As if you were

 "You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if He were you."

-Charles Spurgeon.

Complete Savior

 It is good to be humbled for sin, but not to be discouraged; for though we are poor creatures, Jesus is a complete Savior; and we bring more honor to God by believing in his name and trusting his word of promise, than we could do by a thousand outward works.

John Newton

Faith's Proper Exercise

 Faith which is truly divine, is never more in its proper exercise-doth never more elevate the soul into conformity unto God–than when it acts in the contemplation and admiration of the most incomprehensible mysteries which are proposed unto it by divine revelation.

--John Owen

Thankful for Thorns

 “Be thankful for the thorns and thistles which keep you from being in love with this world.”

— Charles Spurgeon

Affections Eternal

"Only human beings created in the image of God can enjoy God. Therefore, enjoyment matters. I mean, affections are who we are ultimately. The end of history, the end of creation, is not going to be merely rational creatures thinking rightly about God, little computers. It’s going to be people who are so perceptive spiritually of the glories of God that they are full of affections that are appropriate for those glories and can give expression to them. That’s what eternity will be.”

 Algorithms and the Affections

John Piper (Nov. 2025): “If you had thought that your essence of humanness in the image of God was your reasoning capacity, over an ape or a porpoise, you’re in trouble. Because, guess what? ChatGPT is smarter than you are and more creative than you are in expressing things in language that is good. It can write prayers better than you can, and it can reason through hard problems better than you can. Therefore, there are people who are going to forsake the faith because they thought to be a human in the image of God was to be a reasoning person over against the animals, and they discovered a machine can do it better than they can. Crisis of faith. This to me is no crisis because of my Christian Hedonism. I do not think that my reasoning capacities are my essence. I think the soul’s capacity to delight in God is my essence. The soul’s capacity to enjoy God. No machine will ever enjoy, period. It will have the language of enjoyment. You can tell it to write a poem of enjoyment and it will use the language. That machine is not enjoying *her*. It’s not. It never will.

Only human beings created in the image of God can enjoy God. Therefore, enjoyment matters. I mean, affections are who we are ultimately. The end of history, the end of creation, is not going to be merely rational creatures thinking rightly about God, little computers. It’s going to be people who are so perceptive spiritually of the glories of God that they are full of affections that are appropriate for those glories and can give expression to them. That’s what eternity will be.” Source: Sovereign Grace Churches, Pastors Conference PreCon (November 2025)

Jan Hus Prayer

 Give me a fearless heart,

a right faith, a firm hope, a perfect love, that for your sake I may lay down my life with patience and joy. Amen.

JAN HUS (1369-1415)

Excite and Encourage. Constant View

 Nothing will so much excite and encourage our souls hereunto as a constant view of Christ and his glory; every thing in him hath a constraining power hereunto, as is known to all who have any acquaintance with these things.

John Owen

My Times are in God's Hand

 "Firmly believing that my times are in God’s hand, I here submit myself and all my affairs for the ensuing year, to the wise and gracious disposal of God’s divine providence. Whether God appoints for me health or sickness, peace or trouble, comforts or crosses, life or death — may His holy will be done!

All my time, strength, and service, I devote to the honor of the Lord Jesus — and even my common actions. It is my earnest expectation, hope, and desire, my constant aim and endeavor — that Jesus Christ may be magnified in me. In everything I have to do — my entire dependence is upon Jesus Christ for strength. And whatever I do in word or deed, I desire to do all in His name, to make Him my Alpha and Omega.

I have all from Him — and I would use all for Him.

If this should prove a year of affliction, a sorrowful year to me — I will fetch all my supports and comforts from the Lord Jesus and stay myself upon Him, His everlasting consolations, and the good hope I have in Him through grace.

And if it should be my dying year — then my times are in the hand of the Lord Jesus. And with a humble reliance upon His mediation, I would venture into the eternal world looking for the blessed hope. Dying as well as living — Jesus Christ will, I trust, be gain and advantage to me.

Oh, that the grace of God may be sufficient for me, to keep me always a humble sense of my own unworthiness, weakness, folly, and infirmity — together with a humble dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ for both righteousness and strength."

— 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲, diary entry for January 1, 1713

Ten Virgins

 A lamp without oil may shine for a moment, but it cannot endure delay. So it is with a religion that rests only in outward profession. Words may be orthodox, duties may be performed, and hopes may be confidently spoken, but if there is no inward work of the Spirit, no hidden supply of grace within, the light will fail when it is most needed.

The wise virgins were not distinguished by a louder profession, but by a secret provision. They had oil in their vessels. Their faith was fed from within. It was sustained not by appearance, but by principle, by the Spirit’s gracious work in the heart.

--Thomas Manton

Constant Comfort from Christ

 Let us live in the constant application of the glory of Christ, and virtue will proceed from him to repair all our decays, to renew a right spirit within us, and to cause us to abound in all duties of obedience.

-- John Owen.