Christian Life

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

“All Things”

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

Charity…beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

God has put within you a new life, but the old life seeks to smother it. Besides that you will have to contend with “all things” in the persons whom you are called upon to love. You must have fervent charity towards the saints, but you will find very much about the best of them which will try your patience; for, like yourself, they are imperfect, and they will not always turn their best side towards you, but sometimes sadly exhibit their infirmities. Be prepared, therefore, to contend with “all things” in them. As for the ungodly whom you are to love to Christ, you will find everything in them that will oppose the drawings of your love, for they, like yourself, by nature are born in sin, and they are rooted in their iniquities. When you have mastered that kind of “all things” you will have to contend with “all things” in the world, for the world lieth in the wicked one, and all its forces run towards self, and contention, and hate. Every man’s hand is against his fellow, and few there be who honour the gentle laws of love; they know not that divine charity which “seeketh not her own.” The seed of the serpent is at enmity with all that is kind, and tender, and self-sacrificing, for these are the marks of the woman’s Seed. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. And then remember that “all things” in hell are against you. What a seething mass of rebellious life, all venomous with hate, is seen in the regions of darkness. The prince of the power of the air leads the van, and the host of fallen spirits eagerly follow him, like bloodhounds behind their leader. All these evil spirits will endeavour to create dissension, and enmity, and malice, and oppression among men, and the soldier of love must wrestle against all these. See, O my brother, what a battle is yours! …what a crusade is this against hate and evil. Yet we shrink not from the fray. ~ 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

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