Tag: Mark Saunders

The Narrow Road

Being a Christian means we follow Christ.

Jesus invites us to follow Him by denying ourselves and taking up our cross daily.

The cross is the key to following Jesus. It’s simple but so, so challenging!

It’s easy to misunderstand “denying yourself.”

It doesn’t mean “making your life difficult” and it’s not “works.”

It’s accepting to lay aside the right to our lives and accept the will of God. It invites a deep work of God in one’s life that marks you.

This is lived out in the circumstances of everyday life…

Lord my life is not my own… what is your will? Let me decrease and you increase.

This is what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us… to discern and accept the will of God for our lives.

So is it easy – absolutely not!

But is it worth it – absolutely yes!

The way of the cross is almost a “forgotten road”…but when we find it we realize that it’s the only road for a Christian to walk.

There is no other way to follow Jesus… the narrow road.

  • Mark Saunders

The Door To Change Is Opened By God’s Grace

Living in the shadows is not what the Lord intended for us… living in the light is.

The old covenant is a shadow of the reality that would be revealed through the new covenant.

The old covenant had its own type of “light” or glory… it was expressed externally.

It can’t compare to the light or glory of the new covenant which is Christ in us…the hope of Glory.

This glory is expressed through a changed heart… it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in us that changes our hearts.

We certainly can’t change ourselves… we can try… but the change lasts as long as our efforts.

It’s not by our might, nor by our power… it’s by the Spirit of God that this mountain of law… mountain of works to keep it and ultimately mountain of sin produced by our inability to keep it …shall become a plain… it shall be removed… with cryings of Grace, Grace to it!
(Zechariah 4:6-7)

The door to this change is opened by His Grace.

We become His workmanship… as we accept to carry our cross or surrender our lives… to be worked by God… and that’s not always easy… but we become a reflection of His Glory… a glimmer of Christ in us.

  • Mark Saunders

Christians, It’s Ok To “Not Be Ok.”

Pretending is tiring.
Pretending you’re ok when you’re not.

Christians, it’s ok to “not be ok.”
It’s not lack of faith. It’s called being honest.

Life has its ups and downs… but hold on to the faith we have in Jesus… he never leaves us nor forsakes us.

Faith is not confessing your problems away and speaking as if they don’t exist… as if these things depend on your words.

Faith is a surrendered life, that holds on through thick and thin… knowing that He’s in control… not us and our words.

Life has issues. Our victory in them is that we come through by the grace of God, being somehow shaped by the hand of God… a rough edge smoothed, a lesson learned… an attitude changed.

What a privilege we have as Christians to walk with the Lord through these things… what hope, what victory!

  • Mark Saunders

Walk The Walk… Not Only Talk The Talk

Surrender is normally seen as defeat… but for a Christian surrender of our lives to the Lord is victory.

Surrender is the price we pay to follow Jesus.

But salvation is a free gift right?

The grace of God is made freely available to us through Christ but it had a great price – the price of His life.

We freely receive the forgiveness of God when we receive His gift of salvation and turn in repentance from our life of sin. The proof of this is to desire to take hold of the life that he offers.

Now that’s where there is a price to pay for us… to walk the walk… not only talk the talk.

It’s not works at all. Surrender is the opposite of works. It requires deep faith and reliance on God’s grace and sets the foundation for actually living Christian life… living as compared to hearing and reading about it.

This is the place the Lord wants us to be. It’s the place where we will be confronted the most but a place where where we will learn to be most satisfied. It’s the place we really get to know the Lord.

It’s costs everything but we loose nothing of real value.

Matthew 13:46
who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Philippians 3:10
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,

  • Mark Saunders

A Covenant Of Truth And Grace

There’s a point off the coast of South Africa where two oceans meet. The warm Indian Ocean and the cold Atlantic. One sea, two distinct oceans.

I’ve often thought that God’s grace is the point where two of his distinct attributes meet – His holiness and His love.

On one hand, the holiness of God exposes sin. The word of God is “sharp and piercing” and it discerns the thoughts and intents of our hearts. We can fool each other but we can’t fool God. The truth is revealed.

On the other hand, the love of God has given us Jesus – a high priest who sympathizes with our weakness and allows us to come boldly to the throne of grace for mercy and help in our time of need.

We put these two truths together and we have grace. They meet at the cross and become ours through faith.

Once we have come to faith we no longer need law. It can no longer help us.

We enter a new covenant. A covenant of truth and grace.

Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:15-16
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

  • Mark Saunders