GOSPEL NUGGET #374

Isa 46:13 I bring My righteousness near...

Man is a sinner who has no righteousness that is acceptable to God. In God's sight our righteous deeds are stained by sin. It is filthy rags to Him (see Isa. 64:6).

Man is therefore helpless and powerless to produce righteousness for God to accept. The Law or the Ten Commandments makes this obvious and easy to see. God demands perfect obedience to His Law but no one can obey it perfectly.

Man has no righteousness for God, but God, in grace, has righteousness for him. He has brought righteousness so near to man through the Gospel. So near that it is just a matter of a heart's trust on his part to obtain it.

Ro 10:6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down from above)
7 or," 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8 But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith which we preach):

Anyone who trusts in the Savior and what He did on the cross will be given a righteous standing before God.

GOSPEL NUGGET #373

Misconceptions About Salvation

#14 "I don't need to accept Jesus to be saved. He just saves me and that's it."

A man wrote that he does not have to accept the Lord Jesus in order to be saved. Jesus just saves him. He then said in effect that you don't ask a drowning man to be saved, you just rescue him without offering your help.

There are three things that are problematic here:

First, the Bible clearly teaches that the Lord Jesus must be received in order for one to be saved and become a child of God. "But as many as RECEIVED HIM, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name." Joh 1:12

Second, he failed to realize two important stages in the redemption process: a) Redemption Accomplished b) Redemption Appropriated and c) Redemption Applied

The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished redemption when He died on the cross. But that accomplished redemption must be appropriated by faith in order for it to be applied to the believing or trusting sinner. In his thinking, the first stage (a) is all it takes for one to be saved.

Third, he based his error on an illustration that only emphasized certain aspects of salvation. The drowning man illustration only goes so far. Yes, it's true that salvation is a rescue and a deliverance from danger. But salvation is also a proposal of a relationship.

Salvation is also about being united to God in a relationship with Him. Since it is also about having a relationship with God, it is therefore something that is offered and not imposed. And any proposal of a relationship must be received or accepted in order for it to be established.

GOSPEL NUGGETS #372

Transfer Your Trust And Reliance To The Lord Jesus 

Isa 45:22 "Look to Me, and be saved... 

The pre-incarnate Lord Jesus is the one who is inviting people here to look to Him and find salvation. The word "look" in the Hebrew here means to turn. Imagine a person looking and facing someone else and then turns around to face another person. That's the idea here. 

A lot of us have been relying on a lot of other things and persons for our salvation besides the Lord Jesus. We have been looking up to our own goodness, our own religiosity, our own efforts expecting to be saved by them.

The Lord is saying: "Turn to Me. Look unto Me. Turn away from trusting anything and anybody else. Transfer your trust and reliance to Me for salvation."

Faith is the instrumental cause of salvation, but faith isn't saving if its object is not on the Savior and what He did on the cross. The instrumental cause of salvation (faith) must set its sight on the efficient cause of salvation (the Savior).

Transfer your faith and reliance for salvation on the Lord Jesus Christ! If you do that, He promises that you will "be saved."

GOSPEL NUGGET #371

An Atheistic Detective Who Became A Christian

J. Warner Wallace is a celebrated cold case detective. You can see him featured many times on TV in the US. A cold case detective is one that solves crime cases that turned out cold after months of fruitless investigation by others before him.

J. Warner Wallace is an expert detective who was an atheist. One day, he set out to apply his expertise on the claims of Christ. An expert detective took the challenge to investigate Christianity, particularly the resurrection of Christ.

He bought a Bible for 6 dollars and then began to examine the evidence. He would not spend more than 6 dollars wasting his time. He actually began with a bias against the case!

One thing that leaped out to his notice was the fact that the Gospels is an eyewitness testimony. This caught his interest. He had something to really weigh and assess. In the end, he could not resists the sheer force of the evidence. It was too solid. He trusted Christ as His Savior.

My friend, have you taken the time to examine the evidence for yourself? Have you read the "affidavits" of the eyewitnesses who saw Christ's resurrection?

The truth that Christ died for our sins and resurrected from the dead is rock solid. You can trust in Him and what He did on the cross for your salvation.