promises

Imitating Our Lord

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, prayer, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 6 Comments

We love Him, because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

We have known some saints who showed their love to their Lord by weeping over sinners and praying for their conversion. There have been gracious men and women, who could not sleep at night because of their anxiety about the eternal welfare of their relatives and friends, or even of lost ones who were personally unknown to them; and they have risen from their beds to agonize in prayer for sinners who were either calmly sleeping, and not even dreaming of their doom, or else at that very hour were adding to their previous transgressions. There have been others, who could not hear a blasphemous word, as they passed along the street, without feeling a holy indignation at the injury that was being done to their best Friend, and at the same time their eyes filled with tears of pity for the poor blasphemers, and their hearts poured out a stream of supplication for those who were thus ignorantly or wantonly sinning against the Most High.

Others have proved their love to their Lord by the way in which they have been given of their substance to His cause. They have not only given a tithe of all they had to the great Melchizdeck, but they have counted it a high privilege to lay all that they had upon his altar, counting that their gold was never so golden as when it was all Christ’s and that their lands were never so valuable to them as when they were gladly surrendered to Him. Alas, that there should be so few, even in the Church of Christ, who thus imitate their Lord who freely gave Himself and all He had that He might save His people! Blessed will the Church be when she gets back to the Pentecostal consecration which was the fitting culmination of the Pentecostal blessing: “all that believed were together, and had all things in common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Behold How He Loves His Lord

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

We love Him because He first loved us. -1 John 4:19

Did anybody ever say of any one of us here, “Behold how he loves Christ”? If someone did say that of you, my brother or sister, was it true? I think I hear your answer, ” Oh, I do love Him! He knows all things, and He knows that I love Him.” But do you love Him so fervently that strangers or even your more intimate acquaintances would say of your love to Jesus what the Jews said of His love to Lazarus, “Behold how He loved him”? “I wish,” says one, “I could do so.” Then listen while I tell you of what some saints have done to show how they have loved their Lord.

There have been those who have suffered for Christ’s sake. They have lain in damp dungeons, and have refused to accept liberty at the price of treachery to their Lord and His truth. They have been stretched upon the rack, yet no torture could make them yield up their fidelity to God. If you have read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, you know how hundreds of brave men and women, and children too, stood at the stake, gloriously calm, and often triumphantly happy, and were burnt to death for Christ’s sake, while many of those who looked on learnt to imitate their noble example, and others who heard their dying testimonies, and their expiring songs, (not groans,) could not help exclaiming, “Behold how these martyrs love their Master!”

There have been others, who have shown their love to their Lord by untiring and self-sacrificing service. They have laboured for Him, at times, under great privations and amid many perils, some as missionaries in foreign lands, and others with equal zeal in this country. Their hearts were all aglow with love for their dear Lord and Saviour, and they spent their whole time and strength in seeking to win souls for Him, so that those who knew them could not help saying, “Behold how they love their Lord!” Some of us can never hope to wear the ruby crown of martyrdom, yet we may be honoured by receiving the richly-jewelled crown from the hand of Christ ~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

Heaven is Our Home (Maranatha!)

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

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. -John 14:3

He has made us long for heaven, and given us at least a measure of preparation for it. We are expecting that, one of these days, if the chariot and horses of fire do not stop at our door, our dear Lord and Saviour will fulfil to us His promise, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” To a true believer in Jesus, the thought of departing from this world, and going to be “for ever with the Lord,” has nothing of gloom associated with it. This earth is the place of our banishment and exile; heaven is our home. We are like the loving wife who is sundered by thousands of miles of sea and land from her dear husband, and we are longing for the great re-union with our beloved Lord, from whom we shall then never again be separated. I cannot hope to depict the scene when He shall introduce us to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, and bid us sit with Him in His throne, even as He sits with His Father in His throne. Surely then the holy angels, who have never sinned, will unite in exclaiming, “Behold, how He loved them!” It is a most blessed thought, to my mind, that we may be up there before the hands of that clock complete another round; and if not so soon as that, it will not be long before all of us who love the Lord will be with Him where He is, and then the last among us shall know more of His love than the greatest of us can ever know while here below. Meanwhile, we have much of the joy of heaven even while we are upon this earth; for, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”~ C.H. Spurgeon

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

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