In the Cross - we will not only find our forgiveness - but there we will find our reason for living - the explanation for our own sufferings - the cure for all your anxieties - and the reason and purpose for our livesBacktothebible.ca
although indeed 'God is love', yet we have to remember that his love is 'holy love', love which yearns over sinners while at the same time refusing to condone their sin.The Cross of Christ (88)
the command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous. Jesus does not tell us to cease to be men (by suspending our critical powers which help to distinguish us from animals) but to renounce the presumptuous ambition to be God (by setting ourselves up as judges
We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
Christian righteousness far surpasses pharisaic righteousness in kind rather than in degree. It is not so much, shall we say, that Christians succeed in keeping some 240 commandments when the best Pharisees may only have scored 230. No. Christian righteousness is greater than pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper, being a righteousness of the heartThe message of the Sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian counter-culture (p. 75). Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
He does more than obey them himself; he explains what obedience will involve for his disciples. He rejects the superficial interpretation of the law given by the scribes; he himself supplies the true interpretation. His purpose is not to change the law, still less to annul it, but 'to reveal the full depth of meaning that it was intended to hold'.
The message of the Sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian counter-culture (p. 72). Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
What is unhealthy is every wallowing in guilt which does not lead to confession, repentance, faith in Jesus Christ and so forgiveness.The Cross of Christ (101)
the church is meant to be the kingdom community, a model of what the human community looks like when it comes under the rule of God, and a challenging alternative to secular society.
Jesus was humiliated, brutalized, and killed not because of the nobility of the human heart, but because of its cruelty and wickedness.This Book Changed Everything, 21
Self-denial is not denying to ourselves luxuries such as chocolates, cakes, cigarettes and cocktails (although it might include this); it is actually denying or disowning ourselves, renouncing our supposed right to go our own way.
Jesus Christ is indeed a crutch for the lame, to help us walk upright, just as he is also medicine for the spiritually sick, bread for the hungry and water for the thirsty. We do not deny this; it is perfectly true. But then all human beings are lame, sick, hungry and thirsty. The only difference between us is not that some are needy, while others are not. It is rather that some know and acknowledge their need, while others either don't through ignorance or won't through pride.
Many people visualize a God who sits comfortably on a distant throne, remote, aloof, uninterested, and indifferent to the needs of mortals, until, it may be, they can badger him into taking action on their behalf. Such a view is wholly false. The Bible reveals a God who, long before it even occurs to man to turn to him, while man is still lost in darkness and sunk in sin, takes the initiative, rises from his throne, lays aside his glory, and stoops to seek until he finds him.
The proper activity of professing Christians who disagree with one another is neither to ignore, nor to conceal, nor even to minimize their differences, but to debate them. We are 'to maintain the truth in love,' being neither truthless in our love, nor loveless in our truth, but holding the two in balance.Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1970), pp. 22, 19.
Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence on the secular community, a negative influence by arresting its decay and a positive influence by bringing light into its darkness.. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth.Message of the Sermon on the Mount (64-65)
If the church is central to God's purpose, as seen in both history and the gospel, it must surely also be central to our lives. How can we take lightly what God takes so seriously? How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the centre?The Message of the Ephesians (129)
The reason why many people give the wrong answers to questions about the cross, and even ask the wrong questions, is that they have carefully considered neither the seriousness of sin nor the majesty of God.The Cross of Christ (89)
On this interpretation of the work of Christ the whole Church rests. If you move faith from that centre, you have driven the nail into the Church's coffin. The Church is then doomed to death, and it is only a matter of time when she shall expire.Work of Christ (53)