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.

GOSPEL NUGGET #370

The Myth That Reading The Bible Makes One Insane

There are many myths about the Bible. One of them is the one I wrote above. They might as well say that God makes one go insane. God was the one who inspired the Bible. He used human authors to produce it. And then reading it makes you go loco?

It is essentially a blasphemy against God. A bad press for its divine Author. Sure, there were cases of unstable minds who twisted the Bible to their own destruction, but it was definitely not the Bible's fault.

Nobody faults secular manuals when people do not follow its instructions to their own misery. Why say that against the Bible? If the truth be told and read, here's what it says:

2Ti 3:15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

The Bible does not make one go nuts. On the contrary, it makes one wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Read the Bible. Find out what Christ Jesus did for your salvation. Trust in Him and what He did and you'll be saved.

GOSPEL NUGGET #369

The Good Man Challenge

A preacher stood before a group of people offering a hundred dollars to anybody in the crowd who is truly good. One man stepped forward and claimed to be a good person.

"Have you told a lie in your life?" the preacher went at his conscience. 
"Yes" was the answer. 
"How many? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? More than a hundred?" the preacher went deep. 
"More than a hundred" the man replied with obvious uneasiness.
"What do you call someone who tells lies?"
"A liar" the man replied with guilt on his face.
"Have you stolen something? Have you borrowed something that you did not return?" the preacher further queried.
"Yes" the man replied looking down.
"What are you then?" the preacher probed deeper.
"A thief" replied the man almost in a whisper.
"No" the preacher countered, "you are a lying thief to be exact according to your own admission."

The preacher then told the man frankly that he cannot give the one hundred dollar bill to him based on who he was. He was not a good man at all. But the preacher said: "I will offer this one hundred dollar bill to you as an undeserved favor. Will you accept it?"

The man's face beamed with joy and nodded. He could not believe his ears. The preacher then approached him and laid on his hand a crisp one hundred dollar bill.

The preacher then said: "You see, God is like that to us sinners. We are all sinners. We don't deserve to be saved. But God offers His salvation to us for free as an undeserved favor. Anyone who humbles himself and relies solely on Christ and what He did on the cross will be saved."

GOSPEL NUGGET #368

Blessings For Free

Jos 24:13 'I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.'

Israel enjoyed God's blessings without breaking a sweat. It was all given for free. They did not earn it. They did not labor for it. They did not build it. They did not plant it. All were freely theirs for the taking.

You see, God can give blessings for free. It should not surprise us therefore that He can offer the blessing of salvation for free as well. He has been doing it to people who trust in Christ and what He did on the cross for salvation ever since. Look:

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

9 NOT OF WORKS, lest anyone should boast.

2Ti 1:9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, NOT ACCORDING TO OUR WORKS, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,

Tit 3:5 NOT BY WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH WE HAVE DONE, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

Ro 4:5 But to him who does NOT WORK but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,

Ro 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith APART FROM THE DEEDS OF THE LAW.