God Is Great!

When we celebrate the gospel of Christ and the love of God, and when we lift up the gift of salvation, let us do it in such a way that people will see through it to God himself. May those who hear the gospel from our lips know that salvation is the blood-bought gift of seeing and savoring the glory of Christ. May they believe and say, "Christ is all!" Or, to use the words of the psalmist, "May those who love your salvation say evermore, 'God is great!'" (Ps. 70:4). Not mainly, "Salvation is great," but "God is Great!" --John Piper from God is the Gospel

Too Small

"A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small. A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small. A gospel that isolates one of the benefits of union with Christ and ignores all the others is too small. A gospel that must be measured by your own moral conduct, social conscience, or religious experience is too small. A gospel that rearranges the components of your life but does not put you personally in the presence of God is too small." --Fred Sanders from The Deep Things of God

We Need Jesus Not Gimmicks

"A religious mentality characterized by timidity and lack of moral courage has given us to a flabby Christianity, intellectually impoverished, dull, repetitious and to a great many persons just plain boring. This is peddled as the very faith of our fathers in direct lineal descent from Christ and the apostles. We spoon-feed this insipid pabulum to our inquiring youth and, to make it palatable, spice it up with carnal amusements filched from the unbelieving world. It is easier to entertain than to instruct, it is easier to follow degenerate public taste than to think for oneself, so too many of our evangelical leaders let their minds atrophy while they keep their fingers nimble operating religious gimmicks to bring in the curious crowds." --A.W. Tozer

May we always give them Jesus and never resort to gimmicks.

Effective and Fruitful

Do you ever feel ineffective or unfruitful? Scripture tells us how to make sure that does not describe us.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

There is a key word that hit me this morning when I read this passage in 2 Peter. That word is “increasing.” Peter is saying that you need to have faith, knowledge, self-control and all these other things. But we don’t just attain them once and move on. These qualities need to be increasing in our lives. We can’t be comfortable with where we are in these areas. There must always be growth. And if there is growth in these areas we can be certain that we will not be ineffective or unfruitful through Jesus Christ.

Pray over this list of things that Peter mentions. Ask God to show you what areas you are lacking in and how you can grow in each of these and together we can continue to be effective and fruitful through Jesus and For His Glory.