Words from a Branch

  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. John 10:27-29 ESV                 There is a certainty in salvation. How can God fail? God is greater than all, by definition, and by revelation, so failure is well and truly impossible with His purposes. His purpose here is very definite, to give his flock security in love of God and in salvation. We find here two aspects of the divine love both contributing to our sure sense of security. The Good Shepherd knows His sheep. As we learn in Psalm 139, and elsewhere, this is not causal knowledge but a truly intimate understanding of each and every one of the sheep in His flock. It is a particular love He bears towards them in calli...

  Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:   circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.   But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.   Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:4-8 ESV             We have a bad habit of holding inordinate worth in worthless things. We have confidence in the flesh as evidenced by how we identify ourselves, what we are proud of, and what we count as valuable. We talk of our family name, of our reputation...

  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 ESV                 There are some verses in our Bibles which we know, but yet do not truly know. We have read them, heard them, perhaps memorized them, but we have not meditated on them, understood them, and applied them in our thinking and in our actions. Romans 3:23 is a good example of this. It tells us that no one has escaped the effects of sin. Still we are often surprised when sin appears in the lives of public officials, or church leaders, or celebrities, or children, etc. We should expect sin to show itself everywhere and in every situation.             The world is often surprised by sin, not because it went away for awhile and suddenly came back; but because they refuse to acknowledge the evidences. Christians, or so called Christians, follow along with this nonsense e...