promises

Truth: the Infinite God Loves Me

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

…because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

Get the thought into your head a minute: “God loves me-not merely bears with me, thinks of me, feeds me, but loves me. Oh, it is a very sweet thing to feel that we have the love of a dear wife, or a kind husband; and there is much sweetness in the love of a fond child, or a tender mother; but to think that God loves me, this is infinitely better! Who is it that loves you? God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty, All in all, does He love me? Even He? If all men, and all angels, and all the living creatures that are before the throne loved me, it were nothing to this-the Infinite loves me! And who is it that He loves? Me. The text saith, “us.” “We love Him because He first loved us.” But this is the personal point-He loves me, an insignificant nobody, full of sin-who deserved to be in hell; who loves Him so little in return-God loves me. Beloved believer, does not this melt you? Does not this fire your soul? I know it does if it is really believed. It must. And how did He love me? He loved me so that He gave up His only begotten Son for me, to be nailed to the tree, and made to bleed and die. And what will come of it? Why, because He loved me and forgave me, I am on the way to heaven…He loved me before I was born; before a star begun to shine, He loved me, and He has never ceased to do so all these years. When I have sinned He has loved me; when I have forgotten Him He has loved me; and when in the days of my sin I cursed Him, yet still He loved me; and He will love me when my knees tremble, and my hair is grey with age, “even to hoar hairs” He will bear and carry His servant; and He will love me when the world is on a blaze, and love me for ever, and for ever. Oh, chew the cud of this blessed thought; roll it under your tongue as a dainty morsel; sit down this afternoon, if you have leisure, and think of nothing but this-His great love wherewith He loves you. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Familiarity with God

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

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

If the ardent love of some saints often takes the shape of admiration of God, this arises from their familiarity with God, and this familiarity they never would have indulged in, unless they had known that He was their friend. A man could not speak to God as to a friend, unless he knew the love that God hath toward him. The truer his knowledge and the surer, the closer his fellowship.

Brethren beloved, if you know that God has loved you, then you will feel grateful; every doubt will diminish your gratitude, but every grain of faith will increase it. Then as we advance in grace, love to God in our soul will excite desire after Him. Those we love we long to be with; we count the hours that separate us; no place so happy as that in which we enjoy their society. Hence love to God produces a desire to be with Him; a desire to be like Him, a longing to be with Him eternally in heaven, and this breaks us away from worldliness; this keeps us from idolatry, and thus has a most blessedly sanctifying effect upon us, producing that elevated character which is now so rare, but which wherever it exists is powerful for the good of the church and for the glory of God…It may help those who aspire to mount high in grace, if they keep in mind that every step they climb they must use the ladder which Jacob saw. The love of God to us is the only way to climb to the love of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

The More Faith, the More Soul-filling Love

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

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

Beloved, there are few of us who know much of the depth of the love of God; our love is shallow; ah, how shallow! Love to God is like a great mountain. The majority of travellers view it from afar or traverse the valley at its base; a few climb to a halting place on one of its elevated spurs, whence they see a portion of its sublimities: here and there an adventurous traveller climbs a minor peak, and views glacier and alp at closer range; fewest of all are those who scale the topmost pinnacle and tread the virgin snow. So in the Church of God. Every Christian abides under the shadow of divine love: a few enjoy and return that love to a remarkable degree: but there are few in this age sadly few, who reach to seraphic love, who ascend into the hill of the Lord, to stand where the eagle’s eye hath not seen, and walk the path which the lion’s welp hath never trodden, the high places of complete consecration and ardent self-consuming love. Now, mark you, it may be difficult to ascend so high, but there is one sure route, and only one, which the man must follow who would gain the sacred elevation. It is not the track of his works, nor the path of his own actions, but this, “We love Him because He first loved us.” John and the apostles confessed that thus they attained their love. For the highest love that ever glowed in human bosom there was no source but this-God first loved that man. Do you not see how this is? The knowledge that God loves me casts out my tormenting dread of God: and when this is expelled, there is room for abounding love to God. As fear goes out, love comes in at the other door. So, the more faith in God the more room there is for soul-filling love. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Prodigal, God Loves You Still

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, The Father Leave a comment

 “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” – 1 John 2:1

The motive power which draws back the backslider is the cord of love, the band of a man, which makes him feel he must go back to God with weeping and repentance, because God loves him still. What man among you hath a son who has disobeyed him and gone from him, and is living in drunkenness, and in all manner of lust? If you have in anger told him, so that he doubts it not, that you have struck his name out of your family, and will not regard him as a child any longer, do you think that your severity will induce him to return to you in love? Far from it. But suppose instead thereof, you still assure him that you love him; that there is always a place at your table for him, and a bed in your house for him, ay, and better still, a warm place in your heart for him; suppose he sees your tears and hears your prayers for him, will not this draw him? Yes, indeed, if he be a son. It is even thus between thy God and thee, O backslider…Surely, if anything will draw you back, this will. “Ah !’ saith the wandering son, “my dear Father loves me still. I will arise and go to Him. I will not vex so tender a heart. I will be His loving son again.” God does not say to you prodigals, who once professed His name, “I have unchilded you, I have cast you away,” but He says, “I love you still; and for My name’s sake will I restrain My wrath that I cut you not off.” Come to your offended Father, and you shall find that He has not repented of His love but will embrace you still. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Go to Christ Himself at Once

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. 

Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the LORD our God. – Jeremiah 3:22

“Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.” Can you hear these words without emotion? Backslider! I pray thee take the wings of God’s love to fly back to Him with. But I hear you enquiring, Will He still receive me? Shall I be once more-

“To the Father’s bosom pressed,
Once again a child confessed.”

It shall be so. Does He not declare that He is God and changes not, and therefore you are not consumed? Rekindled are the flames of love in the backslider’s bosom when he feels all this to be true; he cries, “Behold, we come to Thee for Thou art the Lord our God.” I pray you, then, any of you who are conscious of gross derelictions of duty, and wanderings of heart, do not ask Moses to lead you back to Christ, he knows the way to Sinai’s flames, but not to Calvary’s pardoning blood. Go to Christ Himself at once. If you go to the law and begin to judge yourself, if you get the notion that you are to undergo a sort of spiritual quarantine, that you must pass through a mental purgatory before you may renew your faith in the Saviour, you are mistaken. Come just as you are, bad as you are, hardened, cold, dead as you feel yourselves to be, come even so, and believe in the boundless love of God in Christ Jesus. Then shall come the deep repentance; then shall come the brokenness of heart; then shall come the holy jealousy, the sacred hatred of sin, and the refining of the soul from all her dross; then, indeed, all good things shall come to restore your soul, and lead you in the paths of righteousness. Do not look for these first; that would be looking for the effects before the cause. The great cause of love in the restored backslider must still be the love of God to him, to whom he clings with a faith that dares not let go its hold. – C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Return to Your Lord, Backslider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the LORD. – Jeremiah 3:1

It is sadly probable that there are some who once loved God very earnestly, but now they have declined and become grievously indifferent; God’s love to us never changes, but ours too often sinks to a low ebb. Perhaps some of you have become so cold in your affections that it is difficult to be sure that you ever did love God at all. It may be that your life has become lax, so as to deserve the censure of the Church. You are a backslider, and you are in a dangerous condition; yet, if there be indeed spiritual life in you, you will wish to return. You have gone astray like a lost sheep, but your prayer is, “seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.” Now, note well, that the cause which originated your love is the same which must restore it. You went to Christ as a sinner at first, and your first act was to believe the love of God to you when there was nothing in you that evidenced it. Go the same way again. Do not stop, my dear brother, to pump up love out of the dry well within yourself! Do not think it possible that love will come at your bidding. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Think of the Lord’s unchanging grace, and you will feel the spring-time of love returning to your soul. Still doth the Lord reserve mercy for the sinful, still He waiteth to be gracious; He is as willing to receive you now that you have played the prodigal, as He was to have retained you at home in the bosom of His love. Many considerations ought to aid you, backslider, to believe more in the love of God than ever you did. For think what love it must be that can invite you still to return; you, who after knowing so much have sinned against light and knowledge; you, who after having experienced so much, have given the lie to your profession…But thus saith the Lord, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto Me.” What matchless love is this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Look to God’s Eternal, Costly Love

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

He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

The soul grows rich in love to God when she rests on the bosom of divine lovingkindness. You, who are tossed about with doubts and fears as to whether you are now accepted or shall persevere to the end, you can scarcely guess the ardours of heart which inflame those saints who have learned to cast themselves wholly upon Jesus and know beyond a doubt His love immutable. Whether I sink or swim, I have no hope but in Christ, my life, my all.

“I know that safe with Him remains,
Protected by His power,
What I’ve committed to His hands
Till the decisive hour:”

And in proportion as I am thus scripturally confident, and rest in my Lord, will my love to Him engross all my heart, and consecrate my life to the Redeemer’s glory.

Beloved, I desire to make this very clear, that to feel love to God we must tread along the road of faith. Truly, this is not a hard or perilous way but one prepared by infinite wisdom. It is a road suitable for sinners, and indeed saints must come that way too. If thou wouldst love God, do not look within thee to see whether this grace or that be as it ought to be, but look to thy God, and read His eternal love, His boundless love, His costly love, which gave Christ for thee; then shall thy love drink in fresh life and vigour. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm