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Life under the Gospel is just not at all easy.
Talk of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is easy, but enjoying the peaceful and nonthreatening environment of gospel talk is not the same as exercising faith in the Christ of the Gospel.
Believing in the Christ of the Gospel delivers from all condemnation only those who are, and who continue to be, abased by their sins before God. But, sadly, we're more ashamed if men see our sins, than we are if God sees them.
This feeling of abasement and shame before God, so seldom felt (and a product of his grace), is also a strange feeling because it is simply so wonderful. It moves a person powerfully toward humility. It is inevitably sanctifying.
The justification of the shamed and their sanctification cannot be parted.
Our sense of needing to be cleansed of evil in our conscience should give us great assurance of our salvation.
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Reviewed and retained.
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