My Lord was pleased to die for my sins; why should I not be glad to give up my poor life out of love for Him.
– Girolamo Savanarola –
Gospel
February 16, 2014
Our sins are debts that none can pay but Christ. It is not our tears, but His blood; it is not our sighs, but His sufferings, that can testify for our sins. Christ must pay all, or we are prisoners forever.
– Thomas Brooks –
January 21, 2014
Listen, this isn’t just a story; this isn’t just a parable. Men and women, I’m talking about you. Some of you men and women have been converted ten, twenty, thirty, some of you may even have been preachers for fifty years, and you’ve never yet discovered the principle of life that was buried within you in the day that you were spiritually regenerate. It’s possible for you and for me in our pigheaded self-esteem, in our very sincerity and zeal in serving God to endungeon and to imprison the Son of God within our souls, and we become the dried up, withered, useless things we are, on the shelf, remaining living. We’ll get to heaven, for the life has been imparted by the divine Spirit – but we are quenching and frustrating and grieving the Spirit of God, busy being ourselves when the one thing that the Father wants is the opportunity for His Son to be Himself.
– Ian Thomas –
January 20, 2014
Christ and salvation are freely given, and yet the most of men go without them because they can not enjoy the world and them together. They are called but to part with that which would hinder them Christ, and they will not do it. They are called but to give God his own, and to resign all to His will, and let go the profits and pleasures of this world, when they must let go either Christ or them, and they will not.
– Richard Baxter –
January 13, 2014
Eternal Light! eternal Light!
How pure the soul must be
When, placed within Thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on Thee!
The spirits that surround Thy throne
May bear the burning bliss;
But that is surely theirs alone,
Since they have never, never known
A fallen world like this.
O how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
That uncreated beam?
There is a way for man to rise
To that sublime abode:
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit’s energies,
An Advocate with God.
These, these prepare us for the sight
Of holiness above;
The sons of ignorance and night,
May dwell in the eternal Light,
Through the eternal Love.
– Thomas Binney –
January 11, 2014
Sweet, sweet grace of God! It was a happy day, spent with saints and sinners. Street meetings tonight brought me into contact with a successful man who has an empty heart. How shall I praise God sufficiently for the inexplicable miracle of divine grace in my soul? And how explain it to others? I have committed this man’s soul to God, and His Word, expecting to write one day in these [journal] pages of his turning to the Lord and finding great peace. You see these words, Lord, and are my Judge as to whether they are in faith.
– Jim Elliot –
January 5, 2014
My life is lived now both externally and internally different from what I knew when the old man was in the saddle. Bless the Lord for this . . .
– Jim Elliot –
December 24, 2013
Dear friend, salvation would be a sadly incomplete affair if it did not deal with the whole part of our ruined estate. We want to be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without sanctification would not be salvation at all. It would call the leper clean, and leave him to die of his disease; it would forgive the rebellion, and allow the rebel to remain an enemy of his King. It would remove the consequence but overlook the cause, and this would leave an endless and hopeless task before us. It would stop the stream for a time, but leave an open fountain of defilement which would sooner or later break forth with increased power.
– Charles Spurgeon –
December 8, 2013
It is God who sets us free. Not only free from punishment, curse, uneasiness and terror, but also free from sin itself. You know that He was manifested so that He might take away our sins. Let us receive this thought deep into our hearts – it is God who takes away our sins. The better we grasp this, the more blessed our lives will be. Not everyone receives this. Some seek only to be freed from the consequences of sin, fear, darkness, and punishment. It is for this reason that they do not come to the true rest of salvation. They do not understand that to be saved is to be freed from sin. Let us hold it firmly. Jesus saves through the taking away of sin.
– Andrew Murray –