Struggle Against Joy

 Sinners cannot imagine that the things they love are the very things that keep them from happiness. Their fear of the light and refusal to let go of the darkness is a struggle against joy.

Michael Reeves

Do not Look to Your Faith

"Do not look to your faith, nor to your repentance, nor to your prayers, nor to your works. Look to Christ. If you look to your faith, you will soon have no faith. If you look to your prayers, you will soon have no prayers to present. But if you look to Christ, you will find faith and prayer and everything else coming to you as a matter of course."

-Spurgeon

We Love Something

 The human heart was created to love, and it will never remain empty. If we do not set our affection upon God, we will inevitably give our love to something else, whether the passing pleasures of the world, the deceitfulness of sin, or the idols of our own desires. Yet all these things are unworthy objects of ultimate devotion, for they cannot satisfy the soul, endure the test of time, or save us in the day of judgment. By contrast, God is infinitely lovely, perfectly good, and the source of every true blessing. To love Him is not merely a duty but the highest privilege of man, for in loving God we find the very purpose for which we were created and the only object of affection that can never disappoint, decay, or be taken away. He who loves God most becomes the richest blessing to those around him.

Monergism; (probably elaborating on Thomas Watson).

Thomas Waston.

God Loves Us

 What would keep us from believing God loves us? The answer is a sense of guilt and condemnation because of our sin. The same tender conscience that enables us to become aware of sins that lie deep beneath the level of external actions can also load us down with guilt. When we're under that burden and sense of condemnation, it is difficult to love God or believe that He loves us.

We cannot love God if we think we're under His judgment and condemnation. James Fraser said, "But whilst the conscience retains the charge of guilt, condemnation, and wrath, there cannot be purity, or sincerity of heart toward God, or sincerity of the love of God. Human nature is so formed, that it cannot love any object that is adverse and terrible to it."

Jerry Bridges

Sea of Sorrow

 "You must be plunged into that sea of sorrow; but it will not drown you, it will only wash and cleanse you."

— Charles Spurgeon

Lay Hold

 We must not allow the accusations of Satan or the condemning indictments of our consciences to bring us under a sense of God’s unrequited justice. Instead, we should by faith lay hold of the wonderful truth that God’s justice has been satisfied for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jerry Bridges

Lift Up Thy Head

 "Did the Spirit of God ever convince you of sin? Do you see yourself liable to the curse of the law, and the just vengeance of God, for the innate depravity of your nature, and the transgressions of your life? Do you come to Christ humbled and self-condemned; sensible that unless you are clothed with the merits of Him our Elder Brother, you are ruined and undone, and can never stand with joy or safety before the holy Lord God?

If so, lift up thy head; redemption is thine; thou art in a state of grace; thou art translated from death to life; thou art an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. But, if you never felt, nor desire to feel, this work of the Holy Ghost upon thy heart, this conviction of sin, this penitential faith, all the supposed righteousness of thine own, wherein thou trusted, is but a broken reed; a painted sepulchre; and the trappings of a Pharisee."

~ Augustus Toplady (1740-1778) writer of the hymn "Rock of Ages"

God's Care

 God’s care is not conditioned on our faith and our ability to cast our anxiety on Him; rather, it is because He does care for us that we can cast our anxiety on Him.

Jerry Bridges

Christ for us is applied

 It is through faith that we are united to Christ, so that His life becomes our life, His death becomes our death, and His righteousness our righteousness. All the objective work of Christ for us is applied to us and received by us through faith in Him.

Jerry Bridges

Joking and Unconcerned

 “Non-Christians have death and damnation at their doors and yet are joking and unconcerned.”

— Charles Spurgeon