prayer

Oh, How God Loves Me!

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

…Our Father… – Matthew 6:9

If God be my Father, He loves me. And oh, how He loves me! When God is a Husband He is the best of husbands. Widows, somehow or other, are always well cared for. When God is a Friend, He is the best of friends, and sticketh closer than a brother; and when He is a Father He is the best of fathers. O fathers! perhaps ye do not know how much ye love your children. When they are sick ye find it out, for ye stand by their couches and ye pity them, as their little frames are writhing in pain. Well, “like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” Ye know how ye love your children too, when they grieve you by their sin; anger arises, and you are ready to chasten them, but no sooner is the tear in their eye, than your hand is heavy, and you feel that you had rather smite yourself than smite them; and every time you smite them you seem to cry, “Oh that I should have thus to afflict my child for his sin! Oh that I could suffer in his stead!” And God, even our Father, “doth not afflict willingly.” Is not that a sweet thing? He is, as it were, compelled to it; even the Eternal arm is not willing to do it; it is only His great love and deep wisdom that brings down the blow. …But, parents, although ye love your children much, and ye know it, ye do not know, and ye cannot tell how deep is the unfathomable abyss of the love of God to you. Go out at midnight and consider the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which He hath ordained; and I am sure you will say, “What is man, that Thou shouldst be mindful of him?” But, more than all, you will wonder, not at your loving Him, but that while He has all these treasures, He should set His heart upon so insignificant a creature as man. And the sonship that God has given us is not a mere name; there is all our Father’s great heart given to us in the moment when He claims us as His sons.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

Sonship

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

…Our Father which art in heaven… – Matthew 6:9

Here is sonship-“Our Father which art in heaven.” How are we to understand this, and in what sense are we the sons and daughters of God? Some say that the Fatherhood of God is universal, and that every man, from the fact of his being created by God, is necessarily God’s son, and that therefore every man has a right to approach the throne of God, and say, “Our Father which art in heaven.” …I have never been able to see that creation necessarily implies fatherhood. I believe God has made many things that are not His children… He made the angels, who stand in an eminently high and holy position, are they His children? “Unto which of the angels said He at any time, thou art My son?” I do not find, as a rule, that angels are called the children of God; and I must demur to the idea that mere creation brings God necessarily into the relationship of a Father… Those who can say, “Our Father which art in heaven,” are something more than God’s creatures: they have been adopted into His family. He has taken them out of the old black family in which they were born; He has washed them. and cleansed them, and given them a new name and a new spirit, and made them “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;” and all this of His own free, sovereign, unmerited, distinguishing grace. And having adopted them to be His children, He has in the next place, regenerated them by the Spirit of the living God. He has “begotten them again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” and no man hath a right to claim God as his Father, unless he feeleth in his soul, and believeth, solemnly, through the faith of God’s election, that he has been adopted into the one family of which is in heaven and earth, and that he has been regenerated or born again. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

A Model of Prayer

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, Sovereignty of God, The Father, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. – Matthew 6:9

I very much question whether this prayer was intended to be used by Christ’s own disciples as a constant form of prayer. It seems to me that Christ gave it as a model, whereby we are to fashion all our prayers, and I think we may use it to edification, and with great sincerity and earnestness, at certain times and seasons. I have seen an architect form the model of a building he intends to erect of plaster or wood; but I never had an idea that it was intended for me to live in. I have seen an artist trace on a piece of brown paper, perhaps, a design which he intended afterwards to work out on more costly stuff; but I never imagined the design to be the thing itself. This prayer of Christ is a great chart, as it were: but I cannot cross the sea on a chart. It is a map; but a man is not a traveler because he puts his fingers across the map. And so a man may use this form of prayer, and yet be a total stranger to the great design of Christ in teaching it to His disciples. I feel that I cannot use this prayer to the omission of others. Great as it is, It does not express all I desire to say to my Father which is in heaven. There are many sins which I must confess separately and distinctly; and the various other petitions which this prayer contains require, I feel, to be expanded, when I come before God in private; and I must pour out my heart in the language which His Spirit gives me; and more than that, I must trust in the Spirit to speak the unutterable groanings of my spirit, when my lips cannot actually express all the emotions of my heart. Let none despise this prayer; it is matchless, and if we must have forms of prayer, let us have this first, foremost, and chief; but let none think that Christ would tie His disciples to the constant and only use of this. Let us rather draw near to the throne of heavenly grace with boldness, as children coming to a father, and let us tell forth our wants and our sorrows in the language which the Holy Spirit teacheth us.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

Is God Truly Your Father?

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

“Our Father which art in heaven.”- Matthew 6:9

I think there is room for very great doubt, whether our Saviour intended the prayer, of which our text forms a part, to be used in the manner in which it is commonly employed among professing Christians. It is the custom of many persons to repeat it as their morning prayer, and they think that when they have repeated these sacred words they have done enough. I believe that this prayer was never intended for universal use. Jesus Christ taught it not to all men, but to His disciples, and it is a prayer adapted only to those who are the possessors of grace, and are truly converted. In the lips of an ungodly man it is entirely out of place. Doth not one say, “Ye are of your father the devil, for his works ye do?” Why, then, should ye mock God by saying, “Our Father which art in heaven.” For how can He be your Father? Have ye two Fathers? And if He be a Father, where is His honor? Where is His love? You neither honor nor love Him, and yet you presumptuously and blasphemously approach Him, and say, “Our Father,” when your heart is attached still to sin, and your life is opposed to His law, and you therefore prove yourself to be an heir of wrath, and not a child of grace! Oh! I beseech you, leave off sacrilegiously employing these sacred words; and until you can in sincerity and truth say, “Our Father which art in heaven,” and in your lives seek to honor His holy name, do not offer to Him the language of the hypocrite, which is an abomination to Him.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0213.cfm

The Spirit of God Can Save

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

Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us… – Ephesians 3:20

Oh, for a mighty belief in that God who “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us”; and that power is the Holy Ghost, who cannot be straitened!

Why, then, should we not come up to the house of God with the prayer, “O Lord, work mighty marvels”? Is He not the God that doeth great wonders? Should we not expect Him to do large things? I know some will say, “Well, if I were to see a great many converted, I should be afraid that they would, many of them, go back.” But my experience tells me that there is no reason to believe that when many are converted there are more mistaken persons in the number, in proportion, than when few are converted. In fact, I think that I have noticed that the more that are received into the church the better is the quality. And the reason is this-that, when few are coming, there is a strong temptation to accept them with less discretion; but, when there are a great many, we can afford to be somewhat more rigid; so that the more the merrier, and the more the sounder. I think that it is often the case. Let us believe that the Spirit of God can save a parish, can save a city, can shake London from end to end. Oh, that God would enlarge the capacity of our faith! “According to your faith be it unto you.” But we have not more than sixpenny-worth of faith; and when we get as much as that represents, we think that we are getting rich; and yet there are mines of untold wealth of the grace of God to be had. Oh, that we had the faith wherewith to take possession of them! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2218.cfm

Fit to Go Forth for Him

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

“O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?”-Micah 2:7

There may be some who think they can convert the world by philosophy; that they can renew the heart by eloquence; or that, by some witchcraft of ceremonies, they can regenerate the soul; but we depend wholly and simply and alone on the Spirit of God. He alone worketh all our works in us; and in going forth to our holy service we take with us no strength, and we rely upon no power, except that of the Spirit of the Most High. When Asher’s foot was dipped in oil*, no wonder he left a foot-mark wherever he went; but if his foot had not first been anointed, there would have been small trace of him; and unless we have the unction of the Holy One, and are endued with power from on high, in vain shall we seek to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, or to proclaim the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

We need the Holy Spirit to prepare us for our work. He first gives the desire to go forth to the field of service, and only He can equip us for the fight. “The preparations of the heart is in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” Let us seek, then, to be charged with the Holy Ghost; to receive to the full, the divine influence, and go to our labor thus amply prepared. There is no preparation for the work of God like being with God. Go up into the solitude with Christ, and then, when He calls you, you will be fit to go forth for Him and tell what you have seen with Him in the Holy Mount. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

*Deuteronomy 33:24

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2218.cfm

A New Heart and a Right Spirit

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. – Psalm 51:10

It is needful to have a nature like that of Christ. You cannot give out sweet waters so long as the fountains are impure. “Ye must be born again.” There is no walking with Jesus in newness of life unless we have a new heart and a right spirit. See to it, dear friends, that your nature is renewed-that the Holy Ghost has wrought in you a resurrection from among the dead; for, if not, your walk and conversation will savour of death and corruption. A new creature is essential to likeness to Christ: it is not possible that the carnal mind should wear the image of Jesus.

That being done, the next thing that is necessary is a constant anointing of the Holy Spirit. Can any Christian here do without the Holy Spirit? Then I am afraid that he is no Christian. But, as for us, we feel every day that we must cry for a fresh visitation of the Spirit, a renewed sense of indwelling, a fresh anointing from the Holy One of Israel, or else we cannot walk as Christ walked.

And then, again, there must be in us a strong resolve that we will walk as Christ walked; for our Lord Himself did not lead in that holy life without stern resolution. He set His face like a flint that He would do right; and He did right. Do not, I pray you, be led astray by thoughtlessly following your fellow-men: it is a poor, sheepish business, that running in crowds. Dare to be singular dare to stand alone. Stand to it firmly that you will follow Christ… And that is the thing to do, brethren, to be hearing Christ and following Him; not I to learn of you, nor you of me, but both of us of Christ: so shall we end all controversy in a blessed agreement at His feet. God help us to get there. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1732.cfm