prayer

Our Faith is God’s Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises 1 Comment

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith -Hebrews 12:2

It is God’s work to feed faith, as well as to give it life at first; and if any of you desire to have a growing faith, go and take your burden this morning to God’s throne, crying “Lord, increase our faith!” If you feel that your troubles have been increased, go to the Lord, and say, “increase our faith!” If your money is accumulating, go to the Lord, and say, “Increase our faith;” for you will want more faith as you get more prosperity. If your property is diminishing, go to Him, and say, “increase our faith,” so that what you lose in one scale you may gain in the other. Are you sickly and full of pain this morning? Go to your Master, and say, “increase my faith,’ so that you may not be impatient, but be able to bear it well.” Are you tired and weary? Go and supplicate, “Increase our faith!” Have you little faith? Take it to God, and He will turn it into great faith. There is no hot-house for growing tender plants in, like a house that is within the curtains-the tabernacle of God, where the Shekinah dwelleth.

Let each one ask himself, Do I not want more faith? My brethren and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, rest assured, you will never get too much of this precious grace. If you pay all the way to heaven, you will never have a penny to spare when you get to heaven’s gate, if you live on faith all your journey through, you will not have a pot of manna left. Pray, then, for an increase of faith. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0032.cfm

Increase Our Faith

Sherry Christian Life, prayer 3 Comments

And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. -Luke 17:5

Take care of your faith, my friends; for it’s very often so weak, that it demands all your attention. I do not know whether any of you feel that your faith is too strong; but I never feel mine strong enough. It seems to be exactly strong enough to bear the day’s troubles, but it would not stand cutting in the least degree with the plane. I could not afford to take the least atom off; it is just enough, and no more. As for some of us, our faith is so weak that the least trouble threatens to devour it. The goat passes and nips its tender shoot, the winter chills and freezes it; it is almost ready to die. And my faith very often hangs upon the feeblest thread; it appears ready to expire. Take care of your faith, Christian take care of your faith whatever you leave out of doors of a night, do not leave that little child of faith, whatsoever plant is exposed to the frost, be sure to put faith within. Take care of faith, for it is so weak generally, it needs well to have a good preservation.

Napoleon once said, “I must fight battles, and I must win them: conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me.” And it is so with the Christian… The Christian must be going onward; for the arrow will mount while still it is in progress, but it stalls the moment the power stops that keeps it aloft. So the apostle said unto the Lord, “increase our faith.” ~ C,H, Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0032.cfm

Watch Well Thy Faith

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

Have faith that you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. -Matthew 21:22

If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down except faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except it is the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the ladder on which my soul must walk to ascend to heaven. If I break that ladder how can I ever approach my God? Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and heaven. Let that angel be withdrawn, I can neither send prayer up nor receive the answers down. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven-on which God’s blessings move so fast that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble: I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy: my soul on that dear refuge leans by faith. But, take faith away-in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest winter time faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel-ay, and all the better for the biting frost! But blockade the road, and how can we communicate with our great king? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the robes of deity. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith gives me the might of God; for it ensures that power on my behalf. It gives me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth-who is like a wave of the sea-expect that he will receive anything of God! O then, Christians watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0032.cfm

Saved By Faith

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

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: -John 3:36

Faith is the salvation-grace. We are not saved by love; but we are saved by grace, and we are saved by faith. We are not saved by courage, we are not saved by patience; but we are saved by faith. That is to say, God gives His salvation to faith and not to any other virtue. It is nowhere written, he that loveth shall be saved. It is nowhere recorded that a patient sinner shall be saved. But it is said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Faith is the vital part of salvation. If a man lacks faith he lacks everything. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” If a man has true faith, however little he has of any other virtue, that man is secure. But supposing it possible for a man to possess every virtue in the world, let him be as much a Christian in his exterior; the apostle Paul himself; let him be as earnest as a seraph; let him be as diligent in the service of his Master as you could conceive even an angel on high to be, still “Without faith”-so God’s Word declares-“it is impossible to please God.” Faith is the saving grace-it is the connecting link between the soul and Christ. Take that away and all is gone. Remove faith, you have sawn through the ship’s keel, and she must sink. Take away faith, you have taken away my shield and I must be slain. Remove faith, and Christian life becomes a nonentity: it is extinct at once, for “the just shall live by faith:” and without faith how could they live at all? Consider then, that since faith is so important in salvation, it becomes each of us more earnestly to inquire whether we have faith or not? O, my brethren, there are a thousand shams in the world-a thousand imitations of faith; but there is only one true vital saving faith. There are scores of notional faiths: a faith which consists in holding a sound creed, a faith which bids men believe a lie by wrapping them up with assurances of their safety, when they are still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, a faith which consists in presumptuously trusting to ourselves. There are scores of false faiths but there is only one true one. Oh! as ye wish to be saved at last, as ye would not be self-deceived and go marching to damnation with your eyes shut, take your faith in your hand this morning and see whether it is genuine sterling coin. We ought to be more careful of our faith than of anything else. True, we ought to examine our conduct, we ought to search our works, we ought to try our love, but, above all, our faith: for if faith be wrong all is wrong; if faith be right, we may take that as the touchstone of our sincerity. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath eternal life abiding in him.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0032.cfm

The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, The Holy Spirit 4 Comments

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams- Acts 2:17

In a few more years (I know not when, I know not how) the Holy Spirit will be poured out in a far different style from the present. There are diversities of operations, and during the last few years it has been the case that the diversified operations have consisted in very little pouring out of the Spirit. Ministers have gone on in dull routine, continually preaching, preaching, preaching, and little good has been done. I do hope that perhaps a fresh era has dawned upon us, and that there is a better pouring out of the Spirit even now. For the hour is coming, and it may be even now, when the Holy Ghost shall be poured out again in such a wonderful manner, that many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased; the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the surface of the great deep; when His kingdom shall come, and His will shall be done on earth even as it is in heaven. We are not going to be dragging on forever like Pharoah, with the wheels off his chariot. My heart exults, and my eyes flash with the thought that very likely I shall live to see the outpouring of the Spirit; when “the sons and the daughters of God again shall prophesy, and the young men shall see visions and the old men shall dream dreams.” Perhaps there shall be no miraculous gifts for they will not be required; but yet there shall be such a miraculous amount of holiness, such an extraordinary fervor of prayer, such a real communion with God, and so much vital religion, and such a spread of the doctrines of the cross, that every one will see that verily the Spirit is poured out like water, and the rains are descending from above. For that let us pray; let us continually labor for it, and seek it of God.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

The Power to Save the Unsaved

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

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: -2 Thessalonians 2:13

Behold a city where a soothsayer hath the power, who has given out himself to be some great one, a Philip enters it and preaches the Word of God; straightway a Simon Magus loses his power and himself seeks for the power of the Spirit to be given to him, fancying it might be purchased with money. See, in modern times, a country where the inhabitants live in miserable wigwams, feeding on reptiles and the meanest creatures; observe them bowing down before their idols and worshiping their false gods, and so plunged in superstition, so degraded and debased, that it became a question whether they had souls or not; behold a Moffat go with the Word of God in his hand, hear him preach as the Spirit gives him utterance, and accompanies that Word with power. They cast aside their idols; they hate and abhor their former lusts; they build houses, wherein they dwell; they become clothed, and in their right mind. They break the bow, and cut the spear in sunder; the uncivilized become civilized; the savage becomes polite; he who knew nothing begins to read the Scriptures: thus out of the mouths of Hottentots, God attests the power of His mighty Spirit.

I knew a village, once perhaps the most profane in England, a village inundated by drunkenness and debauchery of the worst kind, where it was impossible almost for an honest traveler to stop in the public house without being annoyed by blasphemy; a place noted for incendiaries and robbers. One man, the ringleader of all, listened to the voice of God. That man’s heart was broken. The whole gang came to hear the gospel preached, and they sat and seemed to reverence the preacher as if he were God, and not a man. These men became changed and reformed; and every one who knows the place affirms that such a change had never been wrought but by the power of the Holy Ghost. Let the gospel be preached and the Spirit poured out, and you will see that it has such power to change the conscience, to ameliorate the conduct, to raise the debased, to chastise and to curb the wickedness of the race, that you must glory in it. I say, there is naught like the power of the Spirit. Only let that come, and, indeed, everything can be accomplished.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0030.cfm

This Man Receiveth Sinners

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation 5 Comments

Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. -John 6:37

Is there any instance of our Lord’s casting out a coming one? If there be so, we would like to know of it; but there has been none, and there never will be. Among the lost souls in hell there is not one that can say, “I went to Jesus, and He refused me.” It is not possible that you or I should be the first to whom Jesus shall break His word. Let us not entertain so dark a suspicion.

Suppose we go to Jesus now about the evils of today. Oh, this we may be sure–He will not refuse us audience or cast us out. Those of us who have often been and those who have never gone before–let us go together, and we shall see that He will not shut the door of His grace in the face of any one of us.

“This man receiveth sinners,” but He repulses none. We come to Him in weakness and sin, with trembling faith, and small knowledge, and slender hope; but He does not cast us out. We come by prayer, and that prayer broken; with confession, and that confession faulty; with praise, and that praise far short of His merits; but yet He receives us. We come diseased, polluted, worn out, and worthless; but He doth in no wise cast us out. Let us come again today to Him who never casts us out.~ C.H. Spurgeon

Morning and Evening Devotions