The invitation of Christ is to receive the forgiveness of our sins. That is a truly wonderful invitation. Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The gospel is God’s invitation to find rest in Him.
Rich family relationships thrive in the natural soil of contentment and gratitude, not in the hothouse of financial or material prosperity. And if we’ve not yet learned this lesson, our families are probably suffering as a result of our ignorance.
Whatever we’ve done in the past, are we willing to demonstrate courage today? Are we willing to make a genuine commitment to God? And will we faithfully confess our commitment as long as we live? If so, we have the makings of true discipleship.
What counts for goodness in God’s sight is what we do about the wrong we talk against so much. At the judgment, we’ll be judged not on our words or our ideals or what we knew to do. Our judgment will be based on what we actually did.
One of the most basic decisions anybody ever has to make is whether to live on the principle of selfishness or the principle of unselfishness. Depending on what we decide about this question, our lives will be greatly affected for better or worse.
We must choose what kind of life is most important and sacrifice the lesser things so we can enjoy the greater. Throughout the coming week, may we be renewed in our determination to seek, above all else, that which our Creator defines as real life.
In our belief in Christ, repentance from our sins, confession of faith, and baptism into Christ, we are promising that we’ll be loyal to our new Lord for the rest of our lives. Jesus asks nothing less than this kind of binding, permanent commitment.
As the Lord’s people, we have a goal that is greater than the differences that pull us apart. The Lord’s work is too important to let anything separate us, and that means we will deal with differences in a better way than if we were worldly people.
Christ has redeemed us from our previously vain way of living. Now that we’re in Christ, there is significant work to do. Before, our work was only of passing importance, but in the Lord, Paul says our work is “not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
No amount of condition-meeting would ever earn salvation. But in the NT, baptism was always the point at which a person moved from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ (Acts 22:16). We shouldn’t shy away from seeing baptism the same way today.
