September 18th, 2008 Jeff
From tonight’s "Morning and Evening" via Spurgeon:
"And they follow me."—John 10:27
We should follow our Lord as unhesitatingly as sheep follow their shepherd, for He has a right to lead us wherever He pleases . We are not our own, we are bought with a price—let us recognize the rights of the redeeming blood. The soldier follows his captain, the servant obeys his master, much more must we follow our Redeemer, to whom we are a purchased possession. We are not true to our profession of being Christians, if we question the bidding of our Leader and Commander. Submission is our duty, cavilling is our folly. Often might our Lord say to us as to Peter, "What is that to thee? Follow thou Me." Wherever Jesus may lead us, He goes before us .
If we know not where we go, we know with whom we go . With such a companion, who will dread the perils of the road? The journey may be long, but His everlasting arms will carry us to the end. The presence of Jesus is the assurance of eternal salvation, because He lives, we shall live also. We should follow Christ in simplicity and faith, because the paths in which He leads us all end in glory and immortality . It is true they may not be smooth paths—they may be covered with sharp flinty trials, but they lead to the "city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant." Let us put full trust in our Leader, since we know that, come prosperity or adversity, sickness or health, popularity or contempt, His purpose shall be worked out, and that purpose shall be pure, unmingled good to every heir of mercy. … Precious Jesus, draw us, and we will run after Thee.
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August 10th, 2008 Jeff
As every day is His, these will work at all times too…
Tozer on looking outside ourselves:
“While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves - blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very thing he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him .”
- A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1993), 85.
[HT: Of First Importance ]
Wesley on singing in church:
"Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature . In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he comes in the clouds of heaven."
- John Wesley, from Select hymns with Tunes Annext: Designed chiefly for the Use of the People Called Methodists
[HT: Sojourn Music ]
I pray this happens again this morning as I preach:
And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord. ( 1 Samuel 3:21 )
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August 10th, 2008 Jeff
"Remember, then, dear friends, that the punishment of the flock was borne by the Shepherd, that the flock died in the Shepherd, and that the flock now live because the Shepherd lives; that their life is consequently a new life; that he will bring all his sheep that as yet are not called, out of their death in sin, even as he has been brought out of his own death; that he will lead onward and upward those that are called, even as he went onward and upward from the grave to the throne; that he will preserve them all their journey through, even as he was preserved by the blood of the everlasting covenant; and that he will perfect them even as he is perfect. Even as the God of peace has glorified his Son, so also will he bring all his chosen to eternal glory with him."
— Charles Spurgeon, "The Blood of the Covenant ," a sermon on Hebrews 13:20-21, delivered on August 2, 1874.
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June 8th, 2008 Jeff
“Transcendent living is Christ-centered living. Living for Christ is the only way you will ever be liberated from your bondage to the overwhelming tendency to shrink the size of your life to the size of your life. The only way to spin free of the narrow confines of your little cubicle kingdom is to live in the big sky country of Christ-centered living. You will never win the battle with yourself simply by saying ‘no’ to yourself. The battle only begins to be won when you say ‘yes’ to the call of your King, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
- Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2007), 99.
“Only love for Christ has the power to incapacitate the sturdy love for self that is the bane of every sinner, and only the grace of Christ has the power to produce that love.” (p. 105)
Ripped straight from Of First Importance . I highly recommend having their RSS feed , daily email or heading to their site each day for quotes like this.
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May 21st, 2008 Jeff
“I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His.”
- Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth
[HT: Of First Importance ]
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May 3rd, 2008 Jeff
"Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal of every condition."
- Jeremiah Burroughs , The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (listen to a discussion of the book here , highly recommended)
"…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
- The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-13
This hits home to the details of everyday life. Who doesn’t need to learn better how to be content?
Contentment is a heart issue. And it is a hard reality to cultivate. Our affections must be illuminated to see past our circumstances and surroundings to see the transcendent God who brings beauty, joy and contentment to any and all things.
Labor to be content in God. We are working through frustrations and disappointments to see Christ Himself as the sum of our joy and contentment in this life, as He is the source of life and the reason for our existence.
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May 2nd, 2008 Jeff
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. . . . The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any [person] is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that comprises the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.”
- A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy , chapter one, "Why We Must Think Rightly About God," p. 1
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April 30th, 2008 Jeff
"A person must confront his own sinfulness in all its ravaging depths before he can enjoy the comforts of salvation."
-Martin Luther
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April 24th, 2008 Jeff
By its nature, saving faith loves God and delights in God as the sum of all that could ever satisfy the soul.
—John Piper, Future Grace , p. 252.
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April 19th, 2008 Jeff
“How can we recover the new affection for Christ and his kingdom that so powerfully impacted our life-long worldliness, and in which we crucified the flesh with its lusts?
What was it that created that first love in any case? Do you remember? It was our discovery of Christ’s grace in the realization of our own sin. We are not naturally capable of loving God for himself, indeed we hate him. But in discovering this about ourselves, and in learning of the Lord’s supernatural love for us, love for the Father was born. Forgiven much, we loved much. We rejoiced in the hope of glory, in suffering, even in God himself. This new affection seemed first to overtake our worldliness, then to master it. Spiritual realities—Christ, grace, Scripture, prayer, fellowship, service, living for the glory of God—filled our vision and seemed so large, so desirable that other things by comparison seemed to shrink in size and become bland to the taste.
The way in which we maintain ‘the expulsive power of a new affection’ is the same as the way we first discovered it. Only when grace is still ‘amazing’ to us does it retain its power in us. Only as we retain a sense of our own profound sinfulness can we retain a sense of the graciousness of grace.”
- Sinclair Ferguson “Expelling Worldliness with a New Affection “
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