Seeing the Hand of God

 "Cultivate the holy habit of seeing the hand of God in everything that happens to you."

-Arthur Pink.

Contentment

 “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

-Jeremiah Burroughs

Not to His Decrees

 It is our duty to look to God’s commands, and not to His decrees; to our own duty & not to His purposes. The decrees of God are a vast ocean, into which many have curiously pried to their own horror and despair...

- Thomas Boston

Christ Intercedes

 WHEN CHRIST INTERCEDES

FOR ALL THE ELECT, HE PRAYS

FOR THEM THE SAME AS HE DID

FOR PETER, THAT THEIR FAITH

MAY NEVER FAIL.

-JOHN CALVIN

God Loves You

  “Do not let the devil tempt you to believe that God does not love you because your love is feeble.”

— Charles Spurgeon

Relationship

 Maybe you were told that Christianity is about your personal relationship with Jesus. And of course, there is some truth to this...

Faith is personal. and Christ saves sinners, not crowds, but somewhere along the way, “personal” became “private.” So you tried to manage it. You monitored your quiet times. You evaluated your sincerity. You dissected your motives. Because of this, you may have learned to ask questions like: Am I close enough? Do I feel Him enough? Am I serious enough? Am I different enough? You were turned inward so often that you forgot where Christ actually is. So, let me be blunt. If your identity depends on the quality of your devotion, you and I both are in a world of trouble. Our devotion fluctuates, and if the stability of our standing before God rises and falls with your devotion, you will live either proud or panicked. But, you were not saved as an individual spiritual project; you were united to Christ (Eph. 1:6), and that means your identity is not generated by you; it is bestowed upon you. You did not climb into Him; the Spirit grafted you in. You did not negotiate adoption; the Father declared it. You did not secure your own righteousness; the Son accomplished it. When you were joined to Christ, you were joined to His body. A covenant people gathered around a preached Word and a visible gospel. Your instinct likely says, “How is my relationship with Jesus doing today?” But the church exists to keep telling you that, “Christ is risen, you are baptized into Him, and His verdict over you stands.” One is introspective. The other is declarative. One keeps you looking at your navel. The other drags your eyes to a cross and an empty tomb. If Christianity is primarily about your inner experience, you will constantly recalibrate who you are based on how you feel about God this week. But if Christianity is about union with Christ, then your identity is anchored outside of you. Week after week, you walk in as someone tempted to reinvent yourself, and Christ says through His Word, “You are Mine.” Not because you are intense enough, not because you are consistent enough, not because you are improved enough. Because He obeyed perfectly for you. Because He died for you. Because He was raised for you. Because He is coming again for you. You are not on an individual journey called “My Walk with Christ.” You are a baptized sinner whose life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). and will never fluctuate.

Faith in Christ for Sanctification.

 Faith acts upon Christ for justification, as he is a Jesus, or by receiving him as a Jesus; faith acts upon Christ for sanctification, as he is a Lord, or by receiving him as Lord.

- Ralph Erskine

Rejoice in Christ

 Be humble, and mourn over the many flaws and failures in your obedience; yet withal rejoice, and glory, and make your boast in the fullness, perfection, and unchangeableness of that righteousness of the Incarnate God which will place you without fault before the throne.

— Octavius Winslow (1808-1878),

No Condemnation in Christ Jesus: As Unfolded in the Eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans

John Cotton: Faith

 There is no more required of you than to lay hold on Christ. He does not look for perfection of faith, but truth of faith. Be your faith ever so weak, if true, it gives you Christ, and He gives you the promise, and that gives you eternal life.

—Puritan John Cotton, Works 3:310

That which makes us doubt [our salvation] is a secret cleaving to the works of the law. —Puritan John Cotton, Works 3:310

Empty Us

 'The Lord continues to empty us  in order to teach us to lay aside

all self-reliance that we may  cling to Christ alone."            --  PAUL WASHER

Abounding Grace

 We must not sin that grace may abound; but when we have sinned, we must make use of abounding grace.

—Puritan Thomas Manton, Works 11:158

Lived in Our Place

 Jesus not only died for us, He also lived for us. That is, all that Christ did in both His life and death, He did in our place as our substitute.

Jerry Bridges

Deaf in Church

 “The ears of many of our hearers are stopped with earth….

“Many sit and stare the minister in the face, yet scarce know a word he says…. “If a man be in a mill, though you speak never so loud to him, he does not hear you for the noise of the mill. We preach to men about matters of salvation, but the mill of worldly business makes such a noise that they cannot hear; ‘in hearing they hear not.’ “It being thus, ministers who are called ‘sons of thunder’ had need often ascend the mount and ‘lift up their voice like a trumpet’ (Isa. 58:1) that the deaf ear may be syringed and unstopped, and may ‘hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches’ (Rev. 2:7).” — Thomas Watson

One Hour in Heaven

One Hour in Heaven 

by Charles Spurgeon. 

 Philippians 1 23. I desired to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. 

 What would it be like to have one hour in heaven? Not to escape trouble merely, nor to walk golden streets for novelty's sake, but to be where Jesus is? That is the believer's greatest joy, the sum and substance of all heavenly delight. Paul did not long for death because he was weary of life, but because being with Jesus was better by far than even the most fruitful life on earth. The streets of gold, the gates of pearl. What are these to me? My heaven is to see my Savior's face and lie forever in his embrace. In one hour in heaven, the soul would drink more deeply of joy than in a lifetime below. 

Here on earth, even the most blessed moments are but sips from a thimble. There the believer drinks from the river of God's pleasures. All sin left behind. No more weary striving against the flesh. No more battling the darkness. In that hour, holiness would not be a struggle, but a nature complete, untainted, radiant. Think of it. One hour of seeing the face of Jesus. Not by faith, not through a veil, but face to face. The lamb slain yet enthroned. The wounds still visible yet glorified. 

That one sight would eclipse every earthly treasure and all former sorrows. The mind would be filled with divine truth. The heart would be consumed with perfect love. And the will would be fully surrendered in joyful obedience. No distractions, no doubts. No distance, only worship, adoration, and praise. The believer would be among the redeemed from every nation, singing the song of the lamb. Yet not one moment would be spent drawing attention to self, but all glory would be directed to the one who bought us with his blood. Just one hour in such a place would make every earthly loss seem light, and every affliction but momentary. 

What holy motivation this should bring? If an hour there is so rich, then how can we live for the fading trifles of time? How can we cling to dust and shadows when the substance awaits? Let us fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen? Let us live not for fleeting temporal comforts, but for the eternal weight of glory. For one hour in heaven will soon be followed by endless ages in the presence of our matchless king.

Superficial Evangelism

 There is a superficial evangelism which puts the gospel entirely in terms of human beings. Are you unhappy? Are you worried? Do you want this or that? Come to Christ and you will get it. And so people come. They have never trembled under the holy law of God, and that is because they were never taught it. 'Well,' they say, 'I'm all right now, I'm forgiven.' And they are negligent about their conduct. They have not realized its importance because they do not know why a person is saved.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Happy Joy

 “You must find joy in God, or you will not find joy at all.”

— Charles Spurgeon

God is Happy! All Happiness is in God, and all happiness is derived from God.

--inspired by puritan material

Understanding the Facts

"Unregenerate man is fully capable of understanding the facts of the gospel: he is simply incapable, due to his corruption and enmity, to submit himself to that gospel. And he surely responds to God every day: negatively, in rebellion and self-serving sinfulness, The Reformed assertion is that man cannot understand and embrace the gospel nor respond in faith and repentance toward Christ without God first freeing him from sin and giving him spiritual life (regeneration)."

— James White

Worthless Nobodies

Many Christians become discouraged and disheartened when their spiritual life and witness suffer because of sin or failure. We tend to think we're worthless nobodies—and left to ourselves, that would be true! 

 But worthless nobodies are just the kind of people God uses, because that is all He has to work with. 

God chooses the humble, the lowly, the meek, and the weak so that there's never any question about the source of power when they change the world. It's not the man; it's the truth of God and the power of God in the man. 

 — John MacArthur