Spend Time With God!!

Spend time with God in silence, listening for His voice and direction for your life. 

[Adrian Rogers]

Psalm 46:10 ... Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Matthew 11:28 ... Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Lamentations 3:26 ... It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. ❤

Rutherford Quotes

Our little time of suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome home to Heaven. 

Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. 

Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea. 

I urge you, a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before Therefore, dig deep, and sweat, and labor. Take pains for Him and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him. 

In our fluctuations of feelings, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus sails by. 

The secret formula of the saints: When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines. 

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

You will not get to steal quietly into heaven, into Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross. I find crosses to be Christ's carved work that he marks out for us and that with crosses he portraits us to his own image, cutting away pieces of our ill and corruption. Lord cut - Lord carve - Lord wound - Lord do anything that may perfect thy father's image in us and make us ready for glory. 

They lose nothing who gain Christ. 

I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet. 

I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons. 

O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without Thee, it would be hell; and if I could be in hell, and have Thee still, it would be heaven to me, for Thou are all the heaven I want. 

There is no sweeter fellowship with Christ than to bring our wounds and our sores to him.

[Samuel Rutherford]

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The Essence of Christ's Mission

The essence of Christ's mission: To Save from Sin This verse is a glorious declaration of the very heart of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not salvation from suffering. Not salvation from political oppression. Not salvation from earthly poverty. But salvation from their SIN that which separates man from God, damns the soul, and defiles every part of life. He did not come to be a moral teacher, a political reformer, or a cultural icon. He came to save from sin. Sin is not a light matter. 

It is the rebellion of the creature against the Creator, the transgression of God's holy Word, and the corruption of human nature. Sin stains every thought, word and deed. Sin places every sinner under the righteous wrath of Almighty God. Therefore, the greatest need of every human soul, is not self-improvement or religious reformation but divine salvation. Jesus did not come merely to forgive sin, but to save from sin. That means He delivers from sin's guilt, by His atoning death, from sin's power, by His Spirit's indwelling presence, and soon from sin's presence altogether, in eternal glory. 

He came not only to justify, but to sanctify. Any gospel that offers pardon without purification, or Heaven without holiness is a false gospel. Jesus saves entirely from the penalty, power, and pollution of sin. 

[Charles H. Spurgeon] 

Matthew 1::21 ... And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.

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Deceptions ...

One of the greatest deceptions the enemy achieves through our sin is he fogs our ability to see the many layers of loss and pain we bring to our own life because of our own sin. We, in effect, trade heeding the voice of True Love and the atmosphere of heaven for shifting shadows and scratching addictions that leave us feeling empty and alone. Unless we see the negative effects of our own sin and all the good things we are sacrificing because of it, we will continue to stumble. 

When we realize it is our own sin and our own choices that sacrifice our ‘promised lands’ and ‘our destinies’, this should create in us a healthy holy fear that keeps us close to the True Shepherd and away from the sickness of sin. Sin is sickness of the soul. Sin is the disconnection from sound wisdom and the LIFE of God. 

To choose sin is to drink poison for your soul and your spirit. To lead a lifestyle of choosing sin and rejecting True Love’s voice leads to death and eternal separation from True LIFE. To come clean is to BECOME CLEAN. For He freely wants to wash and restore His love to us. To have Jesus is to have everything. To not have Jesus is to lose even that which we think we have. True Love does not come to make us comfortable in ‘our beliefs’. He comes to deliver us from ‘our lies’. 

[Troi Nelson Cockayne]

Matthew 24:24 ... For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 ... A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Isaiah 1:18 ... Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ❤

Daily Feasting on the Slain Lamb

While this applies to physical provision, it also reflects our need for continual spiritual sustenance. Just as our bodies need daily food, our souls need to feed on Jesus daily. John 6:48, "I am the Bread of Life!" 

The same Jesus who saved us, must also sustain us. We need Him as much for our continual spiritual nourishment, as we did for our initial salvation. Spurgeon rightly said, "A living Jesus must be the food of a living Christian." Just as the physical body will waste away without food, so will the soul wither without a continual feeding on Jesus. Yesterday's grace will not sustain us today. Yesterday's strength will not triumph in today's trial. We must feast afresh on Jesus, drawing from Him all that we need for living a holy life, pleasing to Him. 

The true food of the believer is Jesus as the slain Lamb. His sin-atoning sacrifice is not just the foundation of our forgiveness, but the daily food for our souls. This continual feasting on Jesus as the slain Lamb, is the secret of a healthy Christian life. Many believers are weak and tossed about, because they are malnourished. They snack on the spiritual junk-food that is continually distributed by the shallow and lukewarm churches of our day. Neither can today's pseudo-Christian books provide any soul-nourishment. They may nibble on Scripture, but they do not provide the true Bread of Life, Jesus Himself. 

Christian, do not neglect your daily Bread. Feed on the slain Lamb, and your soul shall thrive. 

[Charles H. Spurgeon] 

Matthew 6:11 ... Give us this day our daily bread.

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The Box

©2018 R.L.N.

Think outside of the box.

- American Proverb

 

The God of Contemporary Christianity!

The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome if indeed He is not actually inferior to them, in that He is weak and helpless while they at least had some imagined power. 

Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry; for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is in itself a monstrous sin and substitutes for the true God, one made after its own likeness. Always this god will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges. 

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true. If we insist upon trying to imagine Him we end with an idol, made not with hands but with thoughts. And an idol of the mind, is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand! 

Before a Christian Church goes into a decline, there must first be a corrupting of her Scriptural thoughts of God. She simply gives a wrong answer to the question, "What is God like?" and goes downhill from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed - her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind! The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God, until it is once more worthy of Him and of her! 

[A. W. Tozer]

Psalm 50:21 ... These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

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The Brief Gospel ...

The briefest of the "words of Jesus," but one of the most comforting. They contain the essence and epitome of all saving truth. Reader, is Satan assailing you with tormenting fears? Is the thought of your sins the guilty past coming up in terrible memorial before you, almost tempting you to give way to hopeless despondency? Fear not! A gentle voice whispers in your ear "Only believe. Your sins are great, but My grace and merits are greater. 'Only believe' that I died for you that I am living for you and pleading for you, and that 'the faithful saying' is as 'faithful' as ever, and as 'worthy of all acceptance' as ever." (1 Timothy 1:15)

Are you a backslider? Did you once run well? Has your own guilty apostasy alienated and estranged you from that face, which was once all love, and that service which was once all delight? Are you breathing in broken-hearted sorrow over the holy memories of a close walk with God "Oh that it was with me as in months past, when the candle of the Lord did shine?" "Only believe." Take this your mournful soliloquy and convert it into a prayer. "Only believe" the word of Him whose ways are not as man's ways "Return O backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding." (Jeremiah 3:22)

Are you beaten down with some heavy trial? Have your fondest schemes been blown upon your fairest blossoms been withered in the bud? has wave after wave been rolling upon you? has the Lord forgotten to be gracious? Hear the "word of Jesus" resounding amid the thickest midnight of gloom penetrating even through the vaults of the dead "Believe, only believe." There is an infinite reason for the trial a lurking thorn that required removal, a gracious lesson that required teaching. The dreadful severing blow was dealt in love. God will be glorified in it, and your own soul made the better for it. Patiently wait until the light of immortality be reflected on a receding world. Here you must take His dealings on trust. 

The word of Jesus to you now is, "Only believe." The word of Jesus in eternity (every inner meaning and undeveloped purpose being unfolded), "Didn't I tell you that you will see God's glory if you believe?" Are you fearful and agitated in the prospect of death? Through fear of the last enemy, have you been all your lifetime subject to bondage? "Only believe." "As your day is, so shall your strength be." Dying grace will be given when a dying hour comes. In the dark river a sustaining arm will be underneath you, deeper than the deepest and darkest wave. Before you know it, the darkness will be past, the true Light shining the whisper of faith in the nether valley. 

"Believe! Believe!" will be exchanged for angel-voices exclaiming, as you enter the portals of glory, "No longer through a glass darkly, but now face to face!" Yes! Jesus Himself had no higher remedy for sin, for sorrow, and for suffering, than those two words convey. At the utmost extremity of His own distress, and of His disciples' wretchedness, He could only say "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me." Believe, only believe. 

[Author Unknown]

Mark 5:36 ... As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.

Mark 9:24 ...  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. ❤

Sleeping Soundly?

The world at large is thoroughly careless; sleeping soundly; dreaming its dreams of vanity; enjoying sin, vanity, luxury, pleasure, gaiety. 

Awake! sleep no more! Awake, lest the flash of God's avenging sword be the first thing that awakens you!

[Horatius Bonar]

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Ephesians 5:14 ... Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

Romans 13:11 ... And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

1 Corinthians 15:34 ... Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. ❤

We Are Like That Dove!!

The condition of a Christian wandering over earth in search of rest; and disappointed, returning at length to his Savior, glad to be received again into His bosom, where alone there is peace. Surely, he who has been accustomed to drink at the pure fountain of spiritual joy, can never find rest for the soul in this polluted world. How true is it, that to one whose affections have been directed to things above, earthly pleasures seem to have lost their usual relish. 

No prospect however beautiful, no pleasures however tantalizing can be enjoyed, without the associated presence and blessing of God. Yet when God is recognized in them, and the heart is properly affected towards Him-then do even earthly scenes acquire an additional interest. But let the Christian lose sight for a season of his heavenly inheritance, and wander over earth's surface in search of worldly good how soon will he find an unsatisfying vacuity, where not even an olive leaf shall be found to greet his eye or to cheer his heart. 

The Christian may so far backslide, as to wish to explore anew the world which he professes to have forsaken, and God may allow him to do so. But O how soon his wing will tire, and his prospect become gloomy. Glad will he be to return and flutter around the ark, longing to be taken in, where he can once more feel himself happy and at home. And Jesus kindly extends His hand to take us in, even when we have sinfully wandered from His loving arms. 

Why is it that we can be so often deceived? Have we not tried the world, and have we not been disappointed in the pursuit? Never again then let us leave the sacred ark, never again wander from our Lord. 

[Jared Waterbury]

Genesis 8:9 ...  But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. ❤

When a Lost Man Dies ...

When a lost man dies: his relatives scramble for his money; the worms scramble for his body; and the demons scramble for his soul! What a fearful and sobering picture this is! The world may dress death in velvet and flowers, but God reveals its true horror for the unregenerate soul. The instant a man without Christ breathes his last, everything he loved is torn from him. His money is left behind, becoming a point of contention and greed among his relatives. The body he once adorned and pampered, is claimed by corruption and decay. And his soul the most precious part of his being is cast into eternal Hell. 

The world's goods, its riches, its pleasures, its pomp, its fame what are all these without Jesus? They are a painted pageantry to go to Hell in! They are a mockery to an immortal spirit. They are like a mirage in the desert, deluding the traveler, but not yielding one substantial drop of joy. "I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind!" (Ecclesiastes 1:14) 

Yes! This poor world is a heap of chaff; the only enduring treasure is to be found in Jesus. If you neglect Him, you neglect all that is worth having. For the lost, death is not an escape it is the doorway to everlasting punishment. Jesus spoke more often of Hell than of Heaven, warning us with great compassion: "Fear Him who, after killing the body, has power to throw you into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!" (Luke 12:5) 

The man who lives for himself and dies without Jesus, does not rest in peace. He awakens to eternal torment, where hope never dawns, and mercy is no longer offered. Dear reader, do not be deceived. Life is short! Death is certain! Eternity is near! 

A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul! 

[Charles H. Spurgeon] 

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Hebrews 9:27 ... And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Mark 8:36 ... For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? ❤