Jesus Is

By Mark VanOuse

One of the most common, unbiblical myths in Christianity is the Myth of the Christian “Sinner”. Almost universally and everywhere I hear (or read of) Christians referring to themselves as “sinners”. A common sentiment is the well-worn phrase, “I’m just a sinner like everyone else”. Or, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”.

I’m here to say that Christians — those that are truly born again by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ — are never called “sinners” in the Bible. Such a belief that Christians are called “sinners” is not only patently unbiblical, it is unhealthy and downright dangerous to the cause of righteousness, both personal and in the church.

Now at the outset let me say that I am not saying Christians never sin. They can and do, sadly and opposed to God’s will. For the Christian who sins, there is remedy found in scriptures like 1 John 1:9.

What I am saying is that you will not find even one verse in the Bible that calls Christians “sinners”. Not a single one. So what are they called? “saints”. More on that later. Read the rest of this entry »

By Charles G. Finney

Some years since, I preached a sermon for the purpose of developing the idea of the spiritual life. The minister for whom I preached said to me, I want to show you a letter written many years ago by a lady now in advanced age, and detailing her remarkable experience on this subject.

After her conversion she found herself exceedingly weak, and often wondered if this was all the stability and strength she could hope for from Christ in His Gospel. Is this, she said, all that God can do for me? Long time and with much prayer she examined her Bible. At last she found, that below what she had ever read and examined before, there lay a class of passages which revealed the real Gospel — salvation from sinning. She saw the provisions of the Gospel in full relief. Then she shut herself up, determined to seek this blessing till she should find. Her soul went forth after God, seeking communion with Him, and the great blessing which she so deeply felt that she needed. She had found the needed promises in God’s Word, and now she held on upon them as if she could not let them go until they had all been fulfilled in her own joyful experience. She cried mightily to God. She said, “If Thou dost not give me this blessing, I can never believe Thee again.” In the issue the Lord showed her that the provisions were already made, and were just as full and as glorious as they needed to be or could be, and that she might receive them by faith if she would. In fact, it was plain that the Spirit of the Lord was pressing upon her acceptance, so that she had only to believe — to open wide her mouth that it might be filled. She saw and obeyed: then she became firm and strong. Christ had made her free. She was no longer in bondage; her Lord had absolutely enlarged her soul in faith and love, and triumphantly she could exclaim: Glory be to God! Christ hath made me free.

This is an excerpt from Charles G. Finney’s book, “Sermons On Gospel Themes”, chapter XXIV, “Elements of Christian Experience.” The book is in the public domain.

By Hudson Taylor

[Hudson Taylor was one of the greatest Christian missionaries of all time. He pioneered a mission work, China Inland Mission, which thrust the gospel into the interior of China. This is a letter to his sister, Amelia, written in October, 1869 from China.]

My own dear sister – So many thanks for your long dear letter . . . I do not think you have written me such a letter since we have been in China. I know it is with you as with me – you cannot, not you will not. Mind and body will not bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain amount of work.

As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life; and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.

I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful – and yet, all is new! In a word: “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Read the rest of this entry »

In this day of flash, fancy programs and endless gimmicks, I was greatly impacted by the following statement from that giant of prayer, E.M. Bounds:

Men are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. … What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer. …
The training of the Twelve was the great, difficult and enduring work of Christ. … It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God — men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.

[As quoted in HUDSON TAYLOR'S SPIRITUAL SECRET by Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor]

By Mark VanOuse

“That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. ” Philippians 2:15-16 KJV

The picture here is light in the midst of deepest moral darkness, in the midst of a “crooked and perverse nation” (or “generation”). Such was the environment of the Roman empire at the time of the early church. This was a time when the masses were not entertained by the pretend gore of today’s cinema, but by butchery of real humans murdered for fun in the Colosseum. This was a society so thoroughly given over to decadence and violence that their insatiable want for entertainment demanded the blood and gore of the gladiator and Christians thrown to the lions. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs [John Fox], which is so stirring, so challenging about Christians who lived radically for the Lord, full of the evident grace of God. It has deeply challenged Christians for centuries.

Today I read a quote from Ignatius, one of the early church Christians that deeply affected me. The persecution referred to is under the Roman Emperor Dominitan, during a time of vicious persecution of Christians:

In this persecution suffered the blessed martyr, lgnatius, who is held in famous reverence among very many. This Ignatius was reappointed to the bishopric of Antioch next after Peter in succession. Some do say, that he, being sent from Syria to Rome, because he professed Christ, was given to the wild beasts to be devoured. It is also said of him, that when he passed through Asia, being under the most strict custody of his keepers, he strengthened and confirmed the churches through all the cities as he went, both with his exhortations and preaching of the Word of God. Accordingly having come to Smyrna, he wrote to, the Church at Rome, exhorting them not to use means for his deliverance from martyrdom, lest they deprive him of that which he most longed and hoped for:

“Now I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing, of visible or invisible things, so that I may but win Christ. Let fire and the cross, let the companies of wild beasts, let breaking of bones and tearing of limbs, let the grinding of the whole body, and all the malice of the devil, come upon me; be it so, only may I win Christ Jesus!” And even when he was sentenced to be thrown to the beast such was the burning desire that he had to suffer, that he spake, what time he heard the lions roaring, saying, “I am the wheat of Christ: I am going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread.”

When I read that I don’t marvel at how great Ignatius was. I marvel at how great almighty God is to so transform a life into such a radical disciple of Christ!

by Ruth Paxson

[Excerpted from LIFE ON THE HIGHEST PLANE - Vol 2, by Ruth Paxson, Moody Publishing, 1928]

Romans 6:6, R.V., “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin.”

Galatians 2:20, R.V., “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.”

2 Corinthians 5:14-15, R.V., “For the love of Christ constraneth us: because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died: And he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.”

Two things explicitly stated in these verses should be noted; first, that the crucifixion of “the old man” is an already accomplished fact, and second, that it is a co-crucifixion.

Read the rest of this entry »