It Is Finished was an amazingly confronting and encouraging book. You can read my full book review by clicking here, but below are some of the quotes from David Wilkerson that especially caught my attention…
“Jesus was speaking as co-signer of the covenant. He said, ‘Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are’ (John 17:11). He was saying to the Father, ‘We agreed that I could bring into Our covenant everyone who trusts in Me. Now, Father, I ask You to bring these beloved ones under the same covenant promises You made to Me.”
“The covenant, cut before the world was formed, has in it the sworn oath of almighty God to save and deliver His people from the power and dominion of satan. Faith in Christ brings us into God’s covenant oath to keep us as faithfully as He kept His own Son.”
“This is an ongoing problem with many Christians. We look to the Holy Spirit as some kind of booster shot to empower or energize our human will. We expect Him to build up our supply of grit and determination, so we can stand up to temptation the next time it comes. We cry, ‘Make me strong, Lord! Give me an iron will, so I can withstand all sin.’ But God knows this would only make our flesh stronger, enabling it to boast. … Scripture says the Spirit of God actually ‘subdues’ our sins and turns us from them: ‘He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast our sins into the depths of the sea’ (Micah 7:19). Think of it! Not I, but my God, will subdue and conquer all my sins, by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.”
“God’s Spirit will accomplish in us what our flesh never has been able to do. How? By indwelling us. The New Covenant is all about the Holy Spirit coming to live and work in us, by promise in answer to faith.”
“It is vital for every follower of Jesus not to judge God’s New Covenant promises according to past experiences.”
“God says, ‘There is one work the Spirit must perform in you before any of these others. He is going to put in you the true fear of God concerning sin. He will implant in you a profound awe of My holiness so you will not depart from My commands. Otherwise, your sin will always lead you away from Me.’ Very simply, the Holy Spirit changes the way we look at our sin. … So He shows us how deeply it grieves and provokes Him.”
“Many flesh-driven Christians try to shake off the guilt that God’s convicting arrows produce. They do not want to feel the dread of their sin, so they constantly claim the verse, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). But they neglect to read the last part of this verse: ‘who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.’ If you continue in sin, you are walking in the flesh—and you have no claim on God’s promise of ‘no condemnation.’ The guilt we feel under Holy Spirit conviction is actually a work of God’s grace. It is meant to expose the deceitfulness of sin in us.”
“Ask the Holy Spirit to accomplish in you the precedent work of instilling godly fear in you, to keep your heart open and accepting of God’s Word. When you do, the Spirit promises to give you a soft heart, one that is pliable in His hand. … The implantation of godly fear by the Holy Spirit is designed to produce obedience through surrender, rather than through discipline.”
“God the Father gave His Son, Jesus, access to all of His own riches and wealth. In other words, He invested in Him all the wisdom, knowledge, power and glory of Heaven. And by being made wealthy in all these things, Jesus became the only One worthy to be co-signer of the covenant. ‘By so much more Jesus has become a surety [guarantor, sponsor, co-signer] of a better covenant’ (Hebrews 7:22). Could there be any greater mercy than this? God so loved us that He made His Son rich beyond all comprehension. Then He made Him both our kinsman and our co-signer. He has become the person responsible to settle all our debts. He pays when we cannot.”
“In this covenant, God pledges to do the following four things:
- He swears to write His law on our hearts and minds.
- He takes an oath that He will be God to us, and that we will be His children.
- He promises we will know Him and His ways because we will be taught by the Holy Spirit.
- He pledges to be merciful to our unrighteousness, forgiving all our sins and iniquities.”
“A stronghold is an accusation planted firmly in your mind. satan establishes strongholds in God’s people by implanting in their minds falsehoods and misconceptions, especially regarding God’s nature.”
“The only weapon that scares the devil and his armies is the same one that scared him in the wilderness temptation of Jesus. That weapon is the truth of the New Covenant—the living Word of God. Only the Lord’s truth can set us free.”
“This is the doctrine of God’s preventing goodness: He has anticipated all our struggles—all our battles with sin, flesh and the devil—and in His mercy and goodness, He has paid our debt before it can even come due. Through the covenant, He has prepaid for all our failures and relapses. His covenant oath assures us of His preventing goodness in our lives.”
“In God’s eyes, our problem is not sin, it is trust. Jesus settled our sin problem once and for all at Calvary. He does not constantly harp on us now, barking, ‘What have you done this time?’ or ‘Now you’ve gone too far,’ or ‘This time you’ve crossed the line.’ No, never! Our Lord’s attitude toward us is just the opposite. His Spirit is constantly wooing us, reminding us of the Father’s lovingkindness—even in the midst of failure.”
Unless you’ve been locked away somewhere, you know that a new pope was recently elected. Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s life is recounted in Francis: Man of Prayer by Mario Escobar.
Craig T. Owens 