Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

You may not know Him very well dear child of God, but He knows everything about you. He is familiar with all your ways (Psalm 139:1-3). Even the hairs on your head are numbered by Him (Matt. 10:29-30). For you were made in His image (Gen.1:27). In Him you live and move and have your being, for you are His offspring (Acts 17:28). He knew you even before you were conceived (Jer. 1:4-5) Moreover, in love He chose you in Christ before this world was created (Eph. 1:3-4) and purposed to give you and inheritance (Eph. 1:11-12) and to make you His (John 6:37-39). You were not a mistake, for all your days were written in His book before you were ever born (Psalm 139:15-16). He determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live (Acts 17:26). You are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). He knitted you together in your mother’s womb giving you all the physical characteristics you have (Psalm 139:13) and brought you forth on the day you were born (Psalm 71:6). His eyes have been upon you and His ears have been open to your cry (Psalm 34:15-16). He has instructed you in the way you should go and has guided you with His eye (Psalm 32:8), His counsel (73:24) and His strength (Ex. 15:13). He brought you up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set your feet upon a rock, established your steps, and has put a song in your heart (Psalm 40::2-3).

Even though your afflictions and troubles have been many in this sinful world, He has never left you nor forsaken you (Heb. 13:5). He has been a refuge in time of trouble (Psalm 59:16), has delivered you out of your troubles (81:7) or in His sovereign wisdom ensured that your troubles will not overwhelm you (Isa. 43:2-3). He has given you sufficient grace for every circumstance and every trial (2 Cor. 12:8-10) so that you “can boldly say The Lord is my helper.” (Heb. 13:6). He has never sent or permitted trials and troubles to come into your life unless they were needed (James 1:2). Your trials and troubles have been designed to keep you from evil, to draw you away from the world, and to lead you to a closer walk with Him. They have been designed to make you stronger, to make you more stable, and to equip you to serve Him better. He wants you to have a strong faith which is tested and proven and brings glory to His name(1 Peter 1:7-8) He prunes you because He wants you to bring forth fruit, more fruit, and much fruit.(John 15:1-11) When you sin and don’t confess it, (see the gravity of your sin as He does) (1John 1:9) He chastens you to teach you how you should live and be (Heb.12 1-14), but He does not cast you away. He has even used your sins and trials and His Word (John 17:17) to teach you to love righteousness and to hate iniquity, to make you more like His Son (2 Cor. 3:18). Even now He works all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:11-12) to ensure that all things work together for good to you.(Rom 8:28).

More than anything else He wants you to have a close fellowship with Him, to know Him and His dear Son and the power of His Son’s resurrection (Phil. 3:10). It is His desire to lavish good on you simply because you are His child and He is your Father (1 John 3:1) He offers you more than your earthly father ever could (Matt. 7:11), for He is the perfect Father (Matt. 5:8). Every good gift you have ever received has come from His hand (James 1:17), for He is your provider and He has promised to meet your every need (Matt. 6:31-33). His plan for you is to give you a future filled with peace and hope (Jer. 29:11) because He loves you with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). His thoughts toward you are as countless as the sand on the seashore (Psalms 139:17-18) and one day He will rejoice over you with singing (Zep. 3:17). He will never stop doing good to you (Jer 32:40), for you are His treasured possession (Ex. 19:5). He desires to establish you with all His heart and all His soul (Jer:32:41) and He longs to show you great and marvelous things (Jer:33:3). He promises that if you search for Him with all your heart you will find Him. (Deut. 4:29) and your fellowship will be sweet. Delight in Him and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4) for it is He in grace who gave you these desires (Phil. 2:13). He is able to do more than you can possibly imagine (Eph. 3:20) for He is your greatest encourager (II Thes. 2:16-17).

He also is the Father who comforts you in all your troubles (II Cor.1:3-4). When you are broken-hearted , He is close to you (Psalm 34:18). As a shepherd carries a little lamb, He has carried you close to His heart. (Isa. 40:11). One day He will wipe away every tear from your eyes , He will take away the sting of all the pain you have suffered on this earth (Rev. 21:3-4) and give you a new body like His Son’s which shall not be subject to sin or death (Phil. 3:20-21) and shall last forever. He is your Father and He loves you even as He loves His Son Jesus (John 17:23) for in Jesus, His love for you is fully revealed (John 17:26; 1 John 4:10). Jesus is the exact representation of His being (Heb 1:3). Moreover, Jesus came to demonstrate His love and grace for sinners (1Tim. 1:15). Yes, you once were His enemy (Rom. 5:10); you were unprofitable (3:11), ungodly (5:8) and had no righteous of your own (Isa. 64:6) You were dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) But He sent His Son to die so that you, a sinner, could be reconciled to Him (II Cor.5:18-19) and be born again (John 3:1-16). He did not overlook your sin. His holiness demanded that sin be punished (Rom. 3:24). Yet it pleased Him to bruise His own Son for your sin.( Isa. 53:10). His Son bore your sins in His own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24) and shed His precious blood that you might be redeemed (1Peter 1:18-21). He was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquity (Isa. 53:5). He made Him to be sin for you, bearing your sin, guilt, condemnation, and shame (2 Cor. 5:21). You did not deserve it nor merit it in any way. You could not work for it (Rom 4:5), because you had no righteousness of your own (Isa 64:6). You stood guilty and condemned before Him (Rom. 3:19). But because He loved you, and would be merciful, (Eph. 2:4-9) He has given you salvation freely out of the riches of His grace (Rom. 3:24, Eph: !:7) Where sin was great, grace was greater (Rom. 5:20). His Son was perfectly righteous. He knew no sin; He had no sin; He did no sin (Heb. 7:26). Now the Father has clothed you in His Son’s perfect righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21) (Isa. 61:10). Now you can stand before Him just as if you never sinned; just as if you obeyed Him in everything. You are justified once and for all and no one can charge you with anything. He has declared you righteous and accepted (Rom. 8:31-32). He raised up His Son from the grave, and received Him into Heaven as your forerunner, (Heb. 6:20) and as your representative before His throne. When you sin and Satan accuses you, He intercedes perfectly for you every time (1 John 2:1-2).

He is preparing a place of incomparable beauty for you (John 14:1-3) (Rev. 21) and one day He will come to take you to be with Him forever (1 Thes. 4:13-18). Right now His Holy Spirit dwells in you (Rom. 8:9) to teach, to guide you, and to help you (John 14-16) and no one or anything is able to pluck you out of His hand (John 10:27) or separate you from His love (Rom. 8:37-39). He has begun a good work in you and day by day He will perfect that which concerns you (Psalms 138:8). Your whole body, soul, and spirit shall be preserved blameless until His eternal kingdom. He has promised it; He also will do it (1 Thes. 5:21). Augustus M. Toplady ably expressed it in these words:

Jesus Christ who has done, and is doing all these wonderful things for us worthy of our love, worship, praise, and service? Will you not walk with Him daily and witness of Him? Will you not serve Him in His Church which has been given the truth and the Great Commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel of how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures so others can have this hope and these blessings? Look on the fields, they are white unto harvest. Who will go and tell others this good news? The story of Jesus and God’s love for sinners through Him truly is the greatest story ever told. To God be the glory !