Anchor Of Hope Christian Reformed Church

Is Jesus Christ your only hope, savior, comfort, and life or is he of no concern or only a minor part of your life? Jesus wants all of you. He says pick up your cross, die to yourself and follow and trust Him completely. If we are not willing or able to do this then we stumble over our own pride. O Lord, humble us so that we might by your grace be lifted up by your grace! Amen!

God is good.God is perfect. God is wise. Believing in, living in, and following Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is life! Living according to the Holy Spirit rather then according to our fallen flesh is freedom and life. If these things are true (they are true) then why would we ever want to disobey, turn-away from, or rebel against the Lord? O Lord help us to live in the life, victory, love, and for the praise of your glory! Amen!

We need to be made holy as God is holy. We cannot do this in our power, strength, or ability. We need a Savior -- Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. He is the Immanuel, God with us. Jesus makes holy all who the Father gives to Him, all who He dies for on the Cross, all who will believe and have faith in Him as Lord and Savior.There is no greater sign of God's love for His people than Jesus Christ's penal substitiutionary atoning death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Praise God for Jesus!

In Isaiah 7, God gives two powerful statements concerning placing all our hope, faith, security, peace... in Him and Him alone: "Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint" and "If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all." God is our only rock, fortress and strength! All other ground to build our lives on is sinking sand.Let us place all our faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ -- the way, truth, and the life! Amen!

If it were not for God's will and purpose to save a people for His glory we would all be destroyed. If Jesus did not obediently die on the cross for our sins we would be destroyed. If the Holy Spirit did not make us spiritually alive and give us the gift of faith and new life in Jesus Christ we would be destroyed! When the people of Judah were chopped down and reduced to a stump due to their disobedience toward God -- life only takes place in the only faithful offspring Jesus Christ.  Let us live in Jesus the source of life!

God is holy, holy, holy! We are people of unclean lips! How is it that we are not all instantly destroyed? Because God is holy, only he can make us holy. God in His grace has sent his holy Son Jesus Christ who was conceived in holiness in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit.Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are made holy in him. Praise God that He has made a way for our guilt to be taken away and our sin atoned for on the cross of Jesus Christ. Amen!

It is a gracious thing to be humbled by the Lord into repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. At the name of Jesus every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!A person will be brought low into faith and obedience in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit according to the elective will of God the Father. ORA person will be brought low and into eternal conscious torment by God's holy just wrath. O Lord, humble us in your gracious love knowing that Jesus is our everything! Amen.

We owe God everything! He is to receive all praise, glory, honor, love, and worship!We should seek to follow His word and serve Him out of gratitude and thanksgiving as the Creator, Redeemer, and Savior. Jesus is the only way, truth, and life -- to live in Him is to have eternal life -- to live outside of Him is to be dead. If we neglect such a great salvation then we will be destroyed.Let us believe in, live in, live out, and proclaim Jesus Christ, the only way of life.

Jesus Reveals Every Heart! Every thought, word, and action is peeled down to the deepest core and center -- exposing what is our greatest treasure, desire, passion, and love. If our greatest love is Jesus, or some idol we have fashioned in our hearts. Praise God that Jesus gives us a new heart so that we can worship Him and love Him more than any one and any thing else! Amen!

Matthew 2:19-23 New International Version (NIV)The Return to Nazareth19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

The darkness will never overcome the Light of the world! No one and nothing will thwart God's plan to save His people through the perfect life, atoning death, victorious resurrection, ascension to His right hand and glorious return of His Son Jesus Christ!God is sovereign over every moment and every detail of His plan of salvation. We who are saved in Jesus Christ can boldly live out the gospel knowing that with God for us, nothing can be against us! Amen!

Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.He deserves all the praise, glory, honor, worship, love, and devotion from all people of every nation, tribe, language, and people. The wise men rejoiced at the coming of Jesus Christ and fell down and worshiped Him. This is what Christmas celebrations are to be all about: joy-filled gratitude and thanksgiving for Jesus the King who came to serve not be served and gave His life as a ransom for many. What a King! What a Savior!

Everyone needs a savior! Only God can save.  In the incarnation we see God the eternally begotten Son of God so humbling Himself that he takes on flesh and is born. Our sinfulness brings about our death and we are under a curse. Jesus is born under the law so that he and only he will keep the law perfectly so that he can take the curse for us. The greatest gift we can receive is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Trust Him! Believe in Him! Love him! He is Immanuel, God with us.  

In our unsaved sinful condition we are poor, helpless, hopeless, in shame, and in reproach, under condemnation, children of wrath, dead and heading for eternal punishment. We needed a savior!Jesus washed away the sin and filth of our rebellion against God in His atoning blood poured out for the elect on the cross. For those so saved, our lives are then marked by gratitude, praise and honor for God as our only comfort, strength, protection, and hope. Amen!

O Lord, please humble us so that we will look to you for our life, peace, hope and not in our self or in any other created thing. Humble us so that we will trust in Your will, Your ways, Your timing. Humble us so that we will seek you, believe in the the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, and live for your glory and not for our own. Please humble us through the power of your Holy Spirit! Amen.

There is only one God! This one God -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is the source of all life, light, truth, peace, hope, love, goodness, holiness...Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the life -- not a way, a truth, or a means of life. Jesus -- his sacrificial life, death, and resurrection is the only way to eternal life with God. God is so gracious and merciful and loving that he will pierce the darkness of death for His elect of every nation, tribe and people so that they can walk in the light of life the light of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit! God is God! God is good! Amen!

We must be refined! We must have our sin burned away by the refining fire of God's holy love and justice. We need to be made righteous and we cannot do this ourselves. This is why God made Jesus to be sin though he knew no sin so that we could be made righteous with His righteousness. God is both just and justifier! Praise God for the good news of Jesus Christ!  He is our only hope!

We need a savior! We need to be delivered from our guilt. We need to be washed and cleansed from our sins. There is one way for us to be made new, made clean; and for God to be pleased with and delight in us. The Way, Truth and Life for us to be forgiven by God and to have our sins paid for is the life, death, resurrection, ascension and future return of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. God has made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.  Amen!

God commands obedience!He is God; and His ways are true, just, perfect, life giving. To disobey God is to do what is false, unjust, imperfect, deadly and destructive. It does not work to try to deceive God, others, or ourselves with a surface level religion, devotion, or lip service toward faith and belief in God. God is always able to look under the surface and fully expose the heart with His all-penetrating light. We must humble ourselves and be cleansed from the inside out and not "play" or "pretend" being a Christian while all along clinging to the idols of pride, immorality, disobedience...Cleanse us o Lord!

It is an amazing truth that God is the absolute sovereign creator and redeemer. God makes everything. He makes each and every one of us. God makes for Himself a people. He starts them from an elderly couple and a barren womb. God then frees them from enslavement in Egypt and gives them a land, defeats their enemies, teaches them, guides them, yet most of them rebel and turn away from God living according to their sinful disobedient and prideful desires.Where is the humble gratitude? It is only through the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we who believe in Him can enter into the humble gratitude we were elected for.  Save us Jesus!