You may not agree with Ralph Erskine on every point of interpretation in this series of posts, but he serves us very well by providing wonderful instruction on how to preach the gospel to ourselves whatever our faith-struggles may be:

“Is there any word to me a backslider, a grievous revolter, that many times after vows have made inquiry? My promises and resolutions have been but paper walls before the fire of temptation? Are you afflicted with this and would have relief? ‘Behold,’ he says, Jer. iii.22, ‘Return ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.’ Hos. xiv.4, ‘I will heal your backslidings and love you freely. I will be as the dew of Israel.’ Hath he said so? Then let your heart say, Lord, ‘Do as thou hast said?’” (Ralph Erskine, “Faith’s Plea Upon God’s Word,” The Works of Ralph Erskine, vol. 2).

The Gospel proclaims that at the cross Jesus became the backslider that we might be healed in him (2 Cor. 5:21). Praise be to God!

This is part five of a 20 part series. Many, many more gems to come.

As I watched this video, I thought about joy, particularly the joy that the Gospel brings to the world.

(HT: Sally Lloyd-Jones)

I have lived long enough to learn from experience that if I am not actively finding my identity in the gospel, I will find it somewhere else. There is never a moment where I am not locating my identity in something. If I’m not locating it in God’s gospel, I will seek to be defined by something that was never meant to define me. We were not created in the image of vocational success, sexual fulfillment, money, or any other good yet created thing. No, we were created in the image of God and God alone; and although the image of God in man was profoundly defaced by sin, it is renewed in us by the power of the gospel. Only in the gospel is our God-given identity renewed and restored. Without the gospel we leave ourselves no other alternative but to live as if we were created in the image of some finite thing-something that ultimately has no life-stabilizing weight.

“Christ is the ALPHA and OMEGA of my life, the beginning and the end of it; the author and finisher of it; Christ is the principle of my life, from whom I live: Christ is the end of my life, to whom I live; Christ is the pattern of my life, according to whose example I live; Christ is the giver of my life, the maintainer of my life, the restorer of my life; after decays, he restores my soul, and makes me to walk in the paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake; Christ is the food of my life; I would die, if he did not feed me with his flesh, which is living bread and water to me; Christ is the medicine of my life; it is by renewed touches of the hem of his garment, and renewed application to him, that my soul is healed; for, there is healing under the wings of this Sun of righteousness; Christ is the ALL of my life: ‘For to me to live is Christ;’ he is my light, my strength, my righteousness. It is the glory of the believer to acknowledge Christ the ALPHA and the OMEGA, and the ALL of his spiritual life” (Ralph Erskine, The Works of Ralph Erskine, vol. 2, “Law-Death, Gospel-Life,” 38-39).