Character of Jesus

Love Believes the Best of Others

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

 

“…and to love one’s neighbor as oneself…” – Mark 12:33

True love believes good of others as long as ever it can, and when it is forced to fear that wrong has been done, love will not readily yield to evidence, but she gives the accused brother the benefit of many a doubt. When the thing is too clear, love says, “Yes, but the friend must have been under very strong temptation, and if I had been there I dare say I should have done worse;” or else love hopes that the erring one may have offended from a good though mistaken motive; she believes that the good man must have been mistaken, or he would not have acted so. Love, as far as she can, believes in her fellows. I know some persons who habitually believe everything that is bad, but they are not the children of love. Only tell them that their minister or their brother has killed his wife, and they would believe it immediately, and send out for a policeman: but if you tell them anything good of their neighbour, they are in no such hurry to believe you. Did you ever hear of gossips tittle-tattling approval of their neighbours? I wish the chatterers would take a turn at exaggerating other people’s virtues, and go from house to house trumping up pretty stories of their acquaintances. I do not recommend lying even in kindness, but that side of it would be such a novelty that I could almost bear with its evils for a change. Love, though it will not speak an untruth in praise of another, yet has a quick eye to see the best qualities of others, and it is habitually a little blind to their failings.

If you should ever be led into disappointments and sorrows by thinking too well of your fellow-men, you need not greatly blame yourself…I would not have you credulous, but I would have you trustful, for suspicion is a cruel evil. Few fall into the blessed error of valuing their fellow Christians at too high a rate.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

Love Covers

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life 3 Comments

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins. – Proverbs 10:12

True love refuses to see faults, unless it be that she may kindly help in their removal. Love has no wish to see faults. Noah’s younger son discovered and declared the shame of his father, but his other sons took a garment and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father: after this fashion does love deal with the sins of her brethren. She painfully fears that there may be something wrong, but she is loath to be convinced of it: she ignores it as long as she can, and wishes that she could deny it altogether. Love covers; that is, it never proclaims the errors of good men. There are busybodies abroad who never spy out a fault in a brother but they must needs hurry off to their next neighbour with the savoury news, and then they run up and down the street as though they had been elected common criers. It is by no means honourable to men or women to set up to be common informers. Yet I know some who are not half so eager to publish the gospel as to publish slander. Love stands in the presence of a fault, with a finger on her lip. If anyone is to smite a child of God, let it not be a brother. Even if a professor be a hypocrite, love prefers that he should fall by any hand rather than her own. Love covers all injuries by being silent about them, and acting as if they had never been. She sitteth alone, and keepeth silence. To speak and publish the wrong is too painful for her, for she fears to offend against the Lord’s people. She would rather suffer than murmur, and so, like a sheep before her shearers, she is dumb under injury…Oh that we had such love that it would cover all, and conceal all, so far as it is right and just that it should be covered and concealed. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

Bear It, and Be Not Vexed

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, salvation 3 Comments

Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. – John 4:9

When I begin to seek the conversion of anyone, I must try as much as ever I can to ignore any repulsiveness that there may be in his character. I know that he is a sinner, else I should not seek his salvation; but if he happens to be one who has fallen very low in the esteem of others, I must not treat him as such, but cover his worst points. You cannot possibly bring the Samaritan woman who has had five husbands into a right state of mind by “wondering that He spake with the woman.” Thus the disciples acted, but not so their Master, for He sat on the well and talked with her, and made Himself her willing companion that He might be her gracious Saviour; He ignored her sin so far as to converse with her for her good.

You will not long have begun this holy work before you will discover in the heart you seek to win much ignorance of the gospel. Bear with it, and bring forward the text which sheds light on that darkness, and teach the truth which will remove that error. Ere long you will have to contend with hardness of heart, for when a man knows the truth he is not always willing to receive it. Bear it, and be not vexed. Did you not expect the heart to be hard? Do not you know what business you are upon? You are sent to turn men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God. Be not astonished if these things should not prove to be child’s play.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

Overcoming Evil with Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises 4 Comments

Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. – 1 Corinthians 13:7

First, we overcome evil by patience, which “beareth all things.” Let the injury be inflicted, we will forgive it, and not be provoked: even seventy times seven will we bear in silence. If this suffice not, by God’s grace we will overcome by faith: we trust in Jesus Christ, we rely upon our principles, we look for divine succour, and so we “believe all things.” We overcome a third time by hope: we rest in expectation that gentleness will win, and that long-suffering will wear out malice, for we look for the ultimate victory of everything that is true and gracious, and so we “hope all things.” We finish the battle by perseverance: we abide faithful to our resolve to love, we will not be irritated into unkindness, we will not be perverted from generous, all-forgiving affection, and so we win the battle by steadfast non-resistance. We have set our helm towards the port of love, and towards it we will steer, come what may. Baffled often, love “endureth all things.” Does God seem Himself to smite love with afflictions? She “beareth all things.” Do her fellow Christians misrepresent her, and treat her ill? She believes everything that is good about them, and nothing that is injurious. Do the wicked rise against her? When she tries to convert them, do they return evil for good? She turns her hopefulness to the front in that direction, and hopes that yet the Spirit of God will bring them to a better mind. And does it happen that all her spiritual foes attack her with temptations and desperate insinuations? She lifteth up the banner of patience against them, and by the power of God’s grace she putteth the infernal enemy to the rout, for she “endureth all things.” What a brave mode of battle is this! Is not love a man-of-war? Is it not invincible? ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

A Divine Wonder: Salvation Unto Pure Love

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

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. – 1 Corinthians 13:13

If charity be in any man and abound, God must have the glory of it; for assuredly it was never attained by mere natural effort, but must have been bestowed by that same hand which made the heavens…What does this teach us at the outset, but that a salvation which leads to charity must be of God, and must be wrought in us by His power? Such a comely grace can never grow out of our fallen nature. Shall such a clean thing as this be brought out of an unclean? This glorious salvation unto pure love must be grasped by faith, and wrought in us by the operation of the Spirit of God. If we consider salvation to be a little thing, we bring it, as it were, within the sphere of human possibility, but if we set it forth in its true proportions as involving the possession of a pure, loving, elevated state of heart, then we perceive that it is a divine wonder. When we estimate the renewed nature aright we cry, “This is the finger of God,” and right gladly do we then subscribe to Jonah’s creed, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

When the grace of God comes into a man he is born at once to love. He that loveth is born of God, and he that is born of God loveth. He loveth Him that begat, even God, and he loveth him that is begotten of Him, even all the saved ones. He commences to obey the great command to love his neighbour as himself. His motto is no longer that of an earthly kingdom, Dieu et mon droit-God and my right; but he bears another word on his escutcheon, Dieu et mon frère-God and my brother. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

The Absolute Essential to True Godliness

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit 3 Comments

Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. – 1Corinthians 13:7

The grace of charity, or love, of which so much is most admirably spoken in this chapter, is absolutely essential to true godliness. So essential is it that, if we have everything beside, but have not charity, it profiteth us nothing. The absence of charity is absolutely fatal to vital godliness; so saith the Holy Ghost in this chapter. When, then, you read the apostle’s high encomiums of charity, do not say, “This is a fancy virtue to which certain special saints have attained, and we are bound to admire them for it, but we need not imitate them.” Far from it. This charity is the common, everyday livery of the people of God. It is not the prerogative of a few; it must be the possession of all. Do not, therefore, however lofty the model may be, look up to it as though you could not reach it: you must reach it. It is put before you not only as a thing greatly desirable, but as absolutely needful; for if you excelled in every spiritual gift, yet if you had not this all the rest would profit you nothing whatever. One would think that such excellent gifts might benefit us a little, but no, the apostle sums them all up, and saith of the whole, “it profiteth me nothing.” I pray that this may be understood of us at the very beginning, lest we should manage to slip away from the truth taught us by the Holy Ghost in this place, and should excuse ourselves from being loving by the notion that we are so inconsiderable that such high virtue cannot be required of us, or so feeble that we cannot be expected to attain to it. You must attain it, or you cannot enter into eternal life, for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His, and the Spirit of Christ is sure to beget the charity of our text, which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1617.cfm

Christ’s Love to Us and Our Love to Christ

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

We love Him, because He first loved us.- 1 John 4:19

We first learn of His love to us, and then as the result of that, we are brought to love Him. Ours is a poor little love, not worthy of His acceptance; but, such as it is, we give it all to Him; and He will not refuse it, or despise it. Oh, that we all might be joined to Christ in love now!

“I give my heart to Thee,
O Jesus, most desired!
And heart for heart the gift shall be,
For Thou my soul hast fired:
Thou hearts alone would’st move,
Thou only hearts dost love;
I would love Thee as Thou lov’st me,
O Jesus most desired!”

In this loving union, Christ’s love to us and our love to Christ flow in the same channel. Together they make a stream of love of a glorious kind. We love one another for Christ’s sake; we love sinners for Christ’s sake. We love the truth as Christ loves the truth. We love the Father in the same manner that Christ loves the Father, though not to the same degree. There is, in fact, but one love in the Head and in all the members. What the Head loves all the body loves. As one man we go with Christ. Being united to Him, His desires and longings become our desires and longings too; we grow into His likeness, and “are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2245.cfm