But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of
     our Lord Jesus Christ.”

     — Galatians 6:14

When a man is first born again, he becomes incoherent, there is an
amount of unrelated emotion about him, unrelated phases of external
things. In the apostle Paul there was a strong steady coherence
underneath, consequently he could let his external life change as it
liked and it did not distress him because he was rooted and grounded
in God. Most of us are not spiritually coherent because we are more
concerned about being coherent externally. Paul lived in the
basement; the coherent critics live in the upper storey of the
external statement of things, and the two do not begin to touch each
other. Paul’s consistency was down in the fundamentals. The great
basis of his coherence was the agony of God in the Redemption of the
world, viz., the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of
it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ.
In external history the Cross is an infinitesimal thing; from the
Bible point of view it is of more importance than all the empires of
the world. If we get away from brooding on the tragedy of God upon
the Cross in our preaching, it produces nothing. It does not convey
the energy of God to man; it may be interesting but it has no power.
But preach the Cross, and the energy of God is let loose. “It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” “We
preach Christ crucified.”

On this day...

• Nehemiah 4 - 2023
• Nehemiah 3 - 2023
• Giving money is only one way of showing charity; to give time & toil is far better & (for most of us) harder - 2011
• If my heart is right with God, every human being is my neighbor. - 2011
• Our problem is that we go from toy to toy rather than from glory to glory. - 2011
• As the stones in an arch help to strengthen one another, one Christian by imparting his experience, heats and quickens another - 2011
• Psalm 80:5 (NIV) - 2011
• John Newton - From Disgrace to Amazing Grace - 2011
• Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. - 2011
• if you really believe that Christ’s pov- erty has made you rich, what are those furrows doing on your brow? - 2011