The first one lays the foundation of our eternal salvation in the free grace of God, as shown to us in the mission of the great Redeemer. The next affirms the double blessedness which we obtain through this salvation—the blessings of the upper and nether springs—of time and of eternity. The third shows one of the duties to which the chosen people are called; we are ordained to suffer for Christ with the promise that “if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” The last sets forth the active form of Christian service, bidding us diligently to maintain good works.
11 It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: 12 If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: 13 If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (KJV)
It is a blessed thing to mediate on the reality of being in Christ. The enormity of that fact should strike us hard because those who are truly in Christ are those who also know they don’t deserve to be. The miracle of our salvation is incredible and the cost our Savior paid to save us is beyond our understanding. Spurgeon understood this and wrote about it in today’s devotion from his Morning by Morning.
C. H. Spurgeon
“It is a faithful saying.”—2 Timothy 2:11.
Paul has four of these “faithful sayings.” The first occurs in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” The next is in 1 Timothy 4:6, “Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.”