What Is Your Only Comfort In Life And Death?

What is your only comfort in life and death? (Question 1)

“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”

~ The Heidelberg Catechism

'New Life' To God For Eternity

“The atoning death of Christ, and that alone, has presented sinners as righteous in God’s sight; the Lord Jesus has paid the full penalty of their sins, and clothed them with His perfect righteousness before the judgment seat of God.

But Christ has done for Christians even far more than that. He has given to them not only a new and right relation to God, but a new life in God’s presence for evermore. He has saved them from the power as well as from the guilt of sin.

The New Testament does not end with the death of Christ; it does not end with the triumphant words of Jesus on the Cross, “It is finished.” The death was followed by the resurrection, and the resurrection like the death was for our sakes.

Jesus rose from the dead into a new life of glory and power, and into that life He brings those for whom He died. The Christian, on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work, not only has died unto sin, but also lives unto God.”

~ J. Gresham Machen, Christianity & Liberalism

(HT: Of First Importance)

Say To My Soul, 'I Am Your Salvation'

I was reading through Psalm 35 this morning. It is a prayer for rescue and protection from enemies. It is a psalm of David and in his prayer to God, in verse 3, he tells God to speak to his soul that God is his salvation in this time of uncertainty with his enemies. He wanted his soul to be at peace, at rest and David knew that the only way that this would be possible was for God to speak His sovereign power over his life. Only God could save him from the enemies that encompassed him and he prays for God to speak this kind of peace and assurance into his life and over his life.

I wanted to share with you Barnes' Notes on Psalm 35.3

"Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation"

"Say to "me," I will save you. That is, Give me some assurance that thou wilt interpose, and that thou wilt guard me from my enemies. Man only wants this assurance to be calm in respect to any danger. When God says to us that he will be our salvation; that he will protect us; that he will deliver us from sin, from danger, from hell, the mind may and will be perfectly calm.

To a believer he gives this assurance; to all he is willing to give it. The whole plan of salvation is arranged with a view to furnish such an assurance, and to give a pledge to the soul that God "will" save. Death loses its terrors then; the redeemed man moves on calmly - for in all the future - in all worlds - he has nothing now to fear."