- Jesus Himself (yellow highlighting)
- Repentence (blue highlighting)
In addition, this morning I also referred to the following quotes:
And from the also most excellent Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (Penguin, 2008):... a congregation of souls, men and women who find themselves called upon to repent and believe, obey and love, pray and forgive in the sin-tangled disorder of family and culture, world and work. (Marva Dawn & Eugene Peterson, The Unnecessary Pastor, Eerdman's, 2000, p61)
If Jesus is not a lunatic, then our only alternative is to accept his claims and centre our entire lives around him. The only thing we have no right to do is to respond to him mildly. p230Repentance, then, is confessing the things besides God himself that you have been relying on for your hope, significance, and security. That means we should repent not only for things we have done wrong (like cheating or lying), but also for the motivations beneath our good works. p233The second thing you have to do is believe in Christ. Belief in Christ has a definite content to it. We must believe he was who he said he was, that we require salvation, that on the Cross he secured that salvation, that he rose from the dead. However, while life changing Christian faith is not less than believing these things with your intellect, it is much more. p233-234You don’t have to wait for all doubts and fears to go away to take hold of Christ. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to banish all misgivings in order to meet God. That would turn your faith into one more way to be your own Saviour. Working on the quality and purity of your commitment would become a way to merit salvation and put God in your debt. It is not the depth and purity of your heart but the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf that saves us. p234
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