Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Counting the Cost
"The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict half-built towers. The ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to follow Him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great scandal of Christendom today, so called nominal Christianity. In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but thin veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved, enough to be respectable. Their religion is a great soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience. No wonder the cynics speak of hypocrites in the church and dismiss religion as escapism."
John Stott - Basic Christianity, p 108
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Spurgeon - Trials
I would not wish for any man a long time of sickness and pain; but a twist now and
then one might almost ask for him. A sick wife, a newly-made grave, poverty,
slander, sinking of spirit, might teach lessons nowhere else to be learned so well.
Trials drive us to the realities of religion.
Our lusts are cords. Fiery trials are sent to burn and consume them. Who fears the flame which will bring him liberty from bonds intolerable?
When that eminent servant of God, Mr. Gilpin, was arrested to be brought up to London to be tried for preaching the gospel, his captors made mirth of his frequent remark, “Everything is for the best.” When he fell from his horse and broke his leg, they were specially merry about it; but the good man quietly remarked, “I have no doubt but that even this painful accident will prove to be a blessing.” And so it was; for, as he could not travel quickly, the journey was prolonged, and he arrived at London some days later than had been expected. When they reached as far as Highgate, they heard the bells ringing merrily in the city down below. They asked the meaning, and were told, “Queen Mary is dead, and there will be no more burnings of Protestants.” “Ah!” said Gilpin, “you see it is all for the best.” It is a blessing to break a leg if thereby life is saved. How often our calamities are our preservatives! A less evil may ward off a greater.
Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy—surely something must be amiss with the weights!
When we sail in Christ’s company, we may not make sure of fair weather, for great storms may toss the vessel which carries the Lord Himself, and we must not expect to find the sea less boisterous around our little boat.
The best remedy for affliction is submitting to providence. What can’t be cured must be endured.
If there be a man who brings forth much fruit, that man will have much trial, because it will pay the Vine-dresser to prune him.
I learned to lay my little troubles at the feet of Jesus. Why should we not? Are not our great ones little? and is there, after all, much difference between great troubles and little ones in the sight of God?
My brethren, if God sent us trials such as we would wish for, they would be no trials.
I have found much spiritual comfort in sitting at the feet of my venerable grandfather, more than eighty years of age. The last time I saw him I said to him, “I suppose you have had many trials, grandfather?” He said, “I have not had too many, and the most of what I have had, I have made myself.”
Still the best child of God may be the greatest sufferer, and his sufferings may appear to be crushing, killing, and overwhelming; they may also be so very protracted as to attend him all his days, and their bitterness may be intense.
Troubled one, thou mayest go to thy heavenly Father about anything, about everything. He will help thee in every trial wherever thou mayest be: though the thing be little, yet remember everything is little to him, and the difference between an arch-angel and a sparrow is not so very great with God.
You pray against promotion when you pray against affliction.
We never have yet experienced a trouble which might not have been worse.
The groans of earth shall be surpassed by the songs of heaven, and the woes of time shall be swallowed up in the hallelujahs of eternity.
HT: Spurgeon Quotes
Our lusts are cords. Fiery trials are sent to burn and consume them. Who fears the flame which will bring him liberty from bonds intolerable?
When that eminent servant of God, Mr. Gilpin, was arrested to be brought up to London to be tried for preaching the gospel, his captors made mirth of his frequent remark, “Everything is for the best.” When he fell from his horse and broke his leg, they were specially merry about it; but the good man quietly remarked, “I have no doubt but that even this painful accident will prove to be a blessing.” And so it was; for, as he could not travel quickly, the journey was prolonged, and he arrived at London some days later than had been expected. When they reached as far as Highgate, they heard the bells ringing merrily in the city down below. They asked the meaning, and were told, “Queen Mary is dead, and there will be no more burnings of Protestants.” “Ah!” said Gilpin, “you see it is all for the best.” It is a blessing to break a leg if thereby life is saved. How often our calamities are our preservatives! A less evil may ward off a greater.
Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy—surely something must be amiss with the weights!
When we sail in Christ’s company, we may not make sure of fair weather, for great storms may toss the vessel which carries the Lord Himself, and we must not expect to find the sea less boisterous around our little boat.
The best remedy for affliction is submitting to providence. What can’t be cured must be endured.
If there be a man who brings forth much fruit, that man will have much trial, because it will pay the Vine-dresser to prune him.
I learned to lay my little troubles at the feet of Jesus. Why should we not? Are not our great ones little? and is there, after all, much difference between great troubles and little ones in the sight of God?
My brethren, if God sent us trials such as we would wish for, they would be no trials.
I have found much spiritual comfort in sitting at the feet of my venerable grandfather, more than eighty years of age. The last time I saw him I said to him, “I suppose you have had many trials, grandfather?” He said, “I have not had too many, and the most of what I have had, I have made myself.”
Still the best child of God may be the greatest sufferer, and his sufferings may appear to be crushing, killing, and overwhelming; they may also be so very protracted as to attend him all his days, and their bitterness may be intense.
Troubled one, thou mayest go to thy heavenly Father about anything, about everything. He will help thee in every trial wherever thou mayest be: though the thing be little, yet remember everything is little to him, and the difference between an arch-angel and a sparrow is not so very great with God.
You pray against promotion when you pray against affliction.
We never have yet experienced a trouble which might not have been worse.
The groans of earth shall be surpassed by the songs of heaven, and the woes of time shall be swallowed up in the hallelujahs of eternity.
HT: Spurgeon Quotes
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
God Is Giving A Gift To The World
"Many things in this life are utterly opposite from the way they seem. And here is one of them. When the children of God—the followers of Jesus—are permitted to suffer in the path of love, the path of orphan care, God is giving a gift to the world."
John Piper
John Piper
Friday, August 10, 2012
Friday, August 03, 2012
Love Must Be God Centered
"The love of God is not God's making much of us, but God's saving us from self-centeredness so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. And our love to others is not our making much of them, but helping them to find satisfaction in making much of God. True love aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead people to the only lasting joy, namely, God. Love must be God-centered, or it is not true love; it leaves people without their final hope of joy."
John Piper
John Piper
Thursday, August 02, 2012
He Cannot But Be Sovereign
"You are perplexed by the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and election. I wonder that any man believing in a God should be perplexed by these. For if there be a God, a King, eternal, immortal, and invisible, He cannot but be sovereign – and He cannot but do according to His own will and choose according to His own purpose. You may dislike these doctrines, but you can only get quit of them by denying altogether the existence of an infinitely wise, glorious, and powerful Being. God would not be God were He not thus absolutely sovereign in His present doings and His eternal pre-arrangements."
Horatius Bonar
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