“Chapter 8 I am a saint If I walked into any church in America and asked how many perceived themselves as a sinner saved by grace, almost everyone would raise their hands. But then if I asked how many perceive themselves as saints, few, if any, would raise their hands. My response would be: Which is the most biblically accurate statement of who you are as a Christian? Does the Bible refer to the believer as a sinner or a saint? Did Paul address his letters to the sinners at Ephesus or to the saints? Look at the truth in 1 Corinthians 1:2, To the Church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours (NASB). Tragically, many Christians live their lives as though the passage reads, To others in the church who are struggling to be sanctified, sinners by calling (or saints by hard work), with some who call upon the name of the Lord, my Lord, but I m not sure about theirs. Every Child of God Is a Saint The overwhelming and consistent message of the New Testament is that we are all saints by the grace of God, sanctified because we are in Christ Jesus. Every child of God is a saint because he is in Christ Jesus. The most overwhelming concept in the early parts of Ephesians is the tremendous inheritance we have in Christ. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing *in Christ*. For he chose us *in Him* before the creation of the world” Ephesians 1:3-4 (emphasis added). Forty times in the one book of Ephesians, references are made to either you being in Christ or Christ in you. And for every verse throughout the Bible that talks about Christ being in you, 10 verses can be found that talk about you being in him. Go through the rest of Ephesians 1 and see how many times you can find this truth. In verse 7 you will find, “*in Him* we have redemption.” In verse 11 it says “*in Him* we were also chosen.” Verse 12 will tell you that your hope lies *in Christ*. Verse 13 says that you were included *in Christ* when you heard the word of truth. The problem is not that the Bible does not clearly identify believers as saints - it does! The primary problem is, we just do not see it! So Paul says in Ephesians 1:18, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance *in the* saints” (emphasis added).”
“Christ is the center that holds all things together.”
“The cause of change is Christ.”
“Fearfully tailored in good faith and Wonderfully made to sing praises Oh for your face, Savior Amazing grace maybe I m Worth staying alive like The worst man alive And the worst of all time”
“In can feel God in everything, but especially in nature. But man needed to have a place to see the Lord, and thus the churches were built. It started with Solomon s temple so that the ark of the covenant had a place of quiet and rest, as well as the Israelites. I love churches – those places of encounter, exchange, community, and kindred spirits. But nonetheless, God shines the brightest in nature, and it s manifold beauty. He is everywhere. God is love. And if you feel love for another person, the revelation of God is revealed in its most beautiful way – it resembles the beauty of a flower or the swelling and swaying of a willow tree. Christian faith is gentle and kind. It is full of hope and love and tolerance for all the people wandering this earth. That s what I believe in, and that s what I have experienced.”
“Yes, it is my sole aim to brainwash you people. To make your minds, hearts and spirits pure and acceptable to Christ for Judgement Day.”
“Our surface potentialities are for selfishness and greed, for tooth and claw. But deep within, in the whispers of the heart, is the surging call of the Eternal Christ, hidden within us all. By an inner isthmus we are connected with the mainland of the Eternal Love. Surface living has brought on the world’s tragedy. Deeper living leads us to the Eternal Christ, hidden in us all. Absolute loyalty to this inner Christ is the only hope of a new humanity. In the clamour and din of the day, the press of Eternity’s warm love still whispers in each of us, as our truest selves. Attend to the Eternal that he may recreate you and sow you deep into the furrows of the world’s suffering.”
“If we want to have and enjoy such Christ-centered intimacy, we need to get married. And if we want to get married, we need to pursue clarity about whom to marry. We don’t pursue clarity by diving into intimacy. The right kind of clarity is a means to the right kind of intimacy, not the other way around. Careful, prayerful, thoughtful clarity will produce healthy, lasting, passionate intimacy. Any other road to intimacy will sabotage it, leaving it shallow, fragile, and unreliable.”
“If, while we hold our times here in our own hands, all we have to do to be reconciled is believe he has them in his, how much less will we have to do there when we shall see they are in Christ s hand alone - that is, see them held for our eternal enjoyment as all right?”
“The simple justification for the elders and their work was Christ’s detailed prescription in Matthew’s Gospel for how Christians should deal with sinners among the faithful: first private admonition, then progressively more formal reprimands, and finally, if repentance was not forthcoming, expulsion from the community.”
“The real truth is that while He came to preach the Gospel, His chief object in coming was that there might be a Gospel to preach.”
“Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men s pain that I carried my cross.”
“What we must do is hold on to the revelation of the person of Christ; the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. And that way, that truth, and that life, is love.”
“True love springs from God and unites us all into oneness with the beautiful image and likeness of Christ.”
“God created mankind in His image and likeness, remember? For some reason, you people always forget your divinity.”
“We are used to the thought that we’ll go to Heaven if we avoid sins or have our pastor remove them. To labor ourselves into paradise is a new and somewhat discouraging perspective.”
“To summarize, Easter Sunday is the most important Sunday. It is the Sunday of all Sundays. It is the day of the new beginning of the entire cosmos, the day of resurrection. In our worship we must be careful not to reduce our message to the Easter fact only. The Easter fact must include the message this fact proclaims: God makes all things new. It must also include the message that we have been raised with Christ. Calling God s people to die to sin and rise to the new life is central not only to Easter day but to the Easter season.”