Character of Jesus

Our Everlasting Union with Christ

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

“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” – John 10:28

Our union with Christ is not only lasting, it is everlasting. With great boldness we utter the challenge. “Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” It is true that we hold Christ, and that we will hold Him tighter still; but the greater mercy is that He holds us, and He will never let us go… You may take Christ from our hand, but you cannot take us from Christ’s hand; He holdeth us fast; He is married to us, and He Himself declares, “The Lord, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away.” He will have no divorce between our soul and Himself. This living, loving, lasting union, which we have already found to be such a glorious reality, is to last for ever and ever, blessed be the name of the Lord!

I want you, beloved friends, to draw much comfort from this truth: Christ will not lose His members. My head would not willingly lose a little finger, and Christ our Head will not lose one of us if “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” Think you that Christ can be mutilated? Think you that He will lose even the least joint of the least finger? Never shall that be true. The word written of His body of flesh is equally true concerning His mystical body, which is His Church. “A bone of Him shall not be broken.” Not even the smallest and most insignificant believer in Christ shall be lost, else would His body be incomplete. He is a perfect Christ, and you that are members of His body shall never be cut away from Him by the wounds of Satan’s sword, the surgery of infidelity, or any earthly accident or diabolical temptation. If you are one with Him, you will be one with Him for ever, for the union between you and your Lord is an eternal union, and to break it would be to disfigure and mutilate the Christ of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Herein is Love

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

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. – 1 John 4:10

This is where all our hope, and our joy, and our love begin: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.” In connection with this same truth of union with Christ, and fruitbearing as the result of it, our Lord Himself says, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” When this love thus made choice of us, He entered into covenant with His Father concerning His people; and before we were born He identified Himself with us, so that in the purpose of God from all eternity we were accepted in Him. But union with us meant union with our sins; and though the Son of God could never be overcome of evil, or become a sharer in human guilt, yet by the blessed mystery of His unity with His people, He could take their sin upon Himself, and bear it in His own body on the tree. Thus, as there is no past or future to the eyes of Him before whom all events are spread out in one eternal “now”, the Son of God was able to atone for the iniquities of those who, through all the ages, would be truly joined to Him. His love that chose us did not shrink back from the awful payment which our debt rendered necessary: it was stronger than death, and mightier than the grave. Many waters could not quench it; many floods could not drown it; nor will it cease to exert its blessed influence over us until it shall bring us home to the mansions above; and not even then, for Christ’s love is everlasting. By this loving union Christ brings us safely through all the temptations of life; the ransomed spirits of such as are joined to Him are taken to be with Christ the instant they are absent from the body; and at last out of the tomb that same love shall call the body, and on the glad day of resurrection it shall be clearly seen how wonderful is the love which made our Lord so one with us.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

A Living Union with Christ

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

For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. – John 5:21

This living union is Christ’s life in us. It is given to Him, not only to take us in our feebleness; but it is His divine prerogative to impart life to us, and to call dead men, and to make them live. “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” This is how we come to have life in connection with Him. His life flows into us, as out of the tree into the branches: so that we can truly say, with the apostle, “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 to the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” The living union begins with our Lord’s life, and then that life flows into us, and we begin to live also.

O souls, if the life of Christ is not in you, you are dead while you live, and you will die forever when you die! Unless you get linked to Christ, you will be driven from the presence of God, and away from all that makes for true life and joy. Lay hold on Christ, and you will “lay hold on eternal life”; for He is “that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us,” and living contact with Him is our only hope either for the present or for the future.

God grant to you and to me to have such a living union to Christ!~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

A Living, Loving, Lasting Union

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

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

“We”, that is His believing people, “are members of His body, and of His flesh, and of His bones.” He is our Head, and we are the members of the body, and so we are joined to Him by a living, loving, lasting union.

Now what does this living union to Christ mean? It means Christ’s life laying hold of us. “For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” He is full of life, and when He takes hold of us, and raises our life into His, there is truly a living union between Him and us.

The union of a soul to Christ is made so sweet because it is as loving as it is living! Christ’s love to us begins this loving union. Its source is not in ourselves; but in love eternal, love immeasurable, love which caused itself, free-grace love, love to the unworthy, love to enemies, love to those who had no life, no strength, and no hope apart from Him. Christ loved us so that He deigned to join Himself to us in eternal union. The great Artesian well from which we drink, and which has tapped the divine fountains, is the love of Christ.

O friends, what a sad thing it would be for anyone to have only a temporary union with Christ! Why, you are not building at all unless your building stands; and you are not truly in union with Christ unless the union is lasting union; and it will not be unless it is a living union! Be satisfied with nothing short of that union which the Spirit of God works in the hearts of those who, without reserve, yield to His power.~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

I in Them

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

“I in them.” – John 17:23, 26

“I in them.” It is the most blessed word I know of. You, beloved, need not go abroad to find the Lord Jesus Christ. Where does He live? He lives within you. “I in them.” As soon as ever you pray you are sure He hears you, because He is within you. He is not knocking at your door: He has entered into you, and there He dwells, and will go no more out for ever.

What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. “I in them.” Then it is no more “I” in weakness, but, since Jesus dwells in me, “I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.” “I in them.” It is the glory of the believer that Christ dwells in him. “Unto you that believe He is precious.”

Hence we gather the security of the believer. Brother, if Christ be in me, and I am overcome, Christ is conquered too, for He is in me. “I in them.” I cannot comprehend the doctrine of believers falling from grace. If Christ has once entered into them, will He not abide with them? Paul saith, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” To that persuasion I set my hand and seal. Well, then, if Christ is in us, whatever happens to us will happen to Him. If it is an indissoluble union-and so He declares it is-“I in them,” then His destiny and ours are linked together; and if He wins the victory we conquer in Him: if He sits at the right hand of God we shall sit at the right hand of God with Him, for He is in us. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm

Love and I

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Holy Spirit 1 Comment

“…lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  Amen. – Matthew 28:20

Jesus is ever at home where love is reigning. When love lives in His people’s hearts, Jesus lives there too. Does Jesus, then, live in the hearts of His people? Yes; wherever there is the love of the Father shed abroad in them, He must be there.

We are sure that He is where love is; for, first, where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, “I am the life.” There is no true life in the believer’s soul that is divided from Christ. We are sure of that; so that where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ. Again, where there is the love of God in the heart there is the Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative; and it is in that sense that He tells us, “Lo, I am with you alway,” namely, because the Spirit is come to be always with us. So where there is love there is the Spirit of God, and where there is the Spirit of God there is Christ. So it is always “Love and I.”

Furthermore where there is love there is faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith; but where there is faith there is always Christ, for if there is faith in Him He has been received into the soul. Jesus is ever near to that faith which has Himself for its foundation and resting place. Where there is love there is faith, where there is faith there is Christ, and so it is “love and I.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm

The Love that Changes a Man

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, The Father 3 Comments

But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. – 1 John 2:5

Oh, if the love of the Father to Christ once enters into a man’s soul it will change him; it will sway him with the noblest passion; it will make him a zealot for Christ; it will cast out his selfishness; it will change him into the image of Christ, and fit him to dwell in heaven where love is perfected…this indwelling of the Father’s love in us has the most blessed results. It has an expulsive result. As soon as ever it gets into the heart it says to all love of sin, “Get thee hence; there remains no room for thee here.” When the light enters in, the darkness receives immediate notice of ejectment; the night is gone as soon as the dawn appears. It has also a repulsive power by which it repels the assaults of sin. As though a man did snatch the sun out of the heaven and make a round shield with it, and hold it in the very face of the prince of darkness, and blind him with the light, so doth the love of God the Father repel the enemy. It girds the soul with the armour of light. It repels the devil, the love of the world, the love of sin, and all outward temptations. And then what an impulsive power it has. Get the love of Christ into you, and it is as when an engine receives fire and steam, and so obtains the force which drives it. Then have you strengthening, then have you motive power, then are you urged on to this and that heroic deed which, apart from this sublime love, you never would have thought of. For Christ you can live, for Christ you can suffer, for Christ you can die, when once the Father’s love to him has taken full possession of your spirit. And, oh, how elevating it is. How it lifts a man up above self and sin; how it makes him seek the things that are above! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1667.cfm