DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Help us, we pray, in spirit and in truth, to come near to the cross of him who has redeemed us from death and hell by his death. We would first of all praise you. The heavens are telling of your glory; but not so loudly as the greatest providence declares your kindness, and not so sweetly as the cross. Here we behold your innermost heart. Here we see the love of God made manifest. Behold what manner of love is here!
We could not have imagined it; but we do believe it. It could not have seemed true at first blush that you should pierce your Son that we might enjoy the richest life; yet so it is, and we believe it. It pleased the Father to prove him. You have put him to grief, you have made his soul an offering for sin.
Lord, we cannot praise you as we would for the Gift unspeakable: it is unspeakable, and so we must leave it. We can each one of us feel with emphasis how true this is: for me, unworthy me, God, the Lord of love and glory, the Eye of the Universe, the Jewel of heaven, died a villain’s death for me! Lord we shall always wonder at it; we shall always feel we can never comprehend the height of this.
Amen.
VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23–24)
The sense of the term justified is, in this place and in most others, to declare a person to be righteous. A person is put on trial and brought before the judge. One of two things will happen: either he will be acquitted, or else he will be condemned. We all essentially stand before the judge, and we are at any given moment either acquitted or condemned. It is not possible that any one of us should be acquitted on the grounds of our not being guilty, for we must all confess that we have broken the law of God thousands of times. The Lord has provided a way by which he can be righteous and yet declare the guilty to be righteous. Simply stated, this is the way of substitution and imputation. Our sins are taken off of us and laid on Christ Jesus, the innocent substitute.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
Fight unbelief with the truths of faith
Asking questions is not a bad thing — we just need to labor to answer our questions in a faith-filled, biblical way. There ARE answers available for even the toughest questions about the Bible — do you know those answers?
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Be equipped to answer questions like “Isn’t Christianity homophobic?” and “How can you say there’s only one true faith?” with Bible-centered wisdom and Christ-centered hope.
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