Proverbs 16:24: Pleasant words are as an
honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
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We Have An Advocate
It is my heart’s desire never to sin against my Lord. And I desire the
same thing for you. Oh, that we might perfectly obey God! But we will sin. You
will, and I will. That is a sad, but a certain matter of fact.
And this is another certain matter of fact: If we are in
Christ, if we are true believers, our sins, be they ever so great, ever so
numerous, and ever so hideous, can never alter our standing before God or our
acceptance with him. Take comfort then, my sinful brethren, “If any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the
propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2). By all means resist sin, hate
sin, strive against every lust of your heart. But when you do sin, in thought,
in word, or in deed, do not despair. – We have an Advocate!
–Don Fortner
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Sin is not put down nor
repentance, faith and love produced by the strength and force of men. The mighty masses of ice in the artic can
withstand the fiercest forceful storms.
But with the soft ray of the sun the same hard mass melts into water. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” The great mountain shall become a plain before
Christ by the Spirit of God working in the heart through the power of His
gospel (Zech 4:6-7; Rom 1:16-17). There
are no more pleasant, edifying, powerful words than the power of the gospel of
Christ spoken in love through the Spirit.
“Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to
the bones” (Pro 16:24).
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To be without Christ is to
be without anything of value. To
be without Christ is to be an unpardoned condemned sinner. The day will
come when that person without Christ will be cast into Hell. To be
without Christ is to be sick with a disease that is killing you, with no
remedy. Sin will be your ruin, because you have no Saviour. You will soon
die without Christ. You will go into eternity with no one to lean
on. None will comfort you. To die is to live again, either in
eternal life or eternal death. But without Christ there is none that will say
to the storm, “Peace, be still.”
–Milton Howard
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Job 1:20: Then Job arose,
and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and
worshipped, 21: And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall
I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the LORD. There is as much
wisdom, love and grace in what God withholds and takes from us as in what God
gives. Only faith and hope fixed on
Christ will be made to rejoice that it is so.
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DETAILED
REQUESTS
Philippians 4:6 … in every thing by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God.
God
is gracious to give his child the requests we ask in prayer. But when I think back on some of the things I
have requested of God, I must confess what great mercy that God did not give me
my petitions. Instead, Sovereign Wisdom
worked it far better than I could have ever dreamed. That is my hope in God now. It may be that one of the purposes in God
commanding us to make our requests known to Him is so that after God gives
something far better, we are made to see that only our Father knows what is
best for us. While it is good to make
our requests known, after all our requests, we ask not my will but thy will be
done. And we ask for grace and faith to
know that whatever God’s will be, it is best for me—and we give Him thanks.
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We Have An
Advocate
“…if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1
John 2:1)
This scripture
recognizes our frail, sinful human nature. A believer does not love sin, does
not excuse or justify sin, but grieves over sin and desires to be without sin.
Yet he owns and confesses his sin! As Spurgeon once said, “Sin is my name, sin
is my nature, and to deny is to deny the Word, deceive myself and call God a
liar. My old nature is such that I will sin until I die, for sin pollutes the
best things I do.”
This scripture encourages the believer to
trust and hope in the mercy of God at all times! It does not say, ‘If any man
is holy, prayerful, and almost faithful, he has an advocate;’ but “IF ANY
MAN SINS, he has an ADVOCATE with the Father.” It does not say, ‘If any
man sins he forfeits his right to Christ’s advocacy.’ Grace that can be forfeited
because of human failure is not GRACE at all. Mercy that is conditioned upon
the merit of the creature is not mercy at all. If my title to glory rests upon
my works, either BEFORE or AFTER conversion, it is a total
failure.
This scripture declares that at all times,
under all conditions, Jesus Christ is our righteousness, our sanctification,
our advocate and our redemption. So when I sin, when I consider my past or
present, and come creeping to my closet with a guilty conscience and an aching
heart, I can rejoice in the mercy of my Father; for I have an ADVOCATE, JESUS
CHRIST THE RIGHTEOUS!
–Henry Mahan