Attributes of God

Believe Simply

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

I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. – 2 Timothy 1:12

It used to be a fashion, and I fear in some quarters still, to think that mistrust of our own condition, and doubt concerning our own salvation, is a kind of virtue. I have met with good people, who would not say that they were saved; they “hoped” that they were; and I have met with others who were not sure that they were cleansed by the precious blood of Christ; they “trusted” that they were. This state of mind is not a credit either to Christ, or to ourselves. If I told my son something, and he were to say to me, “I hope you will keep your word, father,” I should not feel that he treated me as he ought. Surely, to believe Christ up to the hilt is the way to honour Him. If we are one with Him, we lose the comfort of it if we do not know certainly the fact of our blessed union; we miss much of the confidence that comes of it if we do not clearly apprehend the reality; and we are robbed of much of the joy which it brings, and how little of the meaning of that word “the joy of the Lord is your strength,” unless we believe simply like children, and take the word to mean what it says, and are certain about it. This is an age of doubt; but, as for me, I will have none of it; I have doubted enough, and more than enough; I have done with it long ago; and I can say with Paul, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep which I have committed unto Him against that day.” Salvation is by faith. Damnation comes by doubt. Doubt is the death of all comfort, the destruction of all force, the enemy of God and man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

United in Christ

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

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. – Ephesians 5:30

Whatever belongs to Christ belongs to you, poor believer! Christ is rich, can you be poor? Even His Father is your Father, and His heaven is your heaven; for you are so one with Him that all the broad possession of His infinite wealth are given freely to you. He bestows upon you His bounty, not only “to the half of the kingdom”, but the whole of it. Joined to Him, all that He has is yours.

Christ is very dear to His Father’s heart. “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” was the word which came from the opened heaven concerning Christ; and as God delights in Christ, so is He also well pleased with you who are in Christ. Yes, He is as pleased with you as He is with Christ; for He sees you in Christ, and Christ in you. God makes no division between you and Him to whom He has joined you. “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Certainly God will never separate that which He has united in Christ. Do not put yourself asunder from Christ, even in your thoughts, by supposing that you are not well-beloved of God even as His own covenant Head.

Whatever Christ is to be, you are to be a sharer of it all. How can you die while Jesus lives? How can the body die, while the head lives? If we go through the waters, they cannot overflow us until they overflow our head. While a man’s head is above water, he cannot be drowned. And Christ up yonder, in the eternities of glory, can never be conquered: neither can those be vanquished who are one with him…”We believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death shall have no dominion over Him.” Where He goes, we shall follow. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

The Sympathy of Head and Members

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

…even as Christ is the head of the church: and He is the saviour of the body. – Ephesians 5:23

The head and the members, in a healthy body, are practically one…All true Christians will do anything to save their Head. He saved us, and now our desire is to save Him. We cannot bear that He should be insulted, that His gospel should be despised, or that anything would be done against His sacred dignity. We are so one with our glorious Head, that the moment anyone strikes at Him, up goes our hand immediately in His defense. Oh! I trust that you know what this means; if you are ever put up to the pain of hearing Christ’s gospel falsely preached or seeing professedly Christian men bringing disgrace upon His dear name, you feel at once that you would rather bear any pain, or any reproach, than that Christ should be injured. The hand is so one with the head, that it endeavours to screen it.

Between the head and the members there is also union of feeling. If the head aches, you feel it all over, you are altogether ill; and if your finger aches, your head does not feel well. There is such a sympathy between all parts of the body that, “whether one member suffer, all members suffer with it; or one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now, ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” Christ is our Head, and the Head specially suffers with the members. I do not know whether it is always so clear that one hand suffers with another hand, as it is clear that the head suffers with either hand. So is it with the church. It may not always be clear that all the members sympathize with each other, but it is always clear that Christ sympathizes with each one of His people. There is a quicker way, somehow, from the head to the hand, than there is from one hand to the other, and there is a keener sympathy between Christ and His people than there often is between one of His servants and another. It is written concerning His people that “In all their affliction He was afflicted.” In all thy sorrows, child of God thy heavenly Head feels the pain! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

A Union of Life and Love

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

“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” – Ephesians 5:23

Here you have a union, not only of life, but also of love. It is worthy of notice that the two words, “live” and “love”, should be so like each other. In spiritual things, the two things are not only similar, but they are also exactly alike. Love is the life; and life is always first sent, and chiefly sent in the form of love.

With the true husband, his wife is himself. The Scripture saith, “He that loveth his wife loveth himself;” and I believe that Christ considers that, when He loves His church, He loves Himself. His care for us is now His care for Himself. Since He has taken us to be in eternal wedded union with Himself, He regards us as Himself, and He cares for us as He cares for Himself: “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” No sane man will injure his own flesh. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” So Christ takes care of His people, because He regards them as being bound to Himself by those bonds which make them to be as Himself. Hence, we are kept as the apple of His eye.

However close may be the union of husband and wife, the union between the believer and Christ is closer still. Oh, to realize more and more of it each day!

“O Jesus! Make Thyself to me
A living, bright reality;
More present to faith’s vision keen
More than any outward object seen.
More dear, more intimately nigh,
Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie!”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

A Living Union

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 6 Comments

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. – John 15:5

“I am the vine, ye are the branches,” is the word of Christ to His disciples. There is a living union between Christ and His people; and I hope that I can appeal to the experience of many here present who know that there is a living union between them and Christ. Happy is the man who can say, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me”!

The union is even more than a union of life; it is a union of derived life. The branch is in such union with the stem that it receives all its sap from it; it could not live unless the living juices flowed from the stem into it. And such is our life. Christ pours His lifeblood into us. Perpetually, as long as He exists, He seems to be oozing out into His people. In fact, when His wounds were open, He bled life into us; and when His heart was burst, He changed our hearts, and gave them life, though they once were hearts of stone. We are so one with Christ, that we at first received our life from Him, and we continue to receive it from Him every moment.

In consequence of the life of Christ in us, we grow. The growing of the branch is really the growing of the vine. It is because the stem grows that it sends its growth into the branch, and manifests it there. As Christ pours His life-force into us, He makes us grow, to the praise of the glory of His grace. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

One with Christ in the Design of God

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

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious… – 1 Peter 2:4

The architect, in placing the stone, was following out his plan. He planned the foundation and thought of every course; and the stone is essential to the wall, even as the foundation is essential to the stone. Thus, we are one with Christ in the design of God. Reverently we say it, that God’s purpose comprehends not only Christ, but the whole company of His elect; and without His chosen people, the design of Jehovah can never be accomplished. He is building a temple to His praise; but a temple cannot be all foundation. There is a necessity for every stone in the wall; in the divine purpose, there is a necessity that such a one should be a living stone, and such a one should be another living stone. The weakest and the meanest of the Lord’s people are as necessary as the noblest and the most beautiful, though indeed all are without any praise until they are built into the wall. He that chose Christ, chose all His people; He arranged that they should be built up together, and in Him “all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” Oh, I like to think of each one of us, however insignificant we may appear to be, as being bricks or stones in that great temple of almighty grace! Perhaps some of us may stand where everybody can see us; but what does it matter? If we are in the wall at all, it is well. Wherever you are placed, we are joined to Christ; and therefore no one has a pre-eminence over any other, because we are all alike built upon the one foundation, even Jesus Christ our Lord, into whom we daily grow, pressing closer and closer to Him in experience, and holding tighter and tighter to Him by faith. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm

The Foundation and the Stone

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 2 Comments

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious… – 1 Peter 2:4

The union between Christ and the believer is described as the union of the foundation and the stone. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.” We are built on Christ and built up into Him. We lie upon Him just as the stone rests on the foundation. The stone is one with the foundation in its dependence. In the time of our need we press the closer to Christ; the heavier our hearts, the more we bear our weight upon Him. It is the heavy stone that clings to the foundation; the light stone, perchance, might be blown away. But we cling at all times, depending wholly upon Him, even as the stone rests upon the rock beneath. The stone does not bear up its own weight: it just rests where it is put. So do we rest on Christ. He is the foundation, and we repose on Him.

In old Roman walls, you cannot get a stone away; for the cement, which joins the stone to its fellows is as strong as the stone itself; and, truly, that which joins us to Christ is stronger than we are. We might be broken, but the bond of love, which holds us like a mighty cement to Christ, who is our foundation, can never be broken away. We have actually become one with Him, as I have often seen stones in the walls of an old castle become one with each other. You could not get them away; they are part and parcel of the wall, and it would have been necessary to blow the wall to pieces before you could separate the stones from one another. So have we, by God’s grace, become one with Christ, experimentally and indissolubly. The course of years has bound us still faster to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2244.cfm