prayer

Jehovah Is At My Side

Sherry Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Father 6 Comments

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. -Psalm 28:7

Here is a Christian who lives alone, apart altogether from family life. All his dear ones are dead, or far away. In his lone chamber, when he bows his knee in secret prayer, or whenever he takes his walk abroad to meditate, if he be indeed a true lover of the Lord Jesus, “the Lord is there.” Wherever the believer’s lot is cast, if he lives in fellowship with Christ, he may say of his quiet room, or of the garden-walk, or even of the stable or the loft, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there.” Many a humble garret is a right royal residence! for “the Lord is there.” Better Paul’s inner dungeon at Philippi, with his feet fast in the stocks, and the presence of the Lord, than the grandest apartments of Caesar’s palace and an unknown God. The Lord is very gracious to His lonely ones. They can say, “And yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” Put you in a hospital, or in a workhouse: what matters it, if Jehovah is at your side to cheer you?

Some of us can bear witness that we have had the nearest approaches of God to our souls in times of intolerable pain, and even in seasons of intense depression of spirit as to earthly things. “I was brought low, and the Lord helped me,” said David; and we can say the same. The Lord has said, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee”; as much as to say, “If I am not with thee anywhere else, I will be with thee then.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Our Delightful Homes

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

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. -Ephesians 6:4

We will think of our own dear homes. What a delightful family we belong to if it can be said of our house, “the Lord is there”! Has it a thatched roof and a stone floor? What matters? The father of the family lives near to God, and his wife rejoices to be his fellow-helper in prayer, while the children grow up to honest toil and honorable service. Assuredly that cottage home is dear to God, and becomes a place where angels come and go. Because God is there, every window looks towards the Celestial City. It is a comfort that we need not go across the road to morning prayer, or step out every evening to worship, for we are priests ourselves, and have a family altar at home, whereon the incense burns both morning and night. We talk not of matins and vespers, but we glory that “the Lord is there” when we bow the knee as a household. What is more delightful than to gather round the family hearth, to hear the Scriptures read, and listen to the senior, as he talks to the younger ones of what God has done for him, and what the Lord is waiting to give to all who trust Him? Free from all formality, family prayer makes a house a temple, a family a church, and every day a holy day. Truly, I may say of families of this kind, wherever they dwell, that it is none other but the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven”; for “the Lord is there.” Friend, is God in your house? If it has no family prayer, it has no roof to it. There is no true joy in domestic life unless the Lord be there. All else is fiction; God alone is true delight. I charge you, if your homes are not such that God could come to them, set your houses in order, and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Will you dare to dwell where God could not lodge with you? May all men say of your home, “The Lord is there”!~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Power is with God

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises 4 Comments

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” -Acts 1:8

With God there is power in the ministry, power in prayer, power in all holy work. We may do a vast deal of work, and yet nothing may come of it; and, on the other hand, we may only be able to do comparatively little, and yet great results may flow therefrom: for results depend not on the quantity of the machinery, but on the presence of the Lord.

Do you not all know persons who are not peculiarly gifted, and yet are eminently useful? You do not remark anything about them that is specially noticeable, and yet their whole career enlists attention by its power. Their words tell, for there is character behind them. A consistent life gives force to a plain testimony…God Himself is at the back of the man who is living for Him. He causes him to speak in His name, so that none of His words fall to the ground. Is it not said of the godly, “His leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”? This is so with every church where the Lord abides. His presence makes it a power with its children and adherents, a power with the neighborhood, and a power with the age. Its example, its testimony, its effort tells. God uses it, and therefore it answers its end. The power is with God; but the church is the instrument by which that power exercises itself. He uses a living people for the display of living power, and He gives to them both life and power, more and more abundantly. As we desire power with which to labor for God, we must pray that the God of power will remain in our midst. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Marks of a Living Church

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

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. -Ephesians 5:1-2

Where God is present, the preservation of purity will be found. The church is nothing if it is not holy. It is worse-it is a den of thieves. Setting the seal of its pestilent example upon evil living, it becomes the servant of Satan, and the destroyer of souls. Who is to keep the church pure? None but God Himself. If the Lord is there, holiness will abound, and fruits of the Spirit will be seen on all sides; but if the Lord be once withdrawn, then flesh and blood will rule, and gender towards corruption, after its own manner; and the church will become a synagogue of formalists. Pray, my brethren, continually, that the Lord may dwell in our Zion, to maintain us in all holy obedience and purity of life.

Where God is, there is the constant renewal of vitality. A dead church is a reeking Golgotha, a breeding-place of evils, a home of devils. The tombs may be newly whitewashed, but they are none the less open sepulchres, haunts of unclean spirits. A church all alive is a little heaven, the resort of angels, the temple of the Holy Ghost. In some of our churches everybody seems to be a little colder than everybody else. The members are holy icicles. A general frost has paralyzed everybody; and though some are colder than others, yet all are below zero. There are no flowing rills of refreshment, but everything is bound hard and fast with the frost of indifference. Oh, that the Lord would send forth His wind, and melt the glaciers! Oh, that the Spirit of God would chase winter out of every heart and every church! No human power can keep a church from the frostbite which numbs and kills. Except the Lord be there, growth, life, warmth, are all impossible. ~  C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

Abide with Us, We Pray Thee!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, The Holy Spirit 6 Comments

Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. -Acts 20:28

Brethren, we as a church have grown to great numbers, and we are not deficient either in gifts or in graces, or in work for our Lord; but let me solemnly remind you always that our chief, our only strength, must always lie in this-“the Lord is there.” If the Lord should depart from us, as He has gone from churches which are now apostate, what an abyss opens before us! If He should take His Holy Spirit from us, even as the glory departed from the temple at Jerusalem, then our ruin would become a thing to mention with dread, a case to be quoted for a warning to future generations. O Lord, our God, take not Thy flight! Abide with us, we pray Thee! Our only hope lies in Thy making the place of Thy feet glorious among us.

If the Lord be among us, the consequences will be…the conservation of true doctrine. The true God is not with a lie: He will not give His countenance to falsehood. Those who preach other than according to His word, abide not under His blessing; but are in great danger of His curse. If any man speak another gospel (which is not another, but there be some that trouble us), God is not with him, and any transient prosperity which he may enjoy, will be blown away as the chaff. God is with those who speak the truth faithfully, hold it devoutly, believe it firmly, and live upon it as their daily bread…and therefore they are sound in the faith, reverent towards Holy Scripture, and zealous for the honor of Christ! Trust-deeds and confessions of faith are useful in their way, even as laws are useful to society; but as laws cannot secure obedience to themselves, so articles of belief cannot create faith, or secure honesty; and to men without conscience, they are not worth the paper they are written upon. No subscription to articles can keep out the unscrupulous. Wolves leap into the fold however carefully you watch the door…Truth must be written on the heart as well as in the book. If the Lord be among His people, they will cling to the eternal verities, and love the doctrine of the cross, not by force of law, but because divine truth is the life of their souls. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

The Gate of Heaven

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

You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. -Psalm 16:11

Do we reckon the presence of the Lord to be the greatest of blessings? If in any gathering, even of the humblest people, the Lord God is known to be present in a peculiarly gracious manner, should we make a point of being there?..Will you permit these thoughts to saturate you for a little space? I have spoken them with the desire that each one of us may ask himself, “Is the presence of God my delight?” If so, I am His, and He will be with me. On the contrary, Is the presence of God a matter of indifference, or even of dread? Then my condition is one of guilt, disease, and danger. May the Lord, of His infinite mercy, set me right!

God’s saints in divers places found choice spots where they could converse with heaven. In the first days our gracious God spake with His chosen ones in their daily walk, as Enoch; or under the oak, as Abraham; or by the brook, as Jacob; or before the bush, as Moses; or near the city wall, as Joshua. Wherever it might be, the place became to them the gate of heaven, for the Lord was there. Amid a torrent of sin and sorrow, you may cross the stream of time upon the stepping-stones of the places marked “Jevohah-Shammah”. The Lord’s delights were with the sons of men, and to them nothing brought such bliss as to find that still the Lord would be mindful of man, and visit him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/2182.cfm

 

Peace and Liberty with God

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

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus -Romans 8:1

If you are convinced of sin, my dear friends, do not lose a moment. Go to your chamber… shut your door, go alone to Jesus, and there repeat your confession, and once more affirm your faith in Christ; and you shall have that peace with God which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away. Your troubled conscience shalt find rest: your feet shall be on a rock; and a new song shall be in your mouth, even praise for evermore.

“From whence this fear and unbelief?-
Hast Thou, O Father, put to grief
Thy spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous Judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Which, Lord, was charged on Thee?

Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whate’er Thy people owed;
How then can wrath on me take place
If shelter’d in Thy righteousness,
And sprinkled with Thy blood?

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely, in my room, endured
The whole of wrath divine;
Payment God cannot twice demand,-
First, at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.

Turn, then, my soul unto thy rest!
The merits of thy great High Priest
Speak peace and liberty:
Trust in His efficacious blood;
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0255.cfm