Our human sinfulness alienates us from God our Creator, but the wonderful and amazing Good News is that Jesus Christ grants us everlasting salvation from our self-imposed alienation and condemnation, giving us reconciliation and eternal life with God. This is our blessed assurance in Christ! Thanks be to God!
This blessed assurance of God’s grace through Jesus Christ is not a broad and uncertain appeal to some sort of generic mercy of God. Rather, through the sacrificial death and redemptive resurrection of Jesus our Lord, we have a specific and certain atonement with God. What good news indeed! What amazing grace this is!
Fully acknowledging and confessing that we are sinners who have alienated ourselves from God, we believe and trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised for our redemption. Therefore, by the power of his Holy Spirit, we profess him as our Savior who gives us renewal of life here and heavenly life hereafter. So, in thanksgiving and praise for Christ’s gospel of salvation and eternal life, I would like to simply bless you with the following Bible quotations…
For if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” – (Romans 10:9-13)
So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. – (Second Corinthians 4:16-17)
My dear brothers and sisters, this life is so brief, and, compared to a heavenly eternity with God, this life is really a fleeting bubble in a stream or a flash of lightning in a cloud. So, in response to the baptismal grace (Rom. 6:3-5) and the gift of faith (1 Cor. 12:3b) we have received through Jesus Christ our Savior, we seek to live our present mortal life in light of these immortal gifts of Christ, looking forward to the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Kingdom at the great Second Advent of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, I conclude this brief article with the words of the timeless hymn, Blessed Assurance…
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Happy Easter & Blessed Eastertide!!! Pastor Tim
