Finding Confidence and Identity in Christ for the New Year

The Bible never promises to manipulate our circumstances. There's no greater travesty, I sometimes think, of the gospel than to represent it as something which says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll never have any more problems or troubles. That's it, you'll walk down the road with head ere a bright step, everything will be absolutely perfect. [00:10:17]

Our Lord has never promised us an easy time in this world, but what he has said is this: in the world ye shall have tribulations, but fear not, I have overcome the world. What we are promised in the Bible is that in spite of the world, we can be made more than conquerors. [00:11:33]

We've got to learn first and foremost to think scripturally. Now, this is the whole art of the Christian life, I sometimes think, is to learn how to think scripturally. Here is God's wisdom, I say, with respect to life and anything that may happen to us in life. [00:12:59]

The troubles that we most of us get into, and I think as you look back across your life, you'll see that this is very plain and clear, is that we tend to live our lives in compartments. We have a fatal tendency to confine the Christian message solely to the question of forgiveness and not to see that it's a total view of life. [00:13:34]

We must know the word, we must know the book. It's all here. This is God's wisdom. It's pleased God to give it to us in this written form. He raised up men and caused them to write. Here's our only authority. I have no authority apart from what I find in this book. [00:14:21]

We've got to apply ourselves with diligence to it. We've got to study it, we've got to read it, we've got to grasp it, we've got to take the whole message, and then we've got to learn how to apply it to ourselves. Now, it's in this matter of application that we all tend to fail most grievously. [00:14:56]

Salvation is entirely and altogether of God, and for myself, this is my final, my ultimate confidence. It is on this that I had in face 1964. Salvation is entirely and altogether of the grace of God. Now listen to the Apostle emphasizing this: of him, that's to say God, are ye in Christ Jesus. [00:28:17]

As a Christian, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I know that God is concerned about me. How do I know that? Well, I know it like this: that I would never have been a Christian at all were it not for God and the action of God. Of him are ye in Christ Jesus. [00:29:01]

Our salvation is altogether and entirely of God. If you think that you are a Christian because you decided for Christ, well then you're not understanding the first beginning of Christianity. What made you decide? What influenced your will? What was it that made you a man who didn't regard all these things as foolishness? [00:30:43]

The whole of my life is covered, for it is all in Christ, and it's all there for me, and I can receive of that fullness, and God has done it all. He's put it all in Christ, he's put me into Christ, and therefore I can receive of him. [00:32:50]

To be a Christian does not only mean that your sins are forgiven. There are so many who seem to think of it like that. That's why they get into trouble. They say, yes, I repented, I went to Christ, I feel my sins are forgiven. Then you go on and you get into trouble and you sin. [00:37:57]

To be a Christian not only means that your past sins are forgiven, it means that God has taken you and has put you into Christ. He has engrafted you into him. You see, therefore, it doesn't depend upon you. It's God, God who's put you there, and God cannot fail. [00:38:47]