Centrality of Christ

Union with Jesus Christ – AB Simpson

Christianity may mean nothing more than a religious system. The Christian life may mean nothing more than an earnest and honest attempt to follow and imitate Christ. The Christ life is more than these and expresses our actual union with the Lord Jesus Christ. He is actually in us as the life and source of all our experience and work. This conception of the highest Christian life is at once simpler and more sublime than any other. We do not teach that the purpose of Christ’s redemption is to restore us to Adamic perfection, for if we had it we should lose it tomorrow. Rather, it is to unite us with the second Adam, and to lift us up to a higher plane than our first parents ever knew. This is the only thing that can reconcile the warring elements of diverse schools of teaching with respect to Christian life. The Spirit of God will lead us to have no controversy respecting mere theories. Rather, we are simply to hold to the person and life of Jesus Christ Himself and the privilege of being united to Him through living in constant dependence upon His keeping power and grace.

– AB Simpson –

Consecration & Sanctification – Oswald Chambers

Consecration is our part, sanctification is God’s part; and we have deliberately to determine to be interested in that only in which God is interested. The way to solve perplexing problems is to ask—”Is this the kind of thing which Jesus Christ is interested in, or the kind of thing the spirit that is [opposite] of Jesus is interested in?”

– Oswald Chambers –

Cream of the Morning – Charles Spurgeon

“To show forth thy loving kindness in the morning.” Psalms 92:2

We are full of vigor then. We will be tired before night comes round. Perhaps in the heat of the day we will be exhausted. Let us take care, while we are fresh, to give the cream of the morning to God.

– Charles Spurgeon – 
from Spurgeon on Praise

Jesus is the Key, the Mediator, and the Intercessor – Mendell Taylor

The most uncontrollable and unchanging thing on earth is the base element in human nature. Though advancement may be made in science, medicine, and standards of living, still the sinfulness of man remains the same through the centuries. The list of sins in Noah’s day, in Jesus’ day, and today are identical. However, there is a universal remedy for the problem. All can be saved to the uttermost, including those from the uttermost (the down-and-out) to the uppermost (the up-and-out)…Christ is the answer, and the only answer, to the problems of guilt and sin. He is the Door and the only Door that provides entrance to eternal life. He is the Key, and the only Key that unlocks an imprisoned world. He is the Mediator, and the only Mediator who can reconcile sinners unto God. He is the Intercessor, and the only Intercessor who can get a verdict of acquittal for the vilest transgressor.

– Mendell Taylor –

Our Knowledge and Faith – Richard Baxter

What is our knowledge and faith, but to know and believe that heaven consists in the glory and love of God there manifested, and that it was purchased by his covenant?

– Richard Baxter –
from Dying Thoughts, 1683

The Effect of Scripture – William Perkins

The effect of scripture: it converts people, and even although it is completely contrary to their thinking and desires, it wins them to itself.

– William Perkins –
from The Art of Prophesying, 1592

Christ Counted the Sin and Sinner – John Bunyan

He did not only die, but died such a death, as indeed cannot be expressed. He was content to be counted the sinner: yea, to be counted the sin of the sinner, nor could this but be odious to so holy a Lamb as he was, yet willing to be this and thus for that love that he bare to men.

– John Bunyan –
from All Loves Excelling, 1692

Masculine Holiness – CT Studd

Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time of waiting is past! The hour of God has struck! War is declared! In God’s Holy Name let us arise and build! ‘The God of Heaven, He will fight for us’, as we for Him. We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we fear? Before the world, yes, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only our God, than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.

– CT Studd –