CHEER
UP! ON YOUR FEET! HE’S CALLING YOU!
BREAD
49 Jesus
stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to
the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he
jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. 51 “What do you want me to do for
you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” 52 “Go,”
said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.”
Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Mark 10:49-52 (NIV)
12 On
hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who
need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this
means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners.” Matthew
9:12-13 (NIV)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and
humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew
11:28-30 (NIV)
37 On the
last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever
believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow
from within him.” 39 By
this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
John 7:37-39 (NIV)
1 “Come,
all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come,
buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not
bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat
what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. 3 Give ear and come to me; hear
me, that your soul may live.” Isaiah
55:1-3 (NIV)
6 Seek
the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his
thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord,
and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8 “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah
55:6-9 (NIV)
BUTTER
“We must remember that God will never drag
us along the path of true-hearted discipleship. This would greatly lack the
moral excellency which characterizes all the ways of God. He does not drag, but
draws us along the path which leads to ineffable blessedness in Himself; and if
we do see that it is for our real advantage to break through all the barriers
of nature, in order to respond to Gods’ call, we forsake our own mercies. But
alas! Our hearts little enter into this. We begin to calculate about the sacrifices,
the hindrances, and the difficulties, instead of bounding along the path, in
eagerness of soul, as knowing and loving the One whose call has sounded in our
ears”.
C
H Macintosh
“Grant,
Almighty God, that as You have made known Your law, and has also added Your
gospel, in which You call us to Your service, and also have invited us with all
kindness to partake of Your grace; O grant, that we may not be deaf, either to
Your command or to the promises of Your mercy, but render ourselves submissive
to You everywhere, and so learn to devote all our faculties to You, that we may
in truth avow that the rule of a holy and religious life, has been delivered to
us in Your law, and that we may firmly adhere to Your promises, lest through
any of the allurements of the world, or through the flatteries and delusions of
Satan, You should suffer our minds to be drawn away from that love which You
have once for all manifested to us in Your only begotten Son, and in which You
daily confirm us by the teaching of the gospel, until we at length shall come
to the full enjoyment of this love in that celestial inheritance, which has
been purchased for us by the blood of Your only Son.” John Calvin
“Costly
grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must
be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to
follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life,
and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and
grace because it justifies the sinner.
Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. ‘Ye were bought at a price,’ and what has
cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a
price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.” Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
“Every sermon, every Bible
lesson, every word of testimony, and every verse of Scripture is a warning,
calling us to repentance and revival.
Our God is a consuming fire, and a day of judgment is coming. We must not neglect the warning, and today’s
church must not forget that our message includes the ministry of warning.” Robert J.
Morgan
HEART
SAVOR
- · We are all blind beggars before Jesus. His ministry was and is directed towards those who realize that they have a need (which, btw, is all of us). He calls us to be courageous, articulate our need and to express our faith in Him
- · Jesus’ call is to all who are tired and weary of their loaded down burdened down backs and their hard toils ensuing from sin and its consequences. He knows our souls will find rest in Him alone not in all the myriad of other things we tend to run to.
- · I do not have the power to live the Christian life in my flesh – I need a power higher than my own – the Holy Spirit which is living water given to every believer in Christ.
