Rankin Quotes

Unofficial profile. Quotes from Rankin Wilbourne, senior pastor of Pacific Crossroads Church (@LACrossroads) in Los Angeles. New book:

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"Union with Christ means you are in Christ and Christ is in you." #RankinWilbourne #UnionwithChrist

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3/ The Lord’s Supper is a means of grace whereby Christ feeds our faith, nourished our souls, and gladdens our hearts. He strengthens our union with him beyond what we can comprehend.

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1/ “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). The Bible is saying that the Lord’s Supper doesn’t merely remind us of a gift. It is a gift.

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2/ And that gift is nothing less than Christ himself. As Christ says, “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19). What the signs of bread and wine (or juice) represent, they also present—the real spiritual presence of Christ.

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4/ “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (ROM. 6:3 NIV).

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1/ Throughout the New Testament, baptism is described as a sign of our union with Christ (Col. 2:12; Rom 6:4; Gal. 3:27).

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3/ It may look forward in hope or back in celebration, but anytime you see someone being baptized—if you are a Christian—it is a visible reminder of what is most true in your life.

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Union with Christ has been eclipsed in our understanding today because we live in a disenchanted world where the sense of God is vanishing from the earth. In no part of the church’s worship is this disenchantment more evident than in our view of the sacraments.

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...But when you hear the voice of the person next to you singing of God's goodness and care, not to mention a room full of voices, it strengthens your faith beyond what you can understand.

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On some days, you may come to worship full of doubts and fears, not really trusting that God is good or that you are loved...

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Union with Christ changes how we worship. We can now come to worship aware that Christ is present in us, that Christ is our high priest who is leading us into his Father's presence (Heb. 8:1-2), and that Christ is speaking through all the elements of the worship service.

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Union with Christ reminds us that the real reward of prayer is not what we're asking God for. The real reward of prayer is communion with God, made possible by our union with Christ (Heb. 4:16).

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Prayer is to union with Christ what conversation is to marriage; it’s how the union remains vital. If you never spoke to your spouse beyond “Good morning” and “Good night,” then you would undoubtedly be drifting apart. You would not be experiencing the fullness of your union.

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Because God is better than anything we could be asking for, better even than life itself (Ps. 63:3-4), the call to persist in prayer is not for God’s sake, but for ours—to train and purify our desires.

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Eugene Peterson (@PetersonDaily) says meditating on God’s Word is like what a dog does with a bone. By prayer and through the Holy Spirit, you gnaw and chew on God’s Word until it metabolizes and gets into your bloodstream. You take it in, and you expect it to nourish you.

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There is a reason the Bible is called “living and active” (Heb. 4:12), because the living Christ is actively speaking through these words to those who are willing to listen to his voice (John 10:27).

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Do you approach the Bible with the expectation that the same Spirit who inspired these words once, long ago, is the same Spirit who is in you now, speaking to you and illuminating these words for you?

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When #UnionwithChrist becomes the lens through which we view these means, they are transformed from mechanical duties into living opportunities to come into the presence of the living Christ.

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Some of us might feel suspicious about spiritual disciplines, seeing them as rote or mechanical or empty. And they can be. But #UnionwithChrist changes how we understand these means of grace. It makes you see them in ways you never have.

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Each day we wake up and we begin again. “Always we begin again.” So today, let us “labor to be brought near,” confident that our labor is not in vain.

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The unflagging, unfailing grace of God is always blowing. And every day, it is our #UnionwithChrist—the reality that we are bound to him—that is our anchor, keeping us from drifting away, and our engine, the wind in our sails that propels us forward.