Character of Jesus

Still He is So Good, So Supremely Good

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 10 Comments

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. – Habakkuk 3:17

Brethren, if the Lord does not answer the prayer which we are offering, yet still He is so good, so supremely good, that we will bless Him whether or no. We ought even to praise Him when He does not answer us, ay, and bless Him for refusing our desires. How devoutly might some of us thank Him that He did not answer our prayers when we sought for evil things in the ignorance of our childish minds. We asked for flesh, and He might have sent us quails in His anger, and while the flesh was yet in our mouths His wrath might have come upon us; but in love He would not hear us. Blessed be His name for closing His ear in pity! Let us adore Him when He keeps us waiting at His doors; thank Him for rebuffs, and bless Him for refusals…Ralph Erskine spoke the truth when he said:

“I’m heard when answered soon or late,
Yea, heard when I no answer get:
Yea, kindly answered when refused,
And treated well when harshly used.”

Faith glorifies the love of God, for she knows that the Lord’s roughest usage is only love in disguise…Though He slay us we will trust in Him, much more if He decline our requests. We ask Him for our daily bread, and if He withhold it we will praise Him. Our praises are not suspended upon His answers to our prayers. If the labour of the olive should fail, and the field should yield no fruit; if the flock should be cut off from the fold, and the herd from the stall, yet still would we rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation. Blessed Spirit, raise us to this state of grace and keep us there. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

Believe That Ye Have It

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

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. – Mark 11:24

When I was conversing lately with our dear friend George Miller, he frequently astonished me with the way in which he mentioned that he had for so many months and years asked for such and such a mercy, and praised the Lord for it. He praised the Lord for it as though he had actually obtained it. Even in praying for the conversion of a person, as soon as he had begun to intercede he began also to praise God for the conversion of that person. Though I think he told us he had in one instance already prayed for thirty years and the work was not yet done, yet all the while he had gone on thanking God, because he knew the prayer would be answered. He believed that he had his petition, and commenced to magnify the Giver of it. Is this unreasonable? How often do we antedate our gratitude among the sons of men! If you were to promise some poor person that you would pay his rent when it came due, he would thank you directly, though not a farthing had left your pocket. We have enough faith in our fellow-men to thank them beforehand, and surely we may do the same with our Lord. Shall we not be willing to trust God for a few months ahead, ay, and for years beforehand, if His wisdom bids us wait. This is the way to win with Him. When ye pray, believe that ye receive the boons ye ask, and ye shall have them. “Believe that ye have it,” says the Scripture, “and ye shall have it.” As a man’s note of hand stands for the money, so let God’s promise be accounted as the performance. Shall not heaven’s bank-notes pass as cash? Yea, verily, they shall have unquestioned currency among believers. We will bless the Lord for giving us what we have sought, since our having it is a matter of absolute certainty. We shall never thank God by faith and then find that we were befooled. He has said, “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” And therefore we may rest assured that the thanksgiving of faith shall never bring shame into the face of the man who offers it.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

A Royal Way of Praying

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God 10 Comments

And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. – 2 Corinthians 12:9

When we come before God in the hour of trouble, remembering His great goodness to us in the past, and therefore thanking Him, we ought to have faith enough to believe that the present trouble, about which we are praying, is sent in love. You will win with God in prayer if you can look at your trials in this light:-“Lord, I have this thorn in the flesh. I beseech Thee, deliver me from it, but meanwhile I bless Thee for it; for though I do not understand the why or the wherefore of it, I am persuaded there is love within it; therefore, while I ask Thee to remove it, so far as it seemeth evil to me, yet wherein it may to Thy better knowledge work my good, I bless Thee for it, and I am content to endure it so long as Thou seest fit.” Is not that a sweet way of praying? “Lord, I am in want, be pleased to supply me; but, meanwhile, if Thou do not, I believe it is better for me to be in need, and so I praise Thee for my necessity while I ask Thee to supply it. I glory in mine infirmity, even while I ask Thee to overcome it. I triumph before Thee in my affliction, and bless Thee for it even while I ask Thee to help me in it and to rescue me out of it.” This is a royal way of praying: such an amalgam of prayer and thanksgiving is more precious than the gold of Ophir.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

Recollect His Great Goodness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 8 Comments

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

Beloved, beyond the fact of prayer and our power to exercise it, there is a further ground of thanksgiving that we have already received great mercy at God’s hands. We are not coming to God to ask favours and receive them for the first time in our lives. Why, blessed be His name, if He never granted me another favour, I have enough for which to thank Him as long as I have any being. And this, moreover, is to be recollected, that whatever great things we are about to ask, we cannot possibly be seeking for blessings one-half so great as those which we have already received if we are indeed His children. If thou art a Christian, thou hast life in Christ. Art thou about to ask for meat and raiment? The life is more than these. Thou hast already obtained Christ Jesus to be thine, and He that spared Him not will deny thee nothing. Is there, I was about to say, anything to compare with the infinite riches which are already ours in Christ Jesus? Let us perpetually thank our Benefactor for what we have while we make request for something more. Should it not be so? Shall not the abundant utterances of the memory of His great goodness run over into our requests, till our petitions are baptized in gratitude. While we come before God, in one aspect, empty handed to receive of His goodness, on the other hand we should never appear before Him empty, but come with the fat of our sacrifices, offering praise and glorifying God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

Bless God for Prayer

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

It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. -Lamentations 3:22

Let us praise His name, dear friends, also especially that you and I are still spared to pray and permitted to pray. What if we are greatly afflicted, yet it is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed. If we had received our deserts we should not now have been on praying ground and pleading terms with Him. But let it be for our comfort and to God’s praise that still we may stand with bowed head and cry each one, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Still may we cry like sinking Peter, “Lord save, or I perish.” Like David, we may be unable to go up to the temple, but we can still go to our God in prayer. The prodigal has lost his substance, but he has not lost his power to supplicate. He has been feeding swine, but as yet he is still a man, and has not lost the faculty of desire and entreaty. He may have forgotten his father, but his father has not forgotten him; he may arise and he may go to him, and he may pour out his soul in his father’s bosom. Therefore, let us give thanks unto God that He has nowhere said unto us, “Seek ye My face in vain.” If we find a desire to pray trembling within our soul, and if though almost extinct we feel some hope in the promise of our gracious God, if our heart still groans after holiness and after God, though she hath lost her power to pray with joyful confidence as once she did, yet let us be thankful that we can pray even if it be but a little. In the will and power to pray there lies the capacity for infinite blessedness: he who hath the key of prayer can open heaven, yea, he hath access to the heart of God; therefore, bless God for prayer.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

The Grace of Supplication

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all Thy works. -Psalm 73:28

It is worthy of thanksgiving that God should have commanded prayer and encouraged us to draw near unto Him; and that moreover He should have supplied all things necessary to the sacred exercise. He has set up a mercy seat, blood besprinkled; and He has prepared a High Priest, ever living to make intercession; and to these He has added the Holy Ghost to help our infirmities and to teach us what we should pray for as we ought. Everything is ready, and God waits for us to enquire at His hands. He has not only set before us an open door and invited us to enter, but He has given us the right spirit with which to approach. The grace of supplication is poured out upon us and wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. What a blessing it is that we do not attempt prayer with a peradventure, as if we were making a doubtful experiment, nor do we come before God as a forlorn hope, desperately afraid that He will not listen to our cry; but He has ordained prayer to be the ordinary commerce of heaven and earth, and sanctioned it in the most solemn manner. Prayer may climb to heaven, for God has Himself prepared the ladder and set it down just by the head of His lonely Jacob, so that though that head be pillowed on a stone it may rest in peace. Lo, at the top of that ladder is the Lord Himself in His covenant capacity, receiving our petitions and sending His attendant angels with answers to our requests. Shall we not bless God for this?~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm

A God Who Abounds in Lovingkindness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 10 Comments

But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:19

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah. -Psalm 68:19

We have abundant cause, my brethen, for thanksgiving at all times. We do not come to God in prayer as if He had left us absolutely penniless, and we cried to Him like starving prisoners begging through prison bars. We do not ask as if we had never received a single farthing of God before, and hardly thought we should obtain anything now; but on the contrary, having been already the recipients of immense favours, we come to a God who abounds in lovingkindness, who is willing to bestow good gifts upon us, and waits to be gracious to us. We do not come to the Lord as slaves to an unfeeling tyrant craving for a boon, but as children who draw nigh to a loving father, expecting to receive abundantly from his liberal hands. Thanksgiving is the right spirit in which to come before God who daily loadeth us with benefits. Bethink you for awhile what cause you have for thanksgiving in prayer.

And first you have this, that such a thing as prayer is possible, that a finite creature can speak with the infinite Creator, that a sinful being can have audience with the thrice-holy Jehovah. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1469.cfm