Not What I Once Used to Be!!

The regenerate man is a holy man. He endeavors to live according to God's will, to do the things which please God, to avoid the things which God hates. His aim and desire is to love God with heart and soul, and mind and strength; and to love his neighbor as himself. His wish is to be continually looking to Christ as his Example as well as his Savior; and to manifest himself as Christ's friend, by obeying whatever He commands.

No doubt he is not perfect. None will tell you that sooner than himself. He groans under the burden of indwelling corruption cleaving to him. He finds an evil principle within him constantly warring against grace and trying to draw him away from God. Yet, in spite of all shortcomings, the average bent and bias of his ways, is holy; of his doings, is holy; of his tastes, is holy; and of his habits, is holy.

In spite of all his swerving and turning aside, like a ship going against a contrary wind, the general course of his life is in one direction: toward God and for God. He will generally be able to say, with old John Newton, "I am not what I ought to be.  I am not what I want to be.  I am not what I hope to be in the eternal world.  But still, I am not what I once used to be!

[J. C. Ryle]

1 Corinthians 15:10 ...  But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

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America in Need!!

 Pray for America!!

2 Chronicles 7:14 ... If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. ❤

Pride is Sin.

Pride is so natural to fallen man, that it springs up in his heart like weeds by a flowing brook.

Pride is a sin with a thousand lives! It is impossible to kill it; it flourishes on that which should be its poison, glorying in its shame. Pride can never be fully conquered. You may hunt down this fox, and think you have destroyed it, and behold, your very exultation is pride.

Pride is a sin with a thousand shapes! By perpetual change, it escapes capture. It seems impossible to grasp it; the vapory imp slips from you, only to appear in another form and mock your fruitless pursuit.

There was certainly pride in the sin of Satan, and pride in the sin of Adam. Pride is the torch which kindled Hell and set the world on fire.

Our hearts are deceitful above all things, and in nothing less to be trusted, than in this matter of pride. Even while we breathe out prayer unto God, pride will attempt to puff us up yes, it will puff up poor dying worms!

Brethren, we are always in danger of pride. Let us be on our guard, for it may be ruining us without our knowledge, just as the moth eats up the garment in secret, or as unseen rust cankers the hidden treasure.

Wherever God sees pride lifting itself up, He resolves to cast it into the dust. He draws His bow, He fits His arrow to the string, and pride is the target that He shoots at! Be sure that if the Lord sees pride in you, then He will smite you!

Pride is never so hateful to God, as when He sees it in His own people. If you see disease in a stranger, then you are sorry for him. But if you discover its symptoms in your own child, then your grief is much deeper. A viper is loathsome anywhere; but how it would startle you, if you saw the head of one of those creatures peeping out from the bosom of your beloved wife!

[Charles H. Spurgeon] 

Proverbs 16:5 ... Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

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Loyalty?

 Jesus had Judas. Do not expect everyone to be loyal to you, even family.  

Matthew 27:3-6 ... Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

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In a Relationship!!

 A life spent in the service of God and in communion with him, is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in the world.

[Matthew Henry]

1 Corinthians 1:9 ...  God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

2 Corinthians 13:14 ...  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. ❤

Returned!!

Humanity has a tendency to wander from God and Christ’s role as the Shepherd, Guardian, and Overseer.  But Jesus brings people back into spiritual safety.

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Isaiah 53:6 ... All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

1 Peter 2:25 ... For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. ❤

Owen Quotes 3

Sin carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, mortification must chiefly be directed to the affections.

He who is more frequent in his pulpit to his people, than he is in his closet for his people is but a sorry watchman of souls.

When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin then lose their attraction. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.

Let our hearts admit: "I am poor and weak.  Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful for me he watches constantly for advantages over my soul.  The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretenses.   My own indwelling corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him."

Sin always aims at the utmost. Every time it rises up to tempt or entice us if it has its own way, it will go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every impure thought or glance would be adultery if it could. Every thought of unbelief would be atheism if allowed to develop. Every rise of lust, if it has its way would reach the height of villainy. Sin is like the grave, which is never satisfied. The deceitfulness of sin is seen in that it is modest in its first proposals, but when it prevails, it hardens men's hearts and brings them to eternal ruin.

The purpose of our holy and righteous God was to save His chosen people, but their sin could not go unpunished. It was, therefore, necessary that the punishment for their sin be transferred from those who deserved it but could not bear it to One who did not deserve it but was able to bear it.

A minister may fill his pews and be esteemed by the world. But what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty that he is, and no more!  

The growth of trees and plants takes place so slowly that it is not easily seen. Daily we notice little change. But, in course of time, we see that a great change has taken place. So, it is with grace. Sanctification is a progressive, lifelong work. 

So, fill your affections with the cross of Christ that there may be no room for sin!

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own center the beginning and end of all he does. 

Unless we are thoroughly convinced that without Christ, we are under the eternal curse of God, as the worst of His enemies we shall never flee to Him for refuge!

As our tender and loving friend is grieved at our unkindness towards him so is it with the tender and loving Spirit, who has chosen our hearts for a habitation to dwell in.

It is evident that most contend against sin merely because of how it troubles them.

We ought as much to pray for a blessing upon our daily rod as upon our daily bread.

Faith, if it is a living faith will be a working faith. We admit no faith to be justifying which is not itself and in its own nature, a spiritually vital principle of obedience and good works.

There is only one way to be revived and healed from our backslidings so that we may become fruitful even in old age. We must take a steady look at the glory of Christ in His special character, in His grace and work, as shown to us in the Scripture.

Great winds and storms help fruit-bearing trees. So also do corruptions and temptations help the fruitfulness of grace and holiness. The storm loosens the earth around its roots, so the tree is able to get its roots deeper into the earth, where it receives fresh supplies of nourishment. But only much later will it be seen to bring forth better fruit. In the same way, corruptions and temptations develop the roots of humility, self-abasement and mourning in a deeper search for that grace by which holiness grows strong. But only later, will there be visible fruits of increased holiness.

There is not a day but sin either foils or is foiled; either prevails or prevailed on. So it will be, while we live in this world.

There are two things which are suited to humble the souls of men: First, a due consideration of God in His greatness, glory, holiness, power, majesty and authority. Secondly, a due consideration of ourselves in our base, abject, sinful and dreadful condition.

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who has once smitten a serpent if he does not continue smiting it until it is slain may repent that he ever began the quarrel. So, it is with he who undertakes to deal with sin and does not pursue it constantly to its death.

The stronghold of the contemplation of Christ's glory, affords the soul rest for it will be made evident that our troubles grow on the root of an over-valuation of temporal things.

[John Owen]

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All Things Well!!

We cannot understand, and we need not understand, all that God is doing; but we may be quite sure that He does all things well. His way of bestowing saving grace is often inscrutable. God will certainly save His chosen people; but how strangely does He deal with some of them! 

I have known God to allow a chosen child of His to run headlong into sin after sin, for many long years. The godly mother has anxiously prayed that God would save her boy, but he has grown up to manhood unsaved. He had passed twenty, thirty, or forty years in wickedness, and had grown worse and worse! It did not seem as if all this could be according to God's mind, and yet it was. For in the mysterious providence of God, this man became greatly debauched by his riotous living. And then, and not until then, was God pleased to save him. His mother had slept amidst the clods of the valley, not knowing that her supplications for him had been answered. 

Yet that profligate man, because he had gone so far in sin, became the greater monument of God's sovereign grace. He was the more firmly bound to Jesus, and the more ardent in Jesus' service through the gratitude that he felt, than he would have been if he had been saved earlier in life. John Bunyan, if he had not been among the chief of sinners, might never have been among the chief of saints. 

Had he never been what he was one of the worst men in the village; then he might never have preached as he did and might never have so boldly declared that the worst of sinners could receive the greatest mercy, and that God would be most glorified in their salvation. God, in His perfect wisdom and sovereign will, determines when, where, and through what means He effectually grants saving grace to His elect people. He knows why He chooses this man at this time, and that man at that time. So let Him do as seems good in His sight, for He always does what is right and best! 

[Charles H. Spurgeon]

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John 3:8 ...  The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Isaiah 55:8-9 ...  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.❤

Quiet Life

 If the road gets quiet, you are going in the right direction.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 ...  And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing. ❤

Why Is It?

Why is it, that today the masses are so utterly unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things, and that they are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that defiance of God is becoming more open, more blatant, more daring? The answer is, because "There is no fear of God before their eyes!" (Romans 3:18) 

Again, why is it that the authority of the Scriptures has been lowered so sadly of late? Why is it that even among those who profess to be the Lord's people, that there is so little real subjection to His Word, and that its precepts are so lightly esteemed and so readily set aside? Ah! what needs to be stressed today is that God is a God to be feared!  Happy is the person who has been awed by a view of God's majesty, who has had a vision of God's unutterable greatness, His ineffable holiness, His perfect righteousness, His irresistible power, His sovereign grace! 

Time was, when it was the general custom to speak of a believer as "a God-fearing man". That such an appellation has become extinct only serves to show where we have drifted. Nevertheless, it still stands written, "Like as a father pities His children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him!" (Psalm 103:13) 

When we speak of godly fear, of course we do not mean a servile fear, such as prevails among the heathen in connection with their gods. No! We mean that spirit which Jehovah is pledged to bless, that spirit to which the prophet referred when he said, "To this man will I look even to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My Word." (Isaiah 66:2) 

Nothing will foster this godly fear, like a recognition of the sovereign majesty of God!

[A.W. Pink]

Luke 12:4-5 ... And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

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Got Liberty?

You’re either obeying all 613 commandments perfectly or you’re saved by faith alone in Jesus.  There is no in-between.

Galatians 5:1 ... Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

James 2:10 ... For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

2 Corinthians 3:17 ... Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ❤