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Living for the Lord is tremendously difficult at times. Owen Strachan gives three exhortations to keep in mind as you strive for personal holiness:
Sanctification is the dynamic manifestation of the gospel in our lives. Conformity to God’s will is not achieved by tweaking attitudes and behaviors here and there, but rather by becoming completely enamored with the Lord, his holiness, and his unfathomable love.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Excerpts modified from chapter eight of Don’t Call it a Comeback.
The very last verse in the Bible summarizes the message of Holy Scripture from Genesis to Revelation: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all” (Rev. 22:21). The word grace appears about 150 times in the New Testament alone, and the theme of grace saturates the whole of Scripture. Jesus came into the world “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace (Zech. 12:10). God’s throne is a throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). We receive forgiveness according to the riches of divine grace (Eph. 1:7).
The Good News that we are called to proclaim, the very essence of the Christian faith, is the gospel of grace. It permeates our lives, from the grace we offer before meals to the testimonies we hear from those emerging from a life of sin to a life of redemption. And that beloved William Wilberforce hymn echoes every Sunday in cathedrals, underground gatherings, rock concert halls, and radio waves around the world.
There is something about grace that is so simple that a small child can grasp its meaning, and yet it is so complex that great theologians cannot fully grasp it after years of study. Like the sun, grace is the light by which we view everything, but so pure and magnificent that it hurts our eyes to look directly into it. As profound a subject as it may be, grace, the central message of the Bible, can be boiled down as “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”
Excerpts modified from chapter one of Amazing Grace.
In Galatians 1, Paul tells how he turned from the “religion of I,” to accept the faith of God. During his years of persecuting the Church, Paul was captivated by selfish motives, driven by legalistic Judaism. Serving ourselves hinders our effectiveness and skews our priorities as Christians.
Christians, by the power of the Spirit, must live on the side of the faith of God, not on the side of the religion of I. We must have Christ, by his Word, revealed in our hearts (our minds and feelings) so that our wills are set upon God, not ourselves.
Excerpts modified from chapter 7 of No Other Gospel.
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