Sunday Sampler {a day late}

"And he changed his behavior before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard." I Samuel 21:13. I have always been fascinated by the idea of David, fleeing for his life from King Saul, taking refuge with the king of Gath, feigning madness so as not to alarm the king of Gath.

"...his free goodness, with which the Father embraces us in Christ when he clothes us with the innocence of Christ and accepts it as ours that by the benefit of it he may hold us as holy, pure, and innocent. For Christ's righteousness, which as it alone is perfect alone can bear the sight of God, must appear in court on our behalf, and stand surety in judgment. Furnished with this righteousness, we obtain continual forgiveness of sins in faith. Covered with this purity, the sordidness and uncleanness of our imperfections are not ascribed to us but are hidden as if buried that they may not come into God's judgment, until the hours arrives when, the old man slain and clearly destroyed in us, the divine goodness will receive us into blessed peace with the new Adam. There let us await the Day of the Lord in which, having received incorruptible bodies, we will be carried into the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom." Calvin's Institutes, Book III, Chapter XIV, section 12. What a glorious Savior we have! He does all the work, and invites us to share in His glory.

"So by the virtue of Christ's resurrection I am conformed more and more to the graces in him. As the power of God's Spirit raised him up when he was at the lowest, after three days in the grave, so the Spirit in every Christian raises him up at the lowest, to comfort, to a further degree of grace, more and more. When Christians are fallen into any sin or any affliction for sin, when they are tripped and undermined by their corruptions, the same power that raised Christ from the grave raises them from their sins daily, that they gather strength against them. And when we are at the lowest, in the grave, the same power will raise us like Christ in every way." Glorious Freedom, Richard Sibbes, p. 118. True believers have the very same Spirit at work in them who raised Christ from the dead. How could God possibly fail to save His own?