Gladness to this Heart

 Thy works, not mine, O Christ,

Speak gladness to this heart;

They tell me all is done;

They bid my fear depart.

Horatius Bonar

Be much alone.

 "Be much alone with God. Do not put Him off with a quarter of an hour morning and evening. Take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unbosom yourself wholly - every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt - to Him." -Horatius Bonar.

Much Alone with God

 Be much alone with God. Do not put Him off with a quarter of an hour morning and evening. Take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Talk everything over with Him. Pour out every thought, feeling, wish, plan, and doubt to Him. He wants converse with His creatures. Shall His creatures not want converse with Him? He wants, not merely to be on "good terms" with you, if one may use man's phrase, but to be intimate. Shall you decline the intimacy and be satisfied with mere acquaintance? What! Intimate with the world, with friends, with neighbors, but not with God? That would look ill indeed. Folly, to prefer the clay to the potter, the marble to the sculptor, this little earth and its lesser features to the mighty Maker of the universe, the great "All and in all!"

~ Horatius Bonar

FAITH IS NOT OUR SAVIOR

 Christ is All in All, not His Gifts or Blessings. (They're wonderful but they flow from Jesus.)

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician. It is not even our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him who healeth all our diseases. In all our believing, let us remember God's word to Israel: I am Jehovah, that healeth thee (Exod. 14:26). Our faith is but our touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching us?" - Horatius Bonar

"Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God." - Horatius Bonar

"...the cross saves completely, or not at all. Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves, and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing virtue." - Horatius Bonar

WE HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO GO WITH

 

The point is not that we go to Him condemned, though we were condemned before Christ came.  We go to Him because we are NOT condemned because Christ removed condemnation from us;  Yet we to Him knowing our old nature is nothing but a vile, evil, wicked, wretched sinner;  but that old nature which is still tied to us was crucified with Christ (my sins have already been punished in the body of Christ) and buried with Christ.   (unfinished article)...

Faith is not my Savior

“Faith is not our physician. It only brings us

to the Physician. It is not even our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him who ‘healeth all our diseases.’ In all our believing, let us remember God’s word to Israel: ‘I am Jehovah, that healeth thee’ (Exod. 14:26). Our faith is but our touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching us?

“Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that
was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God.

“Faith is not perfection. Yet only by perfection can we be saved; either our own or another’s.
That which is imperfect cannot justify, and an imperfect faith could not in any sense be a righteousness. 

If it is to justify, it must be perfect. It must be like ‘the Lamb, without blemish and without spot.’ An imperfect faith may connect us with the perfection of another; but it cannot of itself do aught for us, either in protecting us from wrath or securing the divine acquittal.

“All faith here is imperfect; and our security is this, that it matters not how poor or weak our faith may be: if it touches the perfect One, all is well. The touch draws out the virtue that is in Him, and we are saved.

“The slightest imperfection in our faith, if faith were our righteousness, would be fatal to every hope. But the imperfection of our faith, however great, if faith be but the approximation or contact between us and the fulness of the Substitute, is no hindrance to our participation of His righteousness. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. An earthenware pitcher can convey water to a traveller’s thirsty lips as well as one of gold; nay, a broken vessel, even if there be but ‘a sherd to take water from the pit’ (Isa 30:14), will suffice. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, ‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.’

“Faith is not satisfaction to God. In no sense and in no aspect can faith be said to satisfy God, or to satisfy the law. Yet if it is to be our righteousness, it must satisfy. Being imperfect, it cannot satisfy; being human, it cannot satisfy, even though it were perfect. That which satisfies must be capable of bearing our guilt; and that which bears our guilt must be not only perfect, but divine. It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings us to the cross, where there is expiation, and propitiation, and payment, and cleansing, and righteousness; but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.

“Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the ‘everlasting righteousness’ was brought in (Dan 9:24).

“And as faith goes on, so it continues; always the beggar’s outstretched hand, never the rich man’s gold; always the cable, never the anchor, the knocker, not the door, or the palace, or the table; the handmaid, not the mistress; the lattice which lets in the light, not the sun.”

— Horatius Bonar

Why not love the world?

 

NOT OUR OWN FAITH

 For we are not saved by believing in our own salvation, nor by believing anything whatsoever about ourselves. We are saved by what we believe about the Son of God and His righteousness. The gospel believed saves; not the believing in our own faith.

— Horatius Bonar

LOVE NOT THE WORLD

(Horatius Bonar) 

"Do not love the world or anything in the world." 1 John 2:15

WHY?

1. Because the gain of it, is the loss of the soul--Matthew 16:25-26.
 
2. Because its friendship is enmity to God--James 4:4.
 
3. Because it did not know Christ--John 1:10; 17:25.
 
4. Because it hates Christ--John 7:7; 15:18.
 
5. Because the Holy Spirit has forbidden us--1 John 2:15.
 
6. Because Christ did not pray for it--John 17:9.
 
7. Because Christ's people do not belong to it--John 17:16.
 
8. Because its Prince is Satan--John 13:31; 16:11.
 
9. Because Christ's kingdom is not of it--John 18:36.
 
10. Because its wisdom is foolishness--1 Corinthians 1:20.
 
11. Because Christ does not belong to it--John 8:23.
 
12. Because it is condemned--1 Corinthians 11:32.
 
13. Because it is passing away--1 Corinthians 7:31.
 
14. Because it slew Christ--James 5:6; Matthew 21:39.
 
15. Because it is crucified to us--Galatians 6:14.
 
16. Because we are crucified to it--Galatians 6:14.
 
17. Because it is the seat of wickedness--2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 5:19.
 
18. Because its god is the evil one--2 Corinthians 4:4.
 

Quotes for the Day

Justification is through faith, not on account of faith.

Author: B.B. Warfield

Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.--Samuel Rutherford

 "Faith is not our savior. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Savior is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God. Our security is this, that it matters not how poor or weak our faith may be: if it touches the perfect One, all is well. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, ‘Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.’" - Horatius Bonar

FRESH

"The study of truth in its academic more than in its devotional form has robbed it of its freshness and power, engendering formality and coldness."

~ Horatius Bonar

NOT OUR FEELINGS

If we try to get up warm feelings and good dispositions in order to remove some fancied remainder of distance, we shall fail; not simply because these actings of ours cannot do what we are trying to do, but because there is no need of any such effort. The thing is done already. God has brought his righteousness nigh to the sinner.

Horatius Bonar

APPARENT

"Our light must shine. It must diffuse itself around, making men to feel that we are children of the Most High God. In word, in look, in life, in daily deportment, our character as men redeemed by blood and dwelt in by the Spirit, must be apparent. All things that are lovely and of good report must be seen in us (Phil. 4:8); so shall it be known Whose we are and Whom we serve."

-- Horatius Bonar

(source: S.M. Whitley)

HORATIUS SET #2

Nothing that is good can exist which God did not will to be, and nothing that is evil can exist which God did not will to allow. The will of God goes before all other wills. It does not depend on them, but they depend on it. It's movements regulate them. The "I will" of Jehovah, is that which sets in motion everything in heaven and in earth.....

The "I will" of Jehovah, is the spring and the origin of all that is done throughout the universe, great and small, among things animate and inanimate. It was this "I will" that brought angels into being, and still sustains them. It was this "I will" that was the origin of salvation to a lost world. It was this "I will" that provided a Redeemer, and accomplished redemption.....Everything that can be called good in man, or in the universe, originates in the "I will" of Jehovah.

-- Horatius Bonar (source: ondoctrine.com)

I do not deny that in conversion man himself wills. In everything that he does, thinks, feels, he of necessity wills. In believing he wills; in repenting he wills; in turning from his evil ways he wills. All this is true..... But while fully admitting this, there is another question behind it of great interest and movement. Are these movements of man's will towards good the effects of the forthputting of God's will?

Is man willing, because he has made himself so, or because God has made him so? Does he become willing entirely by an act of his own will, or by chance, or by moral suasion, or because acted on by created causes and influences from without?

I answer unhesitatingly, he becomes willing, because another and a superior will, even that of God, has come into contact with his, altering its nature and its bent.

-- Horatius Bonar (source: ondoctrine.com)

HORATIUS SET #1

Men insist that it is unjust and tyrannical in God to control their wills, yet see nothing unjust, nothing proud, nothing Satanic in attempting to fetter and direct the will of God. Man, it seems, cannot have his own foolish will gratified, unless the all-wise God will consent to relinquish His! Such are some of the steps in the march of Atheism.

-- Horatius Bonar. (source: ondoctrine.com)

If salvation is made to hinge or any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end.

-- Horatius Bonar; (source: ondoctrine.com)

Man finds fault with election, as a mere system of arbitrary partiality and favoritism; and tells us if there be such a thing as total helplessness in man and sovereign election in God, then man is not to blame if he be lost. Man's entire apostasy and death in sin, so he cannot save himself, and God's entire supremacy, so that He saves whom He will, are doctrines exceedingly distasteful to human pride, but they are Scriptural.

-- Horatius Bonar; (source: ondoctrine.com)