Christian Life

Let Us Glorify God, as God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

Let us glorify God, as God, every one of us. “Oh,” says one, “I am full of sin.” Come and glorify God, then, by confessing it to Him. “Oh, but I am not pardoned.” Come and glorify Him by accepting pardon through the blood of His dear Son. “Oh, but I am of an evil heart.” Come and glorify Him by telling Him so, and asking His Spirit to renew you in your mind. Come, yield yourself to His sweet gospel. May His blessed Spirit incline you so to do. Come, take Him now to be your God. Have you forgotten Him? Remember Him. Have you neglected Him? Seek Him. Have you offended Him? Mourn before Him. Say, “I will arise, and go unto my Father.” Your Father waits to receive you. Glorify Him as God.

And then, let us begin to be very thankful, if we have not been so before. Let us praise God for common mercies, for they prove to be uncommonly precious when they are once taken away. Bless God for your reason: bless Him for your existence. Bless God for the means of grace, for an open Bible, for the throne of grace, for the preaching of the Word. You that are saved must lead the song. “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” Bless Him for His Son. Bless Him for His Spirit. Bless Him for His Fatherhood. Bless Him that you are His child. Bless Him for what you have received. Bless Him for what He has promised to give. Bless Him for the past, the present, and the future… ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

Oh, Brothers and Sisters, Dread Unthankfulness!

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

…when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. – Romans 1:21

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. – Colossians 3:15

If your spirit is not sweetened by the adoration and the love of God, it will grow bitter. If love does not reign, hate will rule. Look at unthankful people. Hear them talk. Nobody’s character is safe. There is no neighbour whom they will not slander. There is no Christian man whom they will not misrepresent. The very angels of God would not be safe from suspicion if they lived near to people of that kind. But when you glorify God as God, and are thankful for everything-when you can take up a bit of bread and a cup of cold water, and say with the poor Puritan, “What, all this, and Christ too?”-then are you happy, and you make others happy. A godly preacher, finding that all that there was for dinner was a potato and a herring, thanked God that he had ransacked sea and land to find food for His children. Such a sweet spirit breeds love to everybody, and makes a man go through the world cheerfully. If you give way to the other order of feeling, and do not glorify God, but quarrel with Him, and have no thankfulness for His mercies, then you will suck in the spirit of the devil, and you will get into Satan’s mind, and be of his temper, and by-and-by his works you will do. Oh, brothers and sisters, dread unthankfulness! Perhaps you did not think that it was so bad, but it is horrible! God help you to escape from it! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

The Way of Vain Imaginings

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit, the unbelieving life 1 Comment

Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. – Romans 1:21

They knew God, but they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful. And the result of it was that they fell into vain imaginings. If we do not glorify God, the true God, we shall soon be found setting up another god. This vain-imagination business is being done quite as extensively now as in Paul’s days. Depart from the inspiration of the Bible, and from the infallibility of the Spirit of God who wrote it, and where will you go? Well I cannot tell you where you will go. One wanders into one vain imagination, and one into another, till the dreamers are on all sides. Our thinkers have introduced an age of inventions, wherein everything is thought of but the truth of God. We do not want these novelties. We are satisfied with the word of God as we find it. But if we do not glorify God as God, and are not thankful to Him for all His teachings, then away you go into vain imaginations.

A heart that cannot feed at God’s table will riot somewhere. He that is not satisfied with the cup that God has filled will soon be a partaker of the cup of devils. An unthankful spirit is, at bottom, an atheistic spirit. If God were God to us, we should not be unthankful to Him. If God were glorified in our hearts, and we were thankful for everything that He did, we should walk in holiness, and live in submission. And if we do not thus behave ourselves, the tendency will be for us to go from bad to worse, and from worse to very worst. May the Lord tether us fast to Himself, and even nail us to the cross. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

Praise – A Joyful Employment

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee. – Psalm 63:3

By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. – Hebrews 13:15

I love to be singing in my heart, if I may not sing with my tongue. I remember a servant that used to sing at the washtub, and sing in the kitchen; and when some one asked her why she was always singing, she said that if it did not do anything else it kept bad thoughts out of her mind. There is a great deal in that; for bad thoughts are bad tenants, who pay no rent and foul the house. I knew a dear old Methodist preacher, who is now in heaven, who when he came downstairs of a morning was always tooting a bit of a hymn over, and he did the same in the barn, and the field. I have passed him in the street, and noted his happy melody: indeed he was always singing. He never took much notice of anybody, so as to be afraid of being overheard. Whether people heard him or not did not make much difference to him. He was singing to the Lord, not to them; and so he went on singing. I do not think he had much of a voice, or an ear for music, but his soul was made up of praise, and that is better than a musical education. God does not criticize our voice, but He accepts our heart. Oh, to be singing the praises of God every minute of our lives, and never ceasing therefrom! Do you not think that many fail in this respect? They are not preparing for heaven, where all is praise, or they would take up the joyful employment at once.

Bless Him in every way, for everything, at all times, and in all places. Let all that is within you bless His holy name. Go your way rejoicing. May His Spirit help you so to do! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

Is the Harp Never to Give Forth a Joy-Note?

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

…when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were they thankful. – Romans 1:21

Some live in the presence of God, so they tell us, and they are full of divine delights, but yet they are greatly afflicted with aches and pains, and all the dolors of rheumatism, and therefore they murmur. I admit that rheumatism is a dreadful pain enough, but at the same time to dwell always on the dark side of things, and to forget our mercies, is a sad instance of ingratitude. We are few of us as thankful as we ought to be; and there are some people who are not thankful at all, for instead of a song concerning their mercies, their life is one long dirge for their miseries. Must we always hear the sackbut? Is the harp never to give forth a joy-note?

Some show their unthankfulness by fretting under their supposed ills. They know from Scripture that even their afflictions are working for their good, yet they do not rejoice in the prospect, or feel any gratitude for the refining process through which the Lord is passing them. Heaven and perfection are left unsung, but the present processes are groaned over without ceasing. Their monotonous note is always this pain, this loss, this burden, this uncomfortable sensation, this persecution from the world, this unkindness from the saints, and so on; all this goes to show that, though they know God, they do not glorify Him as God, neither are they thankful.

We can be guilty of unthankfulness, also, by never testifying to the goodness of God. A great many people come in and out of your houses; do you ever tell them about God’s goodness to you? Did you ever take up a single ten minutes with the tale of the Lord’s lovingkindness to you? Oh, what backwardness there is to testify to God as God, and to all His goodness and love! Our mouths are full of anything rather than the goodness of the Lord. Shame on our wicked lips! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

Inexcusable Unthankfulness

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God, the unbelieving life Leave a comment

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful… – Romans 1:20, 21

Unthankfulness is a sin for which there is no excuse if it be attended with knowledge. I tremble both for myself and you when I see want of thankfulness thus set in the front rank of sins.

There is in some a want of gratitude for mercies possessed. They receive many blessings without making a note of them, or even seeming to know that they have them. The Lord continues to bless them in things temporal, to keep them in health and strength, ay, and to give them the means of grace and spiritual opportunities; and they live as if these things were so commonplace that they were not worth thanking God for. Many professors are of that kind, recipients of countless mercies, but destitute of such common thankfulness as even beast might manifest. From them God hears no song of gratitude, no chirp of praise, though birds would charm the woodlands with their minstrelsy: these are worse than the dumb driven cattle, or the fishes in the brook, which do at least leap up, and mean their Maker’s praise.

God deliver us from such a state of heart as that; and may we never, in any of these senses, be found amongst those professors, of whom it is said that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were they thankful. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm

If God Be Our Master…

Sherry Attributes of God, Christian Life, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. – Romans 6:13

If I glorify God as God, then I desire to obey God’s commandments, to spread His glory, to magnify His name. I desire in all things to please Him, if indeed I treat Him as God should be treated. If I know God, and yet live for my own profit, for my own honour, for my own comfort, then I do not glorify God as God. When the Lord is glorified as God, we yield ourselves to His control without a murmur. He may take what He will away from us, and we say, “It is the Lord: let Him do what seemeth Him good.” He may remove every comfort from us, and cover us with sore boils and blains, but we shall sit down with Job upon the dunghill, and say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” We shall feel the force of Elijah’s cry, “If the Lord be God, follow Him.” We shall rouse ourselves to the utmost energy to serve Him when He stands before us as really God. If we serve man and are faithful, we do the best we can for our master; but if God be our Master, oh, what service we are bound to render to Him! What enthusiasm ought to be kindled in our breast by the belief that we are God’s servants! “I am Thy servant,” is our happy claim, our honoured challenge. This it is that makes a man of a man, and something more than man. Oh, to learn this lesson, and to practise it! To glorify God as God will make us akin to angels! Even you Christians may feel that this is much beyond you yet, but towards it you must ever fly. I shrink before my Lord in speaking of Him, but I desire what I have not yet attained-that I may truly glorify Him as my Lord and my God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1763.cfm