to be saved."

The other man asked: "What if God would give salvation to you as a free gift, would you receive it?"

"I don't know what kind of a fool you would think I am if I would not take a gift like that!" the man answered.

The other man directed him to open his Bible to John 10:28 which read: "...I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish..."

Then he also turned his attention to another passage, Romans 6:23 which read: "...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Realizing for the first time in his life that salvation is a free gift from God, right there and then, he received God's salvation by faith in Christ. Like this man, many do not realize that salvation is a free gift from God.

Are you one of them?

GOSPEL NUGGET #267

Birthdays And Salvation

Twenty-three years ago, on the fourteenth of July, a bouncing chubby and tubby baby girl was born. Carmelle came out of her mother's womb crying as if she knew that it was a fallen world.

Tired, weary and exhausted, her mother looked at her with affectionate eyes. After much painful and grueling labor, finally the life in her womb has now seen the light of day.

It was all worth it---the physical agony, the excruciating pain, the effort that took much from her and all the thousand other things besides that came with her baby's birth. The baby had nothing to do with her own birth. She was the product of her labor.

In the same way, being born again or being saved is not the result of our own efforts. A sinner is born again and saved because of Another's effort, agony and labor, when He bore our sins on the cross.

Isa 53:11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied....For He shall bear their iniquities.

Come to the Savior and be born again!

GOSPEL NUGGET # 266

Dengue And Salvation

Rashelle went down one day with a fever, severe headache and body pains. After a few days the fever tapered off completely. But she was not feeling any better. Feeling weak and debilitated, she was languishing in bed.

Her mother did not take any chances, and so off to the hospital they went.
At the hospital, the doctor revealed that her platelet count was low---she had dengue!

Without delay, she was admitted to the hospital and was put on IV, with round the clock monitoring. Result after result, the counts were getting worse. Their hearts sank when the count reached to a precarious level.

At level 10, her life was hanging in the balance. She vomited sticky blood the size of an egg. Her mother prepared herself for the worst but was hoping for the best.

However, in the nick of time, someone donated blood to her and was saved.

What could this be but a picture of salvation! Here we are stricken with a deadly disease called sin. Weak and enervated, we could not do anything about it.

But Someone came "in due time" and shed His blood for us. "...when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5:6

My friend, are you willing to trust in the blood He has shed for you? Are you willing to receive by faith His sacrifice for you? Trust in what He did on the cross and be saved!

GOSPEL NUGGET # 265

"...be reconciled to God." 2 Corinthians 5:20

The wonder of God's condescension! Of all things, it is the King Himself, through His messengers, who is pleading with rebels to lay down their arms and be reconciled to Him.

We shut the door on Him and sealed it with our sin, but He opened it for us, came out and with outstretched arms and with affectionate and longing eyes says: "You are very much welcome. So come!"

You know, it would be well for you to come.

God's grace has spread the red carpet for you, stained with the precious blood of the Savior when He died on the cross. God's messengers are on the sidelines pleading: "Come! Come! Come!"

Will you come and be reconciled to God in repentance and faith, trusting in the Savior alone and what He did on the cross?

GOSPEL NUGGET #264

JER 2:22 “Although you wash yourself with lye And use much soap, The stain of your iniquity is before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.

The guilt of our sin is humanly impossible to blot out. It is indelible. It can stick to you permanently, forever. Adopt all means within your power, and still, your guilt and your sin will remain.

Many have attempted to wash themselves clean with the lye of religious deeds and may have duped themselves into thinking that they are now clean. But to God, they are as filthy and defiled as ever.

Some have tried to wash themselves clean with the soap of reformation, philanthropy, good works etc., and have deceived themselves into thinking that they are now fine and okay with God, when the reality is that, still, in God's eyes, their guilt and their sin remain.

Nothing will do except the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, shed on Calvary's cross.

1 Jo 1:7 ...the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

The moment we entrust ourselves to Him for cleansing, relying and depending on Him alone and what He did on the cross, is the very moment that our guilt, our sin and our stains are washed away.