Saturday, May 31, 2008

"Herein is Love" - Thoughts from Spurgeon

The other day I borrowed Humility and How to Get It - by Charles Spurgeon from our church library. (Humility is something I dearly need more of.) The book is a collection of Spurgeon's sermons, many on humility. The first sermon, however, is on love. I appreciated one of Spurgeon's colorful illustrations:
I am looking for "the springs of the sea," and you point me to a little pool amid the rocks which has been filled by the flowing tide. I am glad to see that pool: how bright! how blue! how like the sea from whence it came! But do not point to this as the source of the great waterfloods; for if you do I shall smile at your childish ignorance, and point you to yon great rolling main which tosses its waves on high. What is your little pool to the vast Atlantic? Do you point me to the love in the believer's heart, and say, "Herein is love!" You make me smile. I know that there is love in that true heart; but who can mention it in the presence of the great rolling ocean of the love of God, without bottom and without shore? The word not is not only upon my lip but in my heart as I think of the two things, "NOT that we loved God, but that God loved us." What poor love ours is at its very best when compared with the love wherewith God loves us!...I do rejoice in the love of saints to their Lord. Yet this is but a streamlet; the unfathomable deep, the eternal souce from which all love proceeds, infinitely exceeds all human affection, and it is found in God, and in God alone.


"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
- 1 John 4:10 ESV

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Accepted in the Beloved

"The pure, full love of God streams through the blood and obedience of Jesus to every soul that is lying under them, however vile and wretched in themselves."


"See what Christ thinks of the believer: 'As the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters.' The believer is like a lovely flower in the eyes of Christ, washed in His blood, as pure and white as a lily. Christ can see no spot in His own righteousness, and therefore He sees no spot on the believer."

"You have drawn the Savior's blood and righteousness over your souls, and you know that the Father himself loveth you." - Robert Murray McCheyne

~~~~~

"To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." - Revelation 1:5-6 ESV

Friday, May 16, 2008

"Who is This Fair One in Distress?"
- by Isaac Watts

Who is this fair one in distress,
That travels from the wilderness?
And pressed with sorrows and with sins,
On her belovèd Lord she leans.

This is the spouse of Christ our God,
Bought with the treasure of His blood;
And her request and her complaint
Is but the voice of every saint.

“O let my name engraven stand
Both on Thy heart and on Thy hand;
Seal me upon Thine arm, and wear
That pledge of love for ever there.

“Stronger than death Thy love is known,
Which floods of wrath could never drown;
And hell and earth in vain combine
To quench a fire so much divine.

“But I am jealous of my heart,
Lest it should once from Thee depart;
Then let Thy Name be well impressed,
As a fair signet on my breast.

“Till Thou hast brought me to Thy home,
Where fears and doubts can never come,
Thy countenance let me often see,
And often Thou shalt hear from me.

“Come, my Belovèd, haste away,
Cut short the hours of Thy delay;
Fly like a youthful hart or roe
Over the hills where spices grow.”