Hello Everyone:

I plan on sitting down this evening and preparing to write a new message. I'm going to take a break from our series on the "All-Sufficiency of the Gospel" simply because I have not had the time to devote to it as I would like. However, the gospel is the central message and teaching of Christianity, so we will not be deprived of gospel teaching. One of the purposes of this ministry is to show us the centrality of the gospel message in all areas of our lives. When we begin to understand that, we then are allowed to see the all-sufficiency and real dunamis power of the gospel. We see it's transformative power and loving nature in conforming us to Christ's image.

Today, I want to share with you a short devotion I read about a year ago from Reformed Baptist Pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who has widely been regarded as the Prince of Preachers. His sermons have been a great encouragement to me and have challenged me in my personal walk with the Lord. I pray that this will be an encouragement to you as well.

"Remember again, that our Lord Jesus Christ had a broad wall between Him and the ungodly. Look at Him; and see how different He is from the men of His time. All His life long, you observe Him to be a stranger and foreigner in the land. Truly, He drew near to sinners, as near as He could draw, and He received them when they were willing to draw near to Him; but He did not draw near to their sins. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." When He went to His own city of Nazareth, He only preached a single sermon, and they would have cast Him headlong down the hill if they could. When He passed through the street, He became the song of the drunkard, the butt of the foolish, the mark at which the proud shot out the arrows of their scorn.

At last, having come to His own, and His own having received Him not, they determined to thrust Him altogether out of the camp. So, they took Him to Golgotha, and nailed Him to the tree as a malefactor, a promoter of sedition. He was the great Dissenter, the great Nonconformist of His age. The National Church first excommunicated and then executed Him. He did not seek difference in things trivial, but the purity of His life and the truthfulness of His testimony roused the spleen of the ruler and the chief men of their synagogues. He was ready in all things to serve them and to bless them , but He never would blend with them. They would have made Him a king. Ah! If He would but have joined the world, the world would have given Him the chief place, as the world's prince said on the mountain, "All these things will I give you, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." But He drives away the fiend, and stands immaculate and separate even to the close of His life.

If you are a Christian, be a Christian. If you follow Christ, go without the camp. But if there be no difference between you and your fellowman, what will you say to the King in the Day when He comes and finds that you have on no wedding garment by which you can be distinguished from the rest of mankind?"

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

That CH Spurgon quote is sooo encouraging !!