Maxims

The first question in the Bible was not the sinner asking for God. It was God asking for the sinner.

"Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9 KJV)

He does not wait at the edge of the far country. He runs.

"When he was yet a great way off, his father... ran." (Luke 15:20 KJV)

You did not begin the search. You answered a voice already calling your name.

"The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10 KJV)

Grace is not God responding to the reacher. It is God reaching the runner.

"While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8 KJV)

I shelved the Bible; I did not throw it away. Looking back, that was not me. That was him, still reaching.

"The Lord is... not willing that any should perish." (2 Peter 3:9 KJV)

He came walking in the cool of the day toward the very ones who hid. That is the whole story in one afternoon.

"And the LORD God called unto Adam... Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9 KJV)

Election has an address, and the address is “in him.”

"He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1:4 KJV)

Stop asking whether your name is on a secret list. Ask whether you are in Christ. That question has an answer you can reach.

"He that hath the Son hath life." (1 John 5:12 KJV)

He did not choose a list of names and then hand them Christ. He chose a people in Christ, and the door in is faith.

"He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." (Ephesians 1:4 KJV)

Christ is the Chosen One. You are chosen the moment you are in the Chosen One.

"To whom coming, as unto a living stone... chosen of God, and precious." (1 Peter 2:4 KJV)

The branch is grafted in by faith and broken off by unbelief. The tree was never a cage.

"Because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith." (Romans 11:20 KJV)

Israel was chosen as a nation, and not every Israelite was saved. Election was corporate before it was ever made an individual roster.

"With many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness." (1 Corinthians 10:5 KJV)

Read the last page before you despair at the news. The rider is called Faithful and True, and he wins.

"He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True." (Revelation 19:11 KJV)

Every genealogy in Scripture is a road, and the road runs to a King.

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David." (Matthew 1:1 KJV)

The whole book leans toward a throne.

"KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." (Revelation 19:16 KJV)

The first promise after the fall was not a rule. It was a rescue: a coming one who crushes the serpent.

"It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15 KJV)

He was born to a borrowed manger and owns a throne that has no end.

"The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David." (Luke 1:32 KJV)

The government will rest on the shoulder that carried the cross.

"The government shall be upon his shoulder." (Isaiah 9:6 KJV)

They gave him a crown of thorns. He is coming back for the other one.

"On his head were many crowns." (Revelation 19:12 KJV)

A summons you cannot answer is not a summons. God does not mock the dead with commands.

"I have set before you life and death... therefore choose life." (Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV)

No one comes on his own strength, and no one is dragged. Grace opens the hand; it does not clench the fist for you.

"No man can come to me, except the Father... draw him." (John 6:44 KJV)

“I would,” he said, “and ye would not.” Both halves of that sentence are true, and the second is a tragedy.

"How often would I have gathered thy children... and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37 KJV)

Grace can be resisted. Stephen said so, to the faces of men resisting it.

"Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost." (Acts 7:51 KJV)

When God says choose, he means it, and the one he tells to choose can answer.

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." (Joshua 24:15 KJV)

The drawing is the Father teaching, and a man may still get up and walk out of the lesson.

"Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me." (John 6:45 KJV)

Faith is not a wage you earn or a work you perform. It is an empty hand.

"To him that worketh not, but believeth... his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:5 KJV)

Read Israel as Israel. When God swore a nation a land, he did not mean a metaphor.

"I will make of thee a great nation." (Genesis 12:2 KJV)

God passed alone between the pieces, so the promise would rest on his keeping and not on ours.

"Behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces." (Genesis 15:17 KJV)

“Hath God cast away his people?” Paul asked it out loud, after the church already existed, and answered: God forbid.

"Hath God cast away his people? God forbid." (Romans 11:1 KJV)

A God who keeps his word to Israel through all their wandering is a God who will keep his word to you.

"For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Romans 11:29 KJV)

He is not improvising. What looks like chaos is a roadmap you are standing in the middle of.

"That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ." (Ephesians 1:10 KJV)

The plan runs from a garden to a city, and not one promise gets lost between them.

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." (Revelation 21:1 KJV)

I did not seal myself, and I cannot unseal myself.

"After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise." (Ephesians 1:13 KJV)

My life is hidden with Christ in God. To reach it you would have to get past them both.

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3 KJV)

When I wander, I wander as a son, not as a stranger, and the Father's grip does not loosen because mine does.

"When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion." (Luke 15:20 KJV)

The seal is not until you fail. It is unto the day of redemption.

"Ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4:30 KJV)

Nothing can pluck you from his hand, and your own worst day is a “nothing.”

"Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." (John 10:28 KJV)

Assurance is not staring into your own heart to find your election. It is the Spirit bearing witness with your spirit.

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." (Romans 8:16 KJV)

What is true of Christ is now true of you: his death behind you, his life within you, his standing over you.

"I am crucified with Christ... Christ liveth in me." (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

Come is the widest word in Scripture, and it has no fine print.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." (Matthew 11:28 KJV)

I know the door is open, because I am the one who was hiding, and it opened for me.

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." (1 Timothy 1:15 KJV)

The door is open, and it opened for you the same way it opened for me: not because we deserved it, but because we came.

"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17 KJV)

The limit was never at the cross. It is at the open hand of faith.

"He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed." (John 3:18 KJV)

If the cross was for the world, then no face in the crowd is one I may not name.

"He is the propitiation for our sins: and... for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2 KJV)

He lifted the serpent so any bitten man who looked would live. The remedy was for all; the condition was to look.

"Every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." (Numbers 21:8 KJV)

Whosoever means whosoever, and that has always included you.

"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Revelation 22:17 KJV)

The door is not ajar for the deserving. It is open for the willing.

"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." (John 7:37 KJV)

Do not match a man's heat. Match the text, and let his heat sit there next to your calm.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath." (Proverbs 15:1 KJV)

State a man's view as he would state it, then answer the man, not the straw.

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly." (Proverbs 18:13 KJV)

Win the argument and lose the man, and you have lost.

"The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men." (2 Timothy 2:24 KJV)

Concede everything true before you deny anything false. It is the honesty that earns the hearing.

"Whatsoever things are true... think on these things." (Philippians 4:8 KJV)

You are not defending God. You are pointing to him. He can hold his own; get out of the way.

"So shall my word be... it shall not return unto me void." (Isaiah 55:11 KJV)