Love

A Passionate Joy in Your Spirit – Keith Green

It seems to me that there are but few who really live with a passion for God—especially a passion just to be with Him. Today there is such a noise coming up before the throne of the Most High—the clamor of so-called praise, singing, and joyful shouting. But I wonder if the same people who love to sing and shout, loudly exclaiming the praises of God, really have such an intense glory in their secret life with the Lord. When the meeting’s over and there’s no one there to listen except the only One who matters, do you still have that same passionate joy in your spirit, just to be alone with the Living God?

– Keith Green –

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 –

Names and Offices of Christ – JC Ryle

The names and offices of Christ, as laid down in Scripture, appear to me to show unmistakably that this communion between the saint and his Savior is not a mere fancy, but a real true thing. Between the Bridegroom and His bride, between the Head and His members, between the Physician and His patients, between the Advocate and His clients, between the Shepherd and His sheep, between the Master and His scholars, there is evidently implied a habit of familiar communion, of daily application for things needed, of daily pouring out and unburdening our hearts and minds. Such a habit of dealing with Christ is clearly something more than a vague general trust in the work that Christ did for sinners. It is getting close to Him and laying hold on Him with confidence, as a loving, personal Friend. This is what I mean by communion.

– JC Ryle –

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

Absolutely Abandoned to Jesus Christ – Oswald Chambers

Whenever our Lord talked about the relation of a disciple to Himself it was in terms of mystical union: “I am the vine [not the root of the vine, but the vine itself], ye are the branches.” We have not paid enough attention to the illustrations Jesus uses. This is the picture of sanctification in the individual, a completeness of relationship between Jesus Christ and myself. Pharisaic holiness means that my eyes are set on my own whiteness and I become a separate individual. I have the notion that I have to be something; I have not, I have to be absolutely abandoned to Jesus Christ, so one with Him that I never think of myself apart from Him. Love is never self-conscious.

– Oswald Chambers –
from Biblical Ethics