THE NEW BIRTH
“for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed our cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13 ESV).
“How wonderful is the love of God in giving his Son to die for such wretches! And how strong and absolute is the necessity of a new birth, if we would be happy. The propensities of fallen nature are not eradicated in the children of God, though by grace they are made partakers of a new principle, which enables them, in the Lord’s strength, to resist and mortify the body of sin, so that it cannot reign in them. [E]vil is latent in the hearts of the best men” John Newton (ref#322, p111).
“[W]e know that we are children of God when we are deeply aware of sin within. Next there is a desire for God and a desire for the things of God and a desire to walk in the ways of God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p28).
“[T]hough believers still have this indwelling propensity to sin, the Holy Spirit maintains within us a prevailing desire for holiness (1 John 3:9). The believers struggles with the sin God enables him to see in himself” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p60).
“[P]ut off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24 ESV).
“In every believer’s heart there is a constant struggle between the old nature and the new. The old nature is very active, and it loses no opportunity of plying all the weapons of its deadly armory against newborn grace; while on the other hand, the new nature is ever on the watch to resist and destroy its enemy. Grace within us will employ prayer, faith, hope, and love to cast out the evil. It takes to it the ‘whole armour of God’ (Eph. 6:11) and wrestles earnestly” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, June 2nd AM).
“The spiritual healing of the Great Physician is only ever esteemed by those who acknowledge that they still suffer from the spiritual disease of sin” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 24th).
“[P]ut on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:14 ESV).
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p190).
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Bonnie's Prayer Affair 