The Narrow Door

 Luke 13:25 

When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, 

and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, 

Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and 

say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: 

   The kingdom of heaven works unseen. We do not see the works of Heaven working but all the time it is fulfilling its function. The kingdom is on the way. Anyone who knows a little history will be bound to see that. The kingdom of heaven works from inside. We will never change men from the outside. New houses, new conditions, better material things change only the surface. It is the task of Christianity to make new men; and once the new men are created a new world will surely follow. That is why the church is the most important institution in the world; it is the factory where men are produced. The power of the kingdom comes from outside. We have tried and failed to change life, we need a power outside and beyond us. We need The Master of Life, and He is forever waiting to give us the secret of victorious living. 

  He declared that entry to the kingdom can never be automatic, but is the result and the reward of a struggle. "Keep on striving to enter," he said. The word for striving is the word from which the English word agony is derived. The struggle to enter in must be so intense that it can be described as an agony of soul and spirit. 

  It is easy to think that, once we have made a commitment of ourselves to Jesus Christ, we have reached the end of the road and can sit back as if we had achieved our goal. There should be no  going backwards in the Christian life.  A man must ever be going forward or necessarily he will before he realizes he has fallen from Grace.

  My Friends, The Christian way is like a climb up a mountain pathway towards a peak which will never be reached in this world. "It's like Climbing that Peak." For the Christian, life is ever an upward and an onward way. 

Amen!

Reading: Luke 13:22-30

Ref: HGSB

May God Bless You

 And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Lasting Joy Is On The Road To Calvary

Philippians 1:21 

For to me to live is Christ, 

and to die is gain. 

 

   What a tragic waste when people turn away from the road to Calvary and The Love of God.  All the riches of the glory of God in Christ are on that road.  All the sweetest fellowship with Jesus is there.  All the treasures of assurance, joy, kindness and all the most earnest prayers. They are all on The Calvary Road were Jesus walks with His people. 

  My Friends; Take up your cross and follow Jesus on this road, and this road alone. For Life is Christ and Death is Gain. Life on any other road is wasted. "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong," (2 Cor. 12:9-10). 

Amen!

Reading: Phil. Chap 1

                 Cor.  Chap 12

Ref: HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Working Through God's Word

 Psalms 119:9-13  

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking 

heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart 

have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy 

commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, 

that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, 

O LORD: teach me thy statutes. With my lips 

have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. 

  The only way for proper Faith and Affection, and the best indicators of what we really believe and feel about God's Word is to (Sing, Speak, Study, Store Up, Obey, Praise, and Pray. This is how All Man and Women of God Handle The Scriptures. Right now at this point some of us fall short in believing, feeling, and doing.  Ps. 119 is a finely crafted single minded love poem and is the longest in the Bible. It is not about marriage or children or food and drink or mountains, with sunsets, not even rivers or oceans, it is only about the Bible itself. 

 Why do I pick  Psalm. 119?  It shows us what to believe about God's Word. It tells us how to feel about the Word of God; and most of all what to do with the Word of God.  My Friends, that's the application. That is what we pour into our minds and hearts, the sufficiency of the Scripture, the authority of Scripture and the clarity of Scripture. When we embrace everything the Bible say's about itself, then and only then will we believe God's Word.

 My Friends, don't miss understand me, We must study the entire Bible from cover to cover. The Psalms powerfully convey the feelings common to believers of all ages. However, The Psalms are intimately personal in that they explore the whole realm of human emotion. I pray that all readers will enjoy reading this little teaching point from as well as The Scriptures above. Let's all go forward serving our God with our Mind, Heart and Soul. 

Amen! 

Reading: Psalms 119

Ref: Ps:119:9-13

HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross life Ministry

God Punishes But Forgives

 Ezekiel 20:33-35  

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched

 out arm, and with fury  poured out, will I rule over you:  And I will bring 

you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries

 wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a

 stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.  And I 

will bring you into the wilderness of the people, 

and there will I plead with you face to face. 

     

  The more these prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah are studied the more striking they appear. First of all, they establish the very important fact with respect to the government of the world, namely, that the throne of God has been removed from the earth, and the government of the world entrusted to man under the form of an empire among the Gentiles. In the second place, the veil is also withdrawn as to the government of God in Israel. This test, to which man had been subjected, in order to see if he were capable of being blessed, has only proved the entire vanity of his nature, his rebellion, the folly of his will, so that he is radically evil. Even from Egypt, it was a spirit of rebellion, idolatry, and unbelief, which preferred anything in the world, but not the true God.   

  But on God's part we see His patience, the most tender care, the most touching appeals, everything that could tend to bring their hearts back to Jehovah; interventions in grace, to lift them out of their misery, and bless them when in a state of faithfulness produced by His grace, But they gave themselves up to evil; and, as shown by Ezekiel and Stephen, the Spirit of God returns to the first manifestations of their heart, of which all that followed was but the proof and the expression. And the judgment is executed on account of that which the people have been from the beginning.  "And I will cause you to pass under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant," (Ezek 20:37).

  God changes His plan of Government, and reserves for Sovereign Grace the re-establishment of Israel according to His promises, which He would fulfil by His means who could maintain blessing by His power, and govern the people in peace. 

  My Friends, It is Sovereign Grace, which Blesses Israel and all the world when responsible human nature has been fully tried, through definite conviction of our sins and sinfulness as to God's ways, It is the starting point of our path and what belongs to us. Therefore the necessity of a new nature, and God's love in giving His Son, for all of us. The Cross secures the righteousness through which Grace reigns and our Salvation is secured.  One day we all will be standing before God, face to face, be it saved or unsaved it's your choice.

Amen!  

Reading: Ezek. 20:33-44

Ref: HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

Cross Life Ministry

 

Jesus Sentenced To Death

Matthew 27:1

 When the morning was come, all the chief priests

 and elders of the people took counsel 

against Jesus to put him to death: 

   They charged Jesus first with being a revolutionary, second, with inciting the people not to pay their taxes, and third, with claiming to be a king, (Luke 23:2). They fabricated three political charges, all of them conscious lies, because they knew that only on such charges would Pilate act. So, then, everything hung on the attitude of Pilate. What kind of man was this Roman governor? 

   When Pilate came to Judaea, he found trouble in plenty, and much of it was of his own making. His great handicap was that he was completely out of sympathy with the Jews. More, he was contemptuous of what he would have called their irrational and fanatical prejudices, and what they would have called their principles. Pilate was a man so entangled in his past, and so rendered helpless by it, that he was unable to take the stand he ought to take. Pilate is a figure of tragedy rather than of villainy. 

   Now let's talk about the traitor, Judas. Here in all its grimness is the last act of the tragedy of Judas. However we interpret his mind, one thing is clear Judas now saw the horror of the thing that he had done. Matthew tells us that Judas took the money and flung it into the Temple. The suicide of Judas is surely the final indication that his plan had gone wrong. He had meant to make Jesus blaze forth as a conqueror; instead he had driven him to the Cross and life for Judas was shattered. There are two great truths about sin here. 

   The terrible thing about sin is that we cannot put the clock back. We cannot undo what we have done. Once a thing is done nothing can alter it or bring it back. No one needs to be very old to have that haunting longing for some hour to be lived over again. When we remember that no action can ever be recalled, it should make us doubly careful how we act. 

   My Friends, The strange thing about sin is that a man can come to hate the very thing he gained by it. The very prize he won by sinning can come to disgust and to revolt and to repel him, until his one desire is to fling it from him. Most people sin because they think that if they can only possess the forbidden thing it will make them happy. But the thing which sin desired can become the thing that a man above all would rid himself of and so often he cannot. Jesus was not sentenced to death because of sin against Him. Jesus was the Son of God and He died so that we, all people could be saved.  Just remember we are the sinners even if you are saved, because you are saved by God's Grace!  

Amen!

Reading: Matt. 27: 1-66

Ref HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

What Should We Believe About The Word Of God

Psalm 119:2  

"Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, 

and that seek him with the whole heart."  

     Of course the Christians answer, is all of it. I want us to look at three very important characteristics we should believe about God's Word.  First, God's Word says what is true. The Bible tells us, that we can trust in the Word, " So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word,"119:42).  We can't believe everything we read on the internet. We can't trust everything we hear from our professors. We certainly can't trust all the facts given by our politicians. And we can't even trust the fact checkers who check those facts.  

Second, God's Word demands what is right.  Here  the psalmist gladly acknowledges God's right to issue commands and humbly accepts that all these commands are right.  "I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." (PS.119:75).

    All God's commandments are sure. All His precepts are right.  Some Christians admit that they don't like what the Bible say's, but since it's the Bible they have to obey it. On one level, this is an example of submitting yourself to the word of God. However, we need and should go one step further and learn to see the goodness and rightness in all that God commands. We should Love what God Loves and delight in whatever He says. Third, God's Word provides what is good.  God's Word is the way to happiness,  "ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.   Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart," (Ps. 119:1-2).

   My Friends, God's Word gives us Hope, Strength and Wisdom and directs us on along our path. As the people of God, we believe the Bible is unfailing perfect. We believe the Word of God can be trusted in every way to speak what is true, command what is right and provide us with what is good.

Amen!

Reading: Ps:119

Devotion Scriptures 

Ps:119, V. 6,9, 24, 28, 43 V.98-100,

V.130

Ref: HGSB

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry