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.