Tried With Fire

Do not keep back from Christ under the idea that you must come to him in a disinterested frame, and from an unselfish motive. If you were right in this thing, who could be saved? You are to come as you are; with all your bad motives, whatever these may be. Take all your bad motives, add them to the number of your sins, and bring them all to the altar where the great sacrifice is lying. Go to the mercy seat. Tell the High Priest there, not what you desire to be, nor what you ought to be, but what you are. Tell him the honest truth as to your condition at this moment. Confess the impurity of your motives; all the evil that you feel or that you don’t feel; your hard-heartedness, your blindness, your unteachableness. Confess everything without reserve. He wants you to come to Him exactly as you are, and not to cherish the vain thought that, by a little waiting, or working, or praying, you can make yourself fit, or persuade Him to make you fit. “But I am not satisfied with my faith,” you ...

Faith then is the link, the one link, between the sinner and the Sin-bearer. It is not faith, as a work or exercise of our minds, which must be properly performed in order to qualify or fit us for pardon. It is not faith, as a religious duty, which must be gone through according to certain rules, in order to induce Christ to give us the benefits of his work. It is faith, simply as a receiver of the divine record concerning the Son of God. It is not faith considered as the source of holiness, as containing in itself the seed of all spiritual excellence and good works; it is faith alone, recognizing simply the completeness of the great sacrifice for sin, and the trueness of the Father’s testimony to that completeness; as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “our testimony among you was believed.” It is not faith as a piece of money or a thing of merit; but faith taking God at his word, and giving him credit for speaking the honest truth, when he declares that “Christ died for the ungod...

What peace for the stricken conscience is there in the truth that Christ died for the ungodly; and that it is of the ungodly that the righteous God is the Justifier! The righteous grace thus coming to us through the sin-bearing work of the “Word made flesh,” tells the soul, at once and forever, that there can be no condemnation for any sinner upon earth, who will only consent to be indebted to this free love of God, which, like a fountain of living water, is bursting freely forth from the foot of the Cross. Just, yet the Justifier of the ungodly! What glad tidings are here! Here is grace; God’s free love to the sinner; divine bounty and goodwill, altogether irrespective of human worth or merit. For this is the scriptural meaning of that often misunderstood word “grace.” This righteous free love has its origin in the bosom of the Father, where the only begotten has his dwelling. It is not produced by anything out of God himself. It was man’s evil, not his good, that called it forth....

Shall trial shake us? Nay, in all this we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Shall sorrow move us? Faith tells us of a land where sorrow is unknown. Shall the death of saints move us? Faith tells us not to sorrow as those who have no hope, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. Shall the pains and weariness of this frail body move us? Faith tells us of a time at hand when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. Shall privation move us? Faith tells us of a day when the poverty of our exile shall be forgotten in the abundance of our peaceful, plenteous home, where we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. Shall the disquieting bustle of this restless life annoy us? Faith tells us of the rest that remaineth for the people of God—the sea of glass like unto crystal on which the ransomed saints shall stand—no tempest, no tumult, no shipwreck there. Sh...

It is still night to the church : a night of danger, a night of weariness, a night of weeping. Her firmament is dark and troubled. The promise of morning is sure, and she is looking out for it with fixed and pleading eye, sore tried with the long gloom, yet it has not arisen. It is deferred - deferred in mercy to an unready world, to whom the ending of this night shall be the closing of hope, and the sealing of ruin, and the settling down of the infinite darkness. "For the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but it is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). But though it is night , there are times both in the saint's own history and the church's annals, which may be spoken of as  mornings even now…They are indeed little more than brief brightenings of the darkness - lulls in the long tempest that is to rage unspent till the Lord come. Still we may ca...

We learned this retuned hymn on Sunday. The original verses are from a communion hymn by Horatius Bonar. edited: incorrect wording in title

Congratulations to Ray, providential winner of Night of Weeping and Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar and the Matthew Smith CD. Thanks to everyone who entered!

It's time for the last giveaway of 2012! I'll be giving away one copy of Night of Weeping and Morning of Joy by Horatius Bonar, the 19th century Scottish theologian.  In  Night of Weeping ,  Bonar deals with suffering in the life of the believer. He writes from the perspective that this is the family badge of the people of God. But rather than being punitive in nature, our Heavenly Father deals with us in love and faithfulness. "He is too faithful a Father to suffer sin in his children unreproved."  1 In  Morning of Joy , Bonar writes of the consolation we find in the hope of spending eternity with the Lord: "Beyond the death-bed and beyond the grave, she (the church) sees resurrection. Beyond the broken hearts and severed bands of time, she realizes and clasps the eternal love-links; beyond the troubles of the hour, and beyond the storm that is to wreck the world, she casts her eye, and feels as if transported into the kingdom that cannot be moved, as...

Shall the disquieting bustle of this restless life annoy us? Faith tells us of the rest that remaineth for the people of God - the sea of glass like unto crystal on which the ransomed saints shall stand - no tempest, no tumult, no shipwreck there. Shall the lack of this world's honors move us? Faith tells us of the exceeding and eternal weight of glory in reserve. Have we no place to lay our head? Faith tells us that we have a home, though not in Caesar's house, a dwelling not in any city of earth. Are we fearful as we look around upon the disorder and wretchedness of this misgoverened earth? Faith tells us that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Do thoughts of death alarm us? Faith tells us that "to die is gain" and whispers to us, "What, are you afraid of becoming immortal, afraid of passing from this state of death, which men call life, to that which alone truly deserves the name!" Such is the family life - a life of faith. We live upon things unsee...

If you've had an old physical injury, there are times when you feel a twinge even though the damage was done years ago. I wonder if this is the case when you've gone through a trial? God mends broken hearts. You go on by His grace. But like an old war wound, the pain can be triggered unexpectedly. I was listening to an audiobook this week-end when a plot twist brought so many memories to mind, painful ones that I thought were laid to rest. I was surprised because I didn't expect to feel such sadness again. God's grace has healed so many hurts, but there's a grief for the brokenness of this world that may not go away in this life. Even though God has put joy in my heart once more, I don't think I can stop mourning for the sin that tramples over so many lives. But maybe these war wounds are a good thing. Our past experiences change how we pray for those in similar circumstances. Sympathy becomes empathy, and we can comfort with the comfort wherewith we were ...

As I read John 18-21 today in preparation for Easter, these verses stood out to me in a new way: 'Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover ." John 18:28 I found it very interesting that the Jews were so careful to not defile themselves so they could eat the Passover, but they were rejecting the Lamb of God. All that the Passover was pointing to was about to be fulfilled, and they completely missed it. But before I could do any finger pointing, I recalled the words from Shai Linne's song "Were You There": "The way we treat the Lord of glory is debased and it’s foul Ashamed, I bow because I see my face in the crowd" As I considered what the Lord Jesus suffered on my behalf, I don't want to take it for granted or lose the sense of my sinfulness and complete lack of...