Christian Life

The Unquenchable Fire of His Love

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

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16

Has His love for you cooled in the slightest degree? We have all of us tried that love by our wondering and waywardness, but we have not quenched it, and its fire still burns just as vehemently as at the first. We have, sometimes, fallen so low that our hearts have been like adamant, incapable of emotion; yet Jesus has loved us all the while, and softened our hard hearts as the glorious sun melts the icebergs of the sea. We were like the insensible grass which calls not for the dew, yet the dew of His love gently fell upon us; and though we had not sought it, our heart was refreshed by it. Our Lord has indeed proved how He loved us by the gracious way in which He has borne with our many provocations; and think too, beloved, with what gifts He has enriched us, with what comforts He has sustained us, with what divine energy He has renewed our failing strength, and with what blessed guidance He has led us and is still leading us! Take thy pencil and paper, and try to set down in figures or in words thy total indebtedness to His love; where wilt thou begin, and when thou hast begun, where wilt thou finish? If thou wert to record only one out of a million of His love-gifts to thee, would the whole world be able to contain the books that might be written concerning them? No; all thou canst say is, “Behold how He has loved us!”

Love is one of the most jealous things in the universe. “God is a jealous God” because “God is love.” The wife who truly loves her husband will not harbour even a wanton imagination; her fidelity to him must not be stained even by an unchaste thought; so must it be with every true lover of the Lord Jesus Christ. God grant that we, beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, may do our Lord’s will so scrupulously, in great things and little things, and in all things alike, that those who see us in our daily life may be compelled to say, “Behold how these Christians love Jesus Christ their Lord and Saviour!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Oh, That Blessed, Blessed Day!

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

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. -2 Peter 1:4

Think, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, how the Lord dealt with us in the days of our unregeneracy. He called us again and again, but we would not go to Him; and the more lovingly He called us, the more resolutely we hardened our hearts, and refused to accept His gracious invitation. With some of us, this refusal lasted for years; and we wonder now that the Lord waited for us so long. If a rich man invites a pauper to a feast, and the poor man is indifferent to the invitation, or positively refuses to accept it, he gets no second invitation, for man does not press his charity upon the needy; but when we even scoffed at our Lord’s call, and made all manner of excuses for not coming to the gospel banquet, He would not take our “No” for an answer, but called, and called, again and again, until last we could hold out no longer, and had to yield to the sweet compulsion of His grace. Do you not remember, beloved, how you received pardon, and justification, and adoption, and the indwelling of the Spirit, and how many “exceeding great and precious promises” were brought to you, like various courses at a royal festival served upon golden dishes adorned with priceless gems? Oh, that blessed, blessed day in which you first came and sat among the guests at the great King’s table! As you look back upon it, your heart glows in grateful remembrance of Christ’s mercy to you, and you cannot help saying, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

What A Wondrous Proof of Love

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, Sovereignty of God, The Father 2 Comments

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. – Matthew 8:17

“Being found in fashion as a man,” He took upon Himself human sickness and suffering. All our infirmities that were not sinful Jesus Christ endured,-the weary feet, the aching head, and the palpitating heart, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness.” This was a wondrous proof of love, that the ever-blessed Son of God, who needed not to suffer, should have been willing to be compassed with infirmity just like any other man is. “We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. – John 16:24

Christ has so completely given Himself to us that all that He has is ours. He is the glorious Husband, and His Church is His Bride, the Lamb’s wife; and there is nothing that He has which is not also hers even now, and which He will not share with her for ever. By a marriage bond which cannot be broken, for He hateth putting away, He hath espoused her unto Himself in righteousness and truth, and she shall be one with Him throughout eternity. He has gone up to His Father’s house to take possession of the many mansions there, not for Himself, but for His people; and His contrary prayer is, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” Jesus has an ever-flowing fountain of joy in His heart, but He desires that His joy may be in you if you belong to Him, and that your joy may be full; and everything else that He has is yours as much as it is His, so surely you will again join with me in saying, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

This Wondrous Mystery

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

Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. – 1 Peter 2:24

If you want to see the love of Jesus at the highest point it ever reached, you must, by faith, gaze upon Him when He took upon Himself the sins of all His people, as Peter writes, “who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” Oh, how could one who was so pure, so absolutely perfect, ever bear so foul a load? Yet He did bear it, and the transfer of His people’s sin from them to Him was so complete that the inspired prophet wrote, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” and the inspired apostle wrote, “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” When a man marries a woman who is deeply in debt, well knowing the burdens that he is taking upon himself even though it is enough to crush him all his life, we may well say, “Behold how he loves her!” That was what Christ did for His Church when He took her into an eternal marriage union with Himself, although she had incurred such liabilities as could not have been discharged if she had spent all eternity in hell; He took all her debts upon Himself, and then paid them unto the uttermost farthing; for we must never forget that, when Christ bore His people’s sins, He also bore the full punishment of them…We cannot have the slightest conception of what that bruising and that grief must have been. We do not know what our Lord’s physical and mental agonies must have been, yet they were only the shell of His sufferings; His soul-agony was the kernel, and it was that which made Him cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Then it was that the precious “corn of wheat” fell into the ground and died; and dying, brought forth “much fruit” of which heaven and eternity alone can tell the full tale. I cannot speak of this wondrous mystery as I fain would do, but you who know even in part what it means must join me in saying, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

A Wonder of Condescending Grace and Mercy

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

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him -Ephesians 1:10

In the fulness of time, our Lord Jesus Christ left the glories of heaven, and took upon Him our nature. We know so little of what the word “heaven” means that we cannot adequately appreciate the tremendous sacrifice that the Son of God must have made in order to become the Son of Mary. The holy angels could understand far better than we can what their Lord and ours gave up when He renounced the royalties of heaven, and all the honour and glory which rightly belonged to Him as the Son of the Highest, and left His throne and crown above to be born as the Babe of an earthly mother, yet even to them there were mysteries about His incarnation which they could not fathom; and as they followed the footprints of the Son of man on His wondrous way from the manger to the cross and to the tomb, they must often have been in that most suggestive attitude of which Peter wrote, “which things the angels desire to look into.” To us, the incarnation of Christ is one of the greatest marvels in the history of the universe, and we say, with Paul, “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” The omnipotent Creator took the nature of a creature into indissoluble union with his divine nature; and, marvel of marvels, that creature was man.

O glorious Bridegroom of our hearts, there never was any other love like Thine! That the eternal Son of God should leave His Father’s side, and stoop so low as to become one with His chosen people, so that Paul could truly write, “We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, is such a wonder of condescending grace and mercy that we can only exclaim again and again, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Behold How He Loved Us!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 1 Comment

And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him. -Isaiah 59:16

When did Christ’s love begin to work for us? It was long before we were born, long before the world was created; far, far back, in eternity, our Saviour gave the first proof of His love to us by espousing our cause. By His divine foresight, He looked upon human nature as a palace that had been plundered, and broken down, and in its ruins He perceived the owl, the bittern, the dragon, and all manner of unclean things. Who was there to undertake the great work of restoring that ruined palace? No one but the Word, who was with God, and who was God. “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His own arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him.” Ere the angels began to sing, or the sun, and moon, and stars threw their first beams athwart primeval darkness, Christ espoused the cause of His people, and resolved not only to restore to them all the blessings that He foresaw that they would lose, but also add to them richer favours that could ever have been theirs except through Him.

Jesus Christ, “that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,” undertook to redeem and guard the whole flock entrusted to His care, so that when, at the last great muster, they should pass under the hand of Him that telleth them, not one of them should be missing, and the blessed Shepherd-Son should be able to say to His Father, “Those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and not one of them is lost.” It was in the everlasting covenant that our Lord Jesus Christ became our Representative and Surety and engaged on our behalf to fulfill all His Father’s will; and as we think of this great mystery of mercy, surely all of us who are truly His must exclaim with grateful adoration, “Behold how He loved us!”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm

Jesus’ Love for Us; Our Love for Him

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

Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him! -John 11:36

It was at the grave of Lazarus that Jesus wept, and His grief was so manifest to the onlookers that they said, “Behold how He loved him!” Most of us here, I trust, are not mere onlookers, but we have a share in the special love of Jesus. We see evidences of that love, not in His tears, but in the precious blood that He so freely shed for us; so we ought to marvel even more than those Jews did at the love of Jesus, and to see further into His heart than they did, and to know more of Him than they could in the brief interval in which they had become acquainted with Him. When we think of His love to us, we may well cry, “Behold how He has loved us!”

In these days, we are too apt to repress our emotions…If we were in a right state of mind and heart, we should often say to one another, “How wondrous has the love of Jesus been to us!” Our conversation with one another, as brethren and sisters in Christ, would often be upon this blessed subject. We waste far too much of our time upon trifles, it would be well if the love of Jesus so engrossed our thoughts that it engrossed our conversation too… If we were as we should be, one would frequently say to another, “How great is Christ’s love to me, my brother! Dost thou also say that it is great to thee?”

Beloved, remember that, when our love has reached its climax, it can only be like a solitary dewdrop trembling on a leaf compared with the copious showers of love that pour continually from the heart of our dear Lord and Master…May the Holy Spirit fill our souls to the brim with love to Jesus, for His dear name’s sake! Amen.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3228.cfm