Hastening Fast

 "We are hastening fast through time. Time is short, and eternity, with all its solemn realities, is before us. What is our life? How uncertain! and yet is it not awfully true that poor wretched man rushes heedlessly on, thoughtless of what awaits him in an endless eternity? We are traveling fast through this wilderness world, and soon shall pass away. Let us, then, feel more like pilgrims and strangers here. Let us not seek our rest where our precious Jesus had no place to lay His head. Let us rejoice more in the prospect of that glorious inheritance prepared for us above, where He is who has loved us unto the death. Oh, for ten thousand worlds would I not have my portion here in this wilderness!"

~ Mary Winslow 1774-1854 (mother of Octavius Winslow)

God's Mercy, Love, Promise

 "Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love, and the future to God's providence."

-Augustine

Main Cause of Fear

 …what after all, is the main cause of this spirit of fear? The answer is ‘self’ — self-love, self-concern, self-protection. Had you realized that the essence of this trouble is that these fearful people are really too absorbed in self — how can I do this, what if I fail? ‘I’ — they are constantly turning in upon themselves, looking at themselves and concerned about themselves.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Solely Because what Christ Did

 God accepts both a sinner who only believed in Christ five minutes ago, and a saint who has known and loved Him for eighty years, for He does not accept men because of anything they do or feel, but simply and solely because of what Christ did.

-- Charles Spurgeon.

This was a Spanish to English Translation on twitter, so I am not sure the exact wording in English, if the translator used approximations.

Look to Christ

 Whenever sin stings you, and objections trouble you, look to the brazen serpent; confess sin, and trust for pardon; meditate on Christ's righteousness, and the abundance of grace in him (Rom viii, 32).

--Walter Marshall.

The Only Happiness

 I find the only happiness is to lie down as a poor sinner at the feet of the once crucified, but now exalted Lamb of God, who died for our sins and rose again for our justification.

George Whitefield

All of us need Grace

 All of us need grace, the saint as well as the sinner. The most conscientious, dutiful, hardworking Christian needs God’s grace as much as the most dissolute, hard-living sinner. All of us need the same grace. The sinner doesn’t need more grace than the saint, nor does the immature and undisciplined believer need more than the godly, zealous missionary. We all need the same amount because the “currency” of our good works is debased and worthless before God.

-- Jerry Bridges

God's Grace

 God’s grace cuts both ways: It can neither be earned by your merit nor forfeited by your demerit.

-- Jerry Bridges.

You are free.

 “Either sin is lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God - and if it is resting on Christ, you are free."

-Martin Luther

After Ten Thousand Sins

 “After ten thousand sins he loves you as infinitely as ever.”

— Charles Spurgeon

All Fail and Falter

 None of us would have any hope of arriving at glory if it depended upon us. I mean this. Even those who are regenerate, even those of us who are born again, even those of us who have the gift of faith, if it were left to us, we should all fail and falter.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

We are His

 “We are weak, but we are His."

- Richard Sibbes

Free Grace will Fix

 Free grace will fix those, whom free will shook down into a gulph of misery.

- Thomas Boston

The Perfect Goodness of Jesus

 The gospel daily reminds us that from God's point of view, our relationship with Him is not based on how good or bad we've been but upon the perfect goodness and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jerry Bridges

Daily Lament

 “It is our daily lament that we cannot love God enough.”

— Charles Spurgeon

Look to Christ Every Day

 My dear friend, I am a poor sinner still; and I have to look to Christ every day as I did at the very first.

--Charles Spurgeon. 

Does Jesus Love Me

 It is a question that many believers have asked. It is often on the mind of the downcast and discouraged. “Does Jesus love me?” It may be a nagging doubt or an agonizing cry of the heart—possibly quite similar to

Psalm 22:1

. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” sounds much like, “God, do you really love me?”

While this may be a common experience for the Christian, we must look to the not-very-common answer. In other words, we need the biblically satisfying solution to such deep longing.

To arrive there, we begin where the Scriptures begin, and not with our own subjective experience. We so easily look to ourselves for the answer: “Do I feel loved? Am I really all that lovable? Have I obeyed Jesus enough that He would love me?” But all these subjective attempts at comfort are no comfort at all. Who among us has ever-steady emotions? Who, biblically speaking, is lovable in their own right? Who could ever obey enough to be acceptable in their own righteousness before a holy God? The Scriptures are clear on these points: no one.

No, the solution to this fundamental question is not in ourselves. Rather, it is in the person and work of Jesus. When the Scriptures encourage us with the reality of Christ’s love for His people, they always look to Him and never to us.

“But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (

Rom. 5:8

, BSB). Don’t miss how that verse begins: “God proves his love for us.” How is it that we know God loves us? He sent Christ to save us even when we were yet His enemies. Elsewhere, the Apostle John argues the exact same way: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (

1 John 4:10

). When we doubt the love of God in our lives, we must look to what Christ has objectively done for us, in that He came, He pursued, He sought us, He saved. After all, this was the very reason Christ came into the world: to seek and to save His people (

Luke 19:10

).

God’s perfect love flows from Him and is entirely of Him, as He places it upon us.

This type of love, a love that originates entirely in God and not in our own loveliness, is at the heart of biblical “unconditional love,” or agape love. God’s perfect love flows from Him and is entirely of Him, as He places it upon us. While we are devoid of everything lovable, excellent, praiseworthy, or beautiful, God lavishes His love upon us. He did this “in order to make known the riches of his glory,” as

Romans 9:15–23

makes clear. The love that God shows us, now His children in Christ, is entirely free and gracious, flowing from Him to us, not because of us, but entirely because of Him.

Once we can comprehend this type of love, it is a glorious and encouraging reality. Human love is so often grounded in the object of our love, which is why people speak of “falling in and out of love.” What makes our hearts sing one day leaves us disappointed and despairing the next. We can be so fickle. Then we take our ever-changing, always-conditional love, and read our humanness back into God. We think He loves like we love. May it never be. The unmerited love that God displays toward us is of an entirely different kind. Listen to how

Ephesians 1

describes it: “He chose us . . . before the foundation of the world . . . in love . . . according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (

Eph. 1:4–6

).

He chose us in Christ. He perfectly loves Jesus, described here as “the Beloved.” That is who Christ is—the loved one of God. And out of Himself, He loves us just as He loves Christ, and this from all eternity. Could there be any greater news?

If ever there is a question about whether God loves us, the biblical solution is not to look to ourselves, our love, or our faithfulness. Instead, we are called to look at the objective reality of what God has done for us in Christ. We are to ground our certainty and assurance of His love in who He is and what He has done—not in ourselves, which is ever-shifting sand.

As biblical theologian Geerhardus Vos famously said,

“The best proof that He will never cease to love us” is “that He never began.”

Jesus has loved us from all eternity. He has always and will always love His people—His sheep—His precious chosen ones. As the children’s song so simply and profoundly puts it, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” May this be all the answer to the question “Does Jesus love me?” we ever need. The answer, in Christ, is “yes.”

Dr. Keith A. Evans is associate professor of biblical counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C., and a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Love of God

 The love of God has no meaning apart from Calvary. And Calvary has no meaning apart from the holy and just wrath of God. Jesus did not die just to give us peace and a purpose in life; He died to save us from the wrath of God.

--Jerry Bridges

All Our Existence

 “The better we know God, the more we will want all of our existence to revolve around him, and we will see that the only goals and plans that really matter are those that are somehow tied to God himself, and to our eternity with him.”

– D. A. Carson

Through Faith

 We are not said to be justified 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘮 (on account of faith) but 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘮 (through faith).

—Puritan Thomas Manton, Works 13:478

Faith is said to justify, because without it we cannot apprehend the righteousness of Christ; as the hand may be said to feed and nourish the body, but the nutritive virtue is not in the hand, but in the meat. —Puritan Thomas Manton, Works 13:477

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.