KEY PRINCIPLES FROM THIS MESSAGE:
What we think we know about God’s abundant pardoning is nothing compared to what God knows about it. (Is 55:6-9, Ps 103:11-12)
“confidence” – from parresia [pas = “all” + rheo = “out-spoken”] – means boldness, confidence; all out-spokenness, i.e. frankness, bluntness, publicity; by implication, assurance – Strong’s
A blessing isn’t a blessing if it isn’t from God.
It’s not so much the blessings that matter, it’s what you think of them that counts. Any blessing from God is a good thing that inspires a humble heart towards a life of gratitude.
Grace works most abundantly in the absence of human strength (“God opposes the proud” – 1Pe 5:5).
“Jars of clay” have no real value except to serve as a vessel for the thing of great value, the Gospel (including all of God’s Word).
Immeasurable Greatness – blog 10/23/26
Greatness is defined by the Lord, not man. What we don’t see ascribed to God’s children in Holy Scripture are the tenets of today’s obsession with human greatness, self-service, and “winning”. These are all functions of competition, which, by itself, isn’t unholy; however, the idolatry that follows it around afterwards certainly is. God is not impressed. As Jesus Christ, Himself, said, greatness is a function of servitude.
J. H. Jowett from Life In the Heights
“There is something wrong when the vessel robs the treasure of its glory, when the casket attracts more attention than the jewel which it bears. There is a very perverse emphasis when the picture takes second place to the frame, and when the ware which is used at the feast becomes a substitute for the meal. There is something deadly in a Christian service when “the excellency of the power” is of us and not of God. Such excellency is of a very fleeting kind, and it will speedily wither as the green herb and pass into oblivion.”