Grace

Fire is the Motivating Power in Prayer – EM Bounds

Fire is the motivating power in prayer. This holy fervent flame in the soul awakens the interest of heaven, attracts God’s attention, and places at the disposal of those who exercise it, the inexhaustible riches of divine grace.

– EM Bounds –

The Mark of True Gospel Preaching – Charles Spurgeon

“Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching—where Christ is everything, and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus.”

– Charles Spurgeon –

The Magnitude of Sin – Charles Spurgeon

But we arrive at a more adequate idea of the magnitude of sin by the greatness of the remedy provided. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s only and well-beloved Son. God’s Son!

– Charles Spurgeon –

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 –

Self-Love is Self-Hatred – Thomas Watson

Exercise great self-denial: “Let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). Self-ease, self-ends, whatever comes in competition with (or stand in opposition to) Christ’s glory and interest must be denied. Self is the great snare; self-love undermines the power of godliness. The young man in the Gospel might have followed Christ, but something of self-hindered (Matthew 19:20-22). Self-love is self-hatred. The man who cannot get beyond himself will never get to heaven.

– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666

Lord, Make Me As Holy As You – Oswald Chambers

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ESV)

The majority of us are too indifferent, too religiously sentimental to be caught up in the sweep of the Apostle Paul’s intercession. Have we a lesser idea than that God should do in us what He wants to do? Are we prepared to pray with Murray McCheyne, “Lord, make me as holy as Thou canst make a sinner saved by grace”?

– Oswald Chambers –
from If You Will Ask