Author: Sherry

Even Grace for Grace

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. – Hebrews 11:6

Jesus says, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” You have to live with Christ to know Him, and the longer you live with Him the more will you admire and adore Him; yes, and the more will you receive from Him, even grace for grace. Truly He is a blessed Christ to one who is but a month old in grace; but these babes can hardly tell what a precious Jesus He is to those whose acquaintance with Him covers well-nigh half a century! Jesus, in the esteem of abiding believers, grows sweeter and dearer, fairer and more lovely, day by day. Not that He improves in Himself, for He is perfect; but that as we increase in our knowledge of Him, we appreciate more thoroughly His matchless excellences. How glowingly do His old acquaintances exclaim, “Yea, He is altogether lovely”! Oh, that we may continue to grow up into Him in all things who is our head, that we thus may prize Him more and more! *

How much of our prayer is not prayer to God at all. It is nominally so, but it is really a muttering to the winds, a talking to the air, for the presence of God is not realized by the mind, “He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.” Do you know what it is mentally to lay hold upon the great unseen One, and to talk with Him as really as you talk to a friend whose hand you grip? How heavenly to speak right down into God’s ear, to pour your heart directly into God’s heart, feeling that you live in Him as the fish live in the sea, and that your every thought and word are discerned by Him.

It is true pleading when the Lord is present to you, and you realize His presence, and speak under the power and influence of His divine overshadowing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

*https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-secret-of-power-in-prayer/#flipbook/

Nathanael, the Man Needed for the Day 

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. Before Jehovah’s awful throne we bow with sacred joy.

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Practical Christianity

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? – 1 John 3:17

Words! Words! Words! Chaff! Chaff!! Chaff!!! If there be no act there is no sympathy. There is no Christian sympathy in all this if it does not, when needed, prove itself by real gifts of our substance. Zealous words will not warm the cold; delicate words will not feed the hungry; the freest speech will not set free the captive or visit him in prison; the most adorned words will not clothe the naked, and the words that are most full of unction will not pour oil and wine into the wounds of the sick. 

I am persuaded that there are times when, if Christ were upon earth, He would dwell mainly upon the themes of practical Christianity. I read my Master’s Sermon on the Mount, and what doctrine is there in it? It is all precept from beginning to end; not doctrine, but precept; for this I know, we want to see in the Christian world more of the practical carrying out of the loving benevolence of the Savior. What care I about the doctrines for which you fight, unless they produce in you the spirit of Christ? What care I for your forms of faith and your ceremonies, if all the while you are a Nabal, wickedly saying in your heart, “Shall I take my bread and my water to give it unto these strangers?” Oh! let your faith be a living faith, lest, while you have the form of godliness, you deny the power thereof. Time was when, wherever a man met a Christian he met a helper. “I shall starve!” said he, until he saw a Christian’s face, and then he said, “Now shall I be aided.” But some have thrown benevolence aside and imagine that these are old duties of a legal character. Legal, then, will I be, when, in my Master’s name, again I say, “To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

Loving the Brethren

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance Leave a comment

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. – 1 John 4:11

Dear Christian friends, I think our experience is not so available as it might be for the good of others. In the olden times they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard. You will find your brethren often distressed in mind; you have passed through the same stage; conversation with them will help them to escape as you have done. More especially is this conversation very valuable under the pangs of conviction. When a young man or woman has been awakened under the ministry, I charge you each before God, you that have found peace in Christ, to watch the throes and agonies of the new birth and be at hand to take the little child and nurse it for Christ. The senior members of every Christian church should consider themselves, as called by their very position, to look after the young. We have some such here; we want a few more. We want you mothers in Israel, especially, to be so sympathetic that you may no sooner hear that a soul is in distress than you are in distress too till you have poured in the oil and the wine into their wounds. I think this sympathy should be especially shown to any that backslide. There is a tendency to cut such off from the Church-book and then leave them. This should not be; we must look after that which is out of the way. The shepherd must leave the ninety and nine sheep to go after the one which has gone astray. If you see one vacillating be most careful there. If you detect in any a growing coldness, be the more anxious to foster that which remains, which is ready to die. Let a holy discipline and watchfulness be maintained over the entire Church, by the care and forethought of every one for his next friend. Thus, can you practically allow your Christian sympathy.

Stand up for your brethren…Stand up for all that are your fellow-soldiers: be jealous of the honor of the regiment in which you have enlisted. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

Living to Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life Leave a comment

We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. – 2 Corinthians 6:5

Some say that there is very little Christian sympathy abroad. I do not believe them, except as regards themselves. I dare say they have measured other men’s corn with their own bushels. When any say, “O, there is no love in the Church,” I have always noticed that, without exception, they have no love themselves. On the other hand, we have heard others say, “What a blessed unity there is in the Church; when we come to the Tabernacle it does us good to get such hearty shakes of the hand, and to see such love in every brother’s eye.” When they speak thus, I know the reason is that they carry fire in their own hearts, and then they think the Church warm, while the others carry lumps of ice in their hearts, and then they imagine that everybody must be cold.

One of the great impediments to Christian sympathy is our own intense selfishness. We are all selfish by nature, and it is a work of grace to break this thoroughly down, until we live to Christ, and not to self any longer. How often is the rich man tempted to think that his riches are his own. A certain lady being accosted by a beggar, who asked charity of her; she gave him a shilling, saying, “Take that shilling; it is more than God ever gave me.” The beggar said, “O, Madam, but God has given you all your abundance.” “Nay,” said she, “but I am right; God has only lent me what I have; all I have is a loan.” I would that all who are entrusted with this world’s substance felt that it was only loaned out to them, and that they were stewards. Now, a steward, when he has orders to give a poor man a large sum of money, does not say, “Dear me, that will make me poor!” He never considered that which was entrusted to him belonged to him, and so he gives it freely enough. So, remember, you have nothing of your own; specially you Christian men, who have been bought with a price, you are in a double sense stewards unto God, and should act as such; living to God, we should devote ourselves to the good of the race for Jesus’ sake. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

Sympathy is Essential to Our Usefulness

Sherry Christian Life Leave a comment

Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? – James 2:5

Cold and impassive are some of our divines; they utter truth as though it were no concern of theirs whether men received it or no. To such men heaven and hell, death and eternity, are mere themes for oratory, but not subjects for emotion. The man who will do good must throw himself into his words and put his whole being into intense communion with the truth which he utters. God’s true minister cannot preach a sermon upon the ruin of man without feeling a deep amazement in his own spirit, because of the burden of the Lord. He cannot, on the other hand, unfold the joys of pardon and the love of Jesus without a leaping heart and rejoicing tongue. The man who is devoid of love will be devoid of power, for sympathies are golden chains by which Christian orators draw men’s ears and hearts to themselves and the truths they teach. “I preached,” said one, “when I spake of condemnation as though I wore the chains about my own arm, and heard them clanking in my ears.” “And I,” another might have said, “I preached of pardon bought with blood, as though I had myself just come up from the sacred fountain, having left my foulness all behind, and being girt about with the white linen which is the righteousness of the saints.” If our hearers perceive that we do not really long for their good, that our preaching is but a matter of mere routine to be got through as so much irksome “duty,” can we hope to win their hearts? But when they feel that there is a loving heart within the preacher, then they give the more earnest heed to the things whereof we speak. You Sunday-school teachers, you must have warm hearts, or you will be of little use to your children. You street-preachers, city missionaries, Bible women, and tract distributors, you who in any way seek to serve our Lord—a heart, a heart, a heart, a tender heart, a flaming heart, a heart saturated with intense sympathy, this, when sanctified by the Holy Spirit, will give you success in your endeavors. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm

The Joy in Holding the Sorrows of Others

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises Leave a comment

“I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” – Acts 20:35

If you want joy—joy that you may think upon at nights, and live upon day after day, next to the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, is the joy of doing good. The selfish man thinks that he has the most enjoyment in laying out his wealth upon himself. Poor fool! his interest is vastly small compared with the immense return which generosity, and liberality, and sympathy bring to the man who exercises them. Be ye assured that we can know as much joy in another’s joy as in our own joy… We may never have known what it is to want bread, but to see a saint who has been brought to the door of starvation and yet has had his bread given and his water sure, may be almost as useful. You and I may not be tortured with the pangs of sickness or the weakness of decay, but to climb some three pairs of stairs to a miserable back room, and to see a child of God patient in his tribulation, and to put ourselves by sympathy upon his bed, and suffer and smart with him, may give us the next best thing to the experience itself. I do think, brethren, that some men may live twenty lives, and get the experience of twenty men, and the information and real good of twenty men’s troubles, by having large hearts which can hold the sorrows of others. Oh! we cannot tell how much blessedness we might receive if we were more free to aid our fellows. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Ask any man who has been to visit the sick, the poor, and the needy, whether he has not come home more resigned to his own trials, and more satisfied with his own lot. We gave a shilling and received a casket of pearls which dropped from the lips of the poor suffering one while he told of God’s faithfulness, and the preciousness of the love of Christ. We are great losers when we know not these rich poor saints. If we would but trade with them ’twere a blessed barter for us. Coral and pearl—let no mention be made of them in comparison with the priceless gems which we might receive if we had greater sympathy and fuller communion with the suffering sons and daughters of Jerusalem. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0479.cfm