There are amazing privileges for those who place their faith in Jesus.
'I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. - John 10:9
Jesus, the great I AM, is the entrance into the true church, and the way of access to God Himself. He gives to the man who comes to God by Him four choice privileges.
1. He will be saved. The fugitive manslayer passed the gate of the city of refuge, and was safe. Noah entered the door of the ark, and was secure. None can be lost who take Jesus as the door of faith to their souls. Entrance through Jesus into peace is the guarantee of entrance by the same door into heaven. Jesus is the only door, an open door, a wide door, a safe door; and blessed is he who rests all his hope of admission to glory upon the crucified Redeemer.
2. He will go in. He shall be privileged to go in among the divine family, sharing the children's bread, and participating in all their honours and enjoyments. He shall go in to the chambers of communion, to the banquets of love, to the treasures of the covenant, to the storehouses of the promises. He shall go in unto the King of kings in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the secret of the Lord shall be with him.
3. He will go out. This blessing is much forgotten. We go out into the world to labour and suffer, but what a mercy to go in the name and power of Jesus! We are called to bear witness to the truth, to cheer the disconsolate, to warn the careless, to win souls, and to glorify God; and as the angel said to Gideon, 'Go in this thy might,' even thus the Lord would have us proceed as His messengers in His name and strength.
4. He shall find pasture. He who knows Jesus shall never want. Going in and out shall be alike helpful to him: in fellowship with God he shall grow, and in watering others he shall be watered. Having made Jesus his all, he shall find all in Jesus. His soul shall be as a watered garden, and as a well of water whose waters fail not.
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, (12/17/pm)
As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst. - William Jenkyn
Following Jesus is all about preaching the gospel to yourself again & again, & then fully getting it in your life in every way, every day. 
I am learning a lot these days about the relevance of the gospel to my life as a follower of Jesus. Colossians 2:6-7 reads, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." It is clear from Scripture that we receive Christ as Lord by faith (John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9). We are also, to live the Christian life by faith in Jesus. This entails abandoning confidence in ourselves and our own righteousness, and placing all of our hope each day in Jesus who is "the author and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:1-2).
I am beginning to learn to do this in my own life. Since the Gospel is for sinners, I am starting to begin each day with the realization that despite my being a child of God because of my faith in Jesus, I still sin every day in my heart, mind, and life. If I am aware of any sins in my life, I humbly admit and confess those to God. I repent of my sinfulness and stupidity, and then I remember the promises of the Gospel assuring me of the forgiveness I need. I remember the words of the Gospel that says I am forgiven because of Jesus and that He alone is my salvation and hope.
This confidence in Jesus is powerfully and profoundly captured by Edward Mote in his old school hymn “The Solid Rock” with his words, “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” Almost every day, I find myself going to those words in addition to reflecting on the promises of forgiveness through Jesus in the Bible. Each day, I need Jesus. I need Him as much to be a Christian, as I did at the age of 13 to become a Christian. He is my hope, confidence and righteousness each and every day.
One of my theological mentors, Jerry Bridges, has noted, "Whatever Scriptures we use to assure us of God’s forgiveness, we must realize that whether the passage explicitly states it or not, the only basis for God’s forgiveness is the blood of Christ shed on the cross for us. As the writer of Hebrews said, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22), and the context makes it clear that it is Christ’s blood that provides the objective basis on which God forgives our sins."
It is time this next week to start my Doctor of Ministry dissertation. I have been working on my DMin degree for a while, and am now ready to wrap it up with the dissertation. While not completely finalized, my dissertation is going to be on the topic of preaching. I am getting my DMin degree from RTS in Orlando. RTS is a great seminary with a strong emphasis on God's word, sound theology, and practical ministry. It has been an honor to study there, and an incredibly beneficial degree to work towards. With the new year, it is time to get this bad boy done.
The church climate today in America is in a dreadful mess. Moral scandals made famous by catholic priests and celebrity pastors such as Ted Haggard cause the church to be the laughingstock of America on late-night talk shows. The irrelevance, irreverence and impotence of of churches are blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer. Statistics abound regarding the lack of growth, and perhaps more disconcerting, the lack of health in our churches. The wretched reality is also that few churches are thriving, fewer are growing, and even fewer are reaching people for Christ in significant numbers. In looking at the current state of the church, Win Arn has noted, “In the years following World War II, thousands of new churches were established. Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.” [i] The majority of the churches in this plateau stage are somewhere on the continuum between dryness and decay, and death for them may unfortunately be right around the corner. Arn goes on to note in his analysis that 80-85% of churches in America are moving towards decline or death. He also adds that a 14 % are growing as the result of transfer rather than conversion growth, with a mere 1% of churches growing because of conversions. Arn’s research goes on to indicate that 3,500 to 4,000 churches die annually. The state of the church around the country is not good. Most local churches are not healthy and are not growing. There is no doubt that it is needed. Disappointment with the church is all too easily found, far too rampantly felt, and way too widely seen. Mark Dever has noted this poor condition of the church by pointing out the sad reality that "there is dissatisfaction with the church on every hand. Bookstore shelves groan under the weight of books with prescriptions for what ails her. Conference speakers live off the congregational diseases that always seem to survive their remedies. Pastors wrongly exult and tragically burn out, confused and uncertain. Christians are left to wander like sheep without a shepherd. But dissatisfaction is not enough. We need something more. We need positively to recover what the church is to be." [ii] A return to the church’s biblical roots and essence is greatly needed to say the least. 
[i] Win Arn, The Pastor’s Manuel for Effective Ministry (Monrovia, CA; Church Growth, 1988), 41.
[ii] Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), 21.
Martin Luther rightly said that, as sinners, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first of these attempts to get to God is through religion. The second is the Gospel. Here is what one pastor, Mark Driscoll, writes on this topic: "Religion says that if we obey God He will love us. The gospel says that it is because God has loved us through Jesus that we can obey. Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people. The gospel says that the world is filled with bad people who are either repentant or unrepentant. Religion says that you should trust in what you do as a good moral person. The gospel says that you should trust in the perfectly sinless life of Jesus because He alone is the only good and truly moral person who will ever live. The goal of religion is to get from God such things as health, wealth, insight, power, and control. The goal of the gospel is not the gifts God gives, but rather God as the gift given to us by grace. Religion is about what I have to do. The gospel is about what I get to do. Religion sees hardship in life as punishment from God. The gospel sees hardship in life as sanctifying affliction that reminds us of Jesus’ sufferings and is used by God in love to make us more like Jesus. Religion is about me. The gospel is about Jesus. Religion leads to an uncertainty about my standing before God because I never know if I have done enough to please God. The gospel leads to a certainty about my standing before God because of the finished work of Jesus on my behalf on the cross. Religion ends in either pride (because I think I am better than other people) or despair (because I continually fall short of God’s commands). The gospel ends in humble and confident joy because of the power of Jesus at work for me, in me, through me, and sometimes in spite of me." How are you pursuing God? Through religion or through the gospel of Jesus?
Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us. - Charles Spurgeon
The Scripture is clear that God saves. Jonah 2:9 tells us that "Salvation is from the Lord". Zephaniah 3:17 encourages us with the reality that "God is mighty to save". As God accomplishes our salvation, we see all three members of the Trinity at work: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
We see this in Ephesians 1:3-14, where we read:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment–to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession–to the praise of his glory.
Regarding our salvation, God saves. Here is a quick take on how the Trinity works together to save:
The Father thought it. This is the providence of the Father.
The Son bought it. This is the propitiation of the Son.
The Spirit wrought it. This is the power of the Spirit.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Ro 1:16)
When we speak of "the gospel" we tend to think of an evangelistic message and surely the gospel is that. But it is not only a four or five point outline of salvation truths. The gospel - in the sense Paul and the apostles employed the word, includes all the truth about Christ (cf. Rom. 1:1-6). It does not stop at the point of conversion and justification by faith but embraces every other aspect of salvation, from sanctification to ultimate glorification. The gospel's significance therefore does not end the moment the new birth occurs; it applies to the entire Christian experience. And when Paul and the other New Testament writers spoke of "preaching the gospel," they were not talking about preaching only to unbelievers (cf. v. 15).
- MacArthur Study Bible
Dan is an alum of Samford University (B.S. in History, 1995), Beeson Divinity School (Master of Divinity, 1998), and Liberty University (M.B.A., 2009). He is wrapping up his Doctor of Ministry degree at Reformed Theological Seminary, and scheduled to graduate in the next year. Dan loves spending time with his wife and coaching his boys in baseball and football. He enjoys golf, or most any other sport in his free time. He loves to eat sushi, wings and of course barbecue (like all good Southern boys). The beach, Amelia Island and Disney are favorites for getting away with the family.
You can contact Dan by email at dan@rivertown.com or on his website (www.dannyadams.com). You can find him on twitter at www.twitter.com/danwadams.>
