REFLECTIONS

A Merry Christmas

“Observe, this morning, the sacred joy of Mary that you may imitate it. This is a season when all men expect us to be joyous. We compliment each other with the desire that we may have a "Merry Christmas." Some Christians who are a little squeamish, do not like the word "merry." It is a right good old Saxon word, having the joy of childhood and the mirth of manhood in it, it brings before one's mind the old song of the waits, and the midnight peal of bells, the holly and the blazing log. I love it for its place in that most tender of all parables, where it is written, that, when the long-lost prodigal returned to his father safe and sound, "They began to be merry." This is the season when we are expected to be happy; and my heart's desire is, that in the highest and best sense, you who are believers may be "merry." Mary's heart was merry within her; but here was the mark of her joy, it was all holy merriment, it was every drop of it sacred mirth. It was not such merriment as worldlings will revel in to-day and to-morrow, but such merriment as the angels have around the throne, where they sing, "Glory to God in the highest," while we sing "On earth peace, goodwill towards men." Such merry hearts have a continual feast. I want you, ye children of the bride-chamber, to possess to-day and to-morrow, yea, all your days, the high and consecrated bliss of Mary, that you may not only read her words, but use them for yourselves, ever experiencing their meaning: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior."”

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

REFLECTIONS

Quotes by John Newton  (1725-1807)

The Lessons of Providence

But a Christian is to pursue his lawful calling with an eye to the providence of God, and with submission to his wisdom. Thus, so far as he acts in the exercise of faith, he cannot be disappointed. He casts his care upon his Heavenly Father, who has promised to take care of him. What God gives, he receives with thankfulness, and is careful as a faithful steward to improve it for the furtherance of the cause of God, and the good of mankind. And if he meets with losses and crosses, he is not disconcerted, knowing that all his concerns are under a Divine direction; that the Lord whom he serves, chooses for him better than he could choose for himself; and that his best treasure is safe, out of the reach of the various changes to which all things in the present state are liable.

A Believer Would be Ashamed to be…

A believer would be ashamed to be so utterly unlike his Lord. What! The master always a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, and the servant always happy and full of comfort! Jesus despised, reproached, neglected, opposed, and betrayed, and His people admired and caressed; He living in the want of all things, and they filled with abundance; He sweating blood for anguish, and they strangers to distress! How unsuitable would these things be! How much better to be called to the honor of experiencing a measure of His sufferings! A Cup was put into His hand on our account, and his love engaged Him to drink it for us. The wrath which it contained he drank wholly Himself; but He left us a little affliction to taste, that we might pledge Him, and remember how He loved us, and how much more He endured for us than He will ever call us to endure for Him.”

Not What I Once Was!

Dear God, I confess that I am not what I should be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I will be, but by your grace I am what I am, and that I am not what I once was!

The Devil is but a Whetstone

We have no clear ideas of the agency of [demonic] spirits, nor is it necessary. The Scripture says little to satisfy our curiosity; but tells us plainly that he is always watching us, and desiring to sift us as wheat. I believe we give him no more than his due, when we charge him with having a hand in all our sins. I believe he cuts us all out abundance of work.

Hope When Praying for a Lost Family Member

I am willing to hope that you will be made a messenger of light and peace to his soul. The Lord’s hand is not shortened that he cannot save. He can do great things in a small time, as you know from your own experience. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he can command light to shine out of darkness. If he speaks, it is done… One glimpse of the worth of the soul, the evil of sin, and the importance of eternity, will effect that which hath been in vain attempted by repeated arguments.

-Gleaned from the internet, John Newton _ Puritan Quotes.htm

REFLECTIONS

Gratitude To God

To be always in a thankful state of heart before God is not to be considered a high plane of spirituality but rather the normal attitude of one who believes that "all things work together for good to them that love God, who are called according to his purpose."

-William Law

Yes, give thanks for "all things" for, as it has been well said "Our disappointments are but His appointments.”

-A.W. Pink

For every bad there might be a worse; and when one breaks his leg let him be thankful it was not his neck.

-Joseph Hall

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed.

-Matthew Henry

Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them.

-Samuel Rutherford

He that hath deserved hanging may be glad to escape with a whipping.

-Thomas Brooks

Gratitude to God makes even a temporal blessing a taste of heaven.

-William Romaine

The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.

-William Law

I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

-John Newton

Whoever has been truly humbled will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others.  He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference – it is grace alone which has made it!  He knows that he has the seeds of every evil in his own heart.  And under all trials and afflictions he will look to the hand of the Lord, and lay his mouth in the dust, acknowledging that he suffers much less than his iniquities have deserved.

-John Newton

REFLECTIONS

Christ’s Sweet Savour

‘March 28, Evening

“I will accept you with your sweet savour.”   Ezekiel 20:41

The merits of our great Redeemer are as sweet savour to the Most High. Whether we speak of the active or passive righteousness of Christ, there is an equal fragrance. There was a sweet savour in His active life by which He honoured the law of God, and made every precept to glitter like a precious jewel in the pure setting of His own person. Such, too, was His passive obedience, when He endured with unmurmuring submission, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and at length sweat great drops of blood in Gethsemane, gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked out the hair, and was fastened to the cruel wood, that He might suffer the wrath of God in our behalf. These two things are sweet before the Most High; and for the sake of His doing and His dying, His substitutionary sufferings and His vicarious obedience, the Lord our God accepts us. What a preciousness must there be in Him to overcome our want of preciousness! What a sweet savour to put away our ill savour! What a cleansing power in His blood to take away sin such as ours! And what glory in His righteousness to make such unacceptable creatures to be accepted in the Beloved! Mark, believer, how sure and unchanging must be our acceptance, since it is in Him! Take care that you never doubt your acceptance in Jesus. You cannot be accepted without Christ; but, when you have received His merit, you cannot be unaccepted. Notwithstanding all your doubts, and fears, and sins, Jehovah’s gracious eye never looks upon you in anger; though He sees sin in you, in yourself, yet when He looks at you through Christ, He sees no sin. You are always accepted in Christ, are always blessed and dear to the Father’s heart. Therefore lift up a song, and as you see the smoking incense of the merit of the Saviour coming up, this evening, before the sapphire throne, let the incense of your praise go up also.’ 

- From Morning and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon (Massachusetts; Hendrickson Publishers); page 177.

REFLECTIONS

The Excellency of Christ, Love

“God and Christ appear in the gospel revelation, as being clothed in love; as sitting as it were on a throne of mercy and grace, a seat of love, encompassed about with the sweet beams of love. Love is the light and glory that is round about the throne on which God is seated. This seems to be intended in the vision the apostle John, that loving and loved disciple, had of God in the isle of Patmos (Rev. iv. 3)—“And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald;” that is, round about the throne on which God was sitting. So that God appeared to him, as he sat on his throne, as encompassed with a circle of sweet and pleasant light, like the beautiful colours of the rainbow, and like an emerald, which is a precious stone of exceeding pleasant and beautiful colour—thus representing that the light and glory with which God appears surrounded in the gospel, is especially the glory of his love and covenant-grace, for the rainbow was given to Noah as a token of both of these. Therefore, it is plain that this spirit, even a spirit of love, is the spirit that the gospel revelation does especially hold forth motives and inducements to; and this is especially and eminently the Christian spirit—the right spirit of the gospel.

Second, If it is indeed so, that all that is saving and distinguishing in a true Christian, is summarily comprehended in love, then professors of Christianity may in this be taught as to their experiences, whether they are real Christian experiences or not. If they are so, then love is the sum and substance of them. If persons have the true light of heaven let into their souls, it is not a light without heat. Divine knowledge and divine love go together. A spiritual view of divine things always excites love in the soul, and draws forth the heart in love to every proper object. True discoveries of the divine character dispose us to love God as the supreme good; they unite the heart in love to Christ; they incline the soul to flow out in love to God’s people, and to all mankind. When persons have a true discovery of the excellency and sufficiency of Christ, this is the effect. When they experience a right belief of the truth of the gospel, such a belief is accompanied by love. They love him whom they believe to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. When the truth of the glorious doctrines and promises of the gospel is seen, these doctrines and promises are like so many cords which take hold of the heart, and draw it out in love to God and Christ. When persons experience a true trust and reliance on Christ, they rely on him with love, and so do it with delight and sweet acquiescence of soul. The spouse sat under Christ’s shadow with great delight, and rested sweetly under his protection, because she loved him (Cant. ii. 2). When persons experience true comfort and spiritual joy, their joy is the joy of faith and love. They do not rejoice in themselves, but it is God who is their exceeding joy.

           

Third, This doctrine shews the amiableness of a Christian spirit. A spirit of love is an amiable spirit. It is the spirit of Jesus Christ—it is the spirit of heaven.

Fourth, This doctrine shews the pleasantness of a Christian life. A life of love is a pleasant life. Reason and the Scriptures alike teach us, that “happy is the man that findeth wisdom,” and that “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are paths of peace” (Prov. iii. 13, 17).

Fifth, Hence we may learn the reason why contention tends so much to the ruin of religion. The Scriptures tell us that it has this tendency—“Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” (James iii. 16). And so we find it by experience. When contention comes into a place, it seems to prevent all good. And if religion has been flourishing before, it presently seems to chill and deaden it; and everything that is bad begins to flourish. And in the light of our doctrine, we may plainly see the reason of all this; for contention is directly against that which is the very sum of all that is essential and distinguishing in true Christianity, even a spirit of love and peace. No wonder, therefore, that Christianity cannot flourish in a time of strife and contention among its professors. No wonder that religion and contention cannot live together.”

-From CHARITY AND ITS FRUITS, Christian love as manifested in the heart and life, by Jonathan Edwards (Banner of Truth Trust, London; first published 1852; first Banner of Truth Trust Edition 1969; Reprinted by photolithography by Billing & Sons Limited, Guildford and London); Pages 20-23.

REFLECTIONS

Humility-Puritan Thoughts

Humility is the repentance of pride.

Nehemiah Rogers

Humility is both a grace and a vessel to receive grace.                                                                                          

John Trapp

Pride is a sinner’s torment, but humility is a saint’s ornament.

William Secker

The best of God’s people have abhorred themselves. Like the spire of a steeple, we are least at the highest.

Thomas Manton

Many are humbled, but not humble, low, but not lowly.

John Trapp

When the corn is nearly ripe it bows the head and stoops lower than when it was green. When the people of God are near ripe for heaven, they grow more humble and self-denying…Paul had one foot in heaven when he called himself the chiefest of sinners and the least of saints.

John Flavel

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

William Gurnall

Humility doth no more require that a wise man think his knowledge equal with a fool's, or ignorant man's, than that a sound man take himself to be sick.

Richard Baxter

By humility I mean not the abjectness of a base mind; but a prudent care not to over-value ourselves upon any account.

Obadiah Grew

To affect obscurity or submission is base and suspicious; but that man, whose modesty presents him mean to his own eyes and lowly to others, is commonly secretly rich in virtue. Give me rather a low fullness than an empty advancement.

Joseph Hall

A sight of God's glory humbles. The stars vanish when the sun appears.

Thomas Watson

Humility wrestleth with God, like Jacob, and wins by yielding.

Thomas Adams

In spiritual graces let us study to be great, and not to know it.

Thomas Adams

Let us take care to be and to do as we should, and then for noise and report, let it be good or ill as God will send it.... If we seek to be in the mouths of men, to dwell in the talk and speech of men, God will abhor us.... Therefore let us labour to be good in secret. Christians should be as minerals, rich in the depth of the earth.

Richard Sibbes

Four reasons written in the heart of an humble saint:

(1) When he looks upon another that is a sinner, he considereth that he has been worse than he.

(2) A humble heart thinks himself to be worse still.

(3) It is God that hath made it and not anything in himself.

(4) He considereth that the vilest sinner may be, in God's good time, better than he.

Walter Cradock

Well, Christians, remember this, God hath two strings to His bow; if your hearts will not lie humble and low under the sense of sin and misery, He will make them lie low under the lack of some desired mercy.

Thomas Brooks

Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, or storms of affliction.

Samuel Rutherford

We were earth, we are flesh, and we shall be worm's meat.

Henry Smith

As Christ ceased not to be a King because He was like a servant, nor to be a lion because He was like a lamb, nor to be God because He was made man, nor to be a judge because He was judged! So a man doth not lose his honour by humility, but he shall be honoured for his humility.

Henry Smith

If you lay yourself at Christ’s feet He will take you into His arms.

William Bridge

A humble man hath this advantage of a proud man, he cannot fall.

Edward Marbury

A humble sinner is in a better condition than a proud angel.

Thomas Watson

God's choice acquaintances are humble men.

Robert Leighton