“Blood and Faith”

 Romans 12:3

As God’s messenger, I give each of you this warning:

Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring

your value by how much faith God has given you.  (NLT)

     As a Christian, I know that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and the only True God.  He left the glory of Heaven to save His people, Israel, and the rest of mankind from perishing into eternal darkness. I also know that I owe Him my life, for He reached down from Heaven and plucked me out of the darkness that was eating my soul alive.  It was only by the mercy and grace of God that I am alive and able to share the Truth that has saved many from the pits of Hell.  I take no credit for the good things God has done in my life.  One of the most freeing things I have learned in my new life is; if we are going to compare ourselves with anyone, it should be Jesus Christ, because He became a man who lived a perfectly righteous standard that He calls us to live by.  God doesn't want us to think of ourselves as any better or any less than anyone else in this fallen world, because no mortal human being is able to live up to the holy standards of Jesus.  It is our fallen human nature to compare ourselves with other fallen people, but we are all in the same boat, paddling frantically to stay afloat with a sinking feeling in our gut, but hoping to be saved. 

     You probably think there are many better off, better looking, and better at everything than you are, but if they don’t have the gift of salvation, they have nothing—only fleeting promises of a dying world and the eternal condemnation when it ends.  But if you are an adopted child of the Living God, you have it all my friend.  And when you are fully grown in Christ, He will have made you perfect in every way, for you will put on your glorious new body to live in in the Light of God's Glory forever.  To be confident in your faith, you must think of yourself as a redeemed child of the Living God, cleansed by the blood of Jesus and saved by the grace of God.   Those who are alive cannot save themselves.  The dead cannot bring themselves back to life.  The lost cannot find their way through the darkness and the broken cannot fix themselves.  We are all at the mercy and grace of the Living God.  

                                  A Whisper of Hope

I create all peoples, dear child…in My Likeness, but I do not create people all the same.  When you belong to Me, you are an equal part of One Body with many different parts.  You are a part of My Body the Church, and I made you to be an intricate part of My Eternal Body.  That is who you are!

Ephesians 2:13

But now you belong to Christ Jesus.  Though you once were far away from God,

now you have been brought near to Him because of the blood of Christ.  (NLT)

     He saved us, not because of the good things we did, 

                        but because of His mercy.

                                        (Titus 3:3)