Category: sin

An Astonishing Love

Oh, how He loves you!

By Charles Spurgeon and Bryan Lowe

____

A short conversation about love, grace and sin.

*flourish1

*

“Dost thou know, O saint, how much the Holy Spirit loves thee?”

 “Me? I can’t imagine why. I’m the chief of sinners. I’m rotten to the core. I can bring nothing at all to Him.”

“Canst thou measure the love of the Spirit? Dost thou know how great is the affection of his soul towards thee?”

“So you say. But I really can’t see why He would. I want to believe, I really do. I can only be a liability. My sin is heavy.”

“Go measure heaven with thy span; go weigh the mountains in the scales; go take the ocean’s water, and tell each drop; go count the sand upon the sea’s wide shore; and when thou hast accomplished this, thou canst tell how much he loveth thee.”

“If this is true, then perhaps maybe I am worth something, I suppose. But frankly, my imagination staggers just trying to grasp this.”

“He has loved thee long, he has loved thee well, he loved thee ever, and he still shall love thee; surely he is the person to comfort thee, because he loves.”

“This kind of love is fantastically amazing, isn’t it. I must try to tell others what has happened to me.”

*

From the Daily Help Devotional, and my imagination.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was England’s best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1854, just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon, then only 20, became pastor of London’s famed New Park Street Church (formerly pastored by the famous Baptist theologian John Gill). The congregation quickly outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000—all in the days before electronic amplification. In 1861 the congregation moved permanently to the newly constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Spurgeon’s printed works are voluminous, and those provided here are only a sampling of his best-known works, including his magnum opus, The Treasury of David. Nearly all of Spurgeon’s printed works are still in print and available from Pilgrim Publications, PO Box 66, Pasadena, TX USA 77501.

*

ybic, Bryan

Related articles

Help! I Need a Doctor

“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Mark 2:17, ESV

We get ‘schooled’ when we try to figure out Jesus.  It is a radical adjustment to process His thoughts and motives.  We watch and try to understand.  Jesus dictates a certain level, and we as His disciples will need to adjust.  Jesus declares that a select group will not need a doctors ministrations.  But the doctor does have a role.  There will be the ‘sick’, who need his attention.

The reality is that many are diseased and ill.  It is something that links and connects us to each  other.  We are desperately sick, and we have no medicine.  Jesus steps forward and intervenes.  He takes us and ministers to us in our desperate condition.  The diseased will be made healthy.

Jesus reaches ‘the sick’.  That is who He wants.  He makes the choice and that choice is us, full of infection and pain.  His Kingdom consists of those who understand their illness.  He bypasses the strong and the healthy.  He spends little time with them.  His heart is set on us who are broken and twisted.  Our cancerous bodies have absolutely nothing to give Him.

His Kingdom is full of sick people.  It, in a sense, is full with the ‘terminally ill’.  It is we who have ‘attracted’ Him.  Yet He has intensely sought us out.  We gather like little chicks to his protective wings.  We honestly do not have the ability even to protect ourselves.

Jesus declares that He has come for us.  Sin is very near to us.  We have the infection and we are completely vulnerable.  We are not strong spiritually.  There are many who excel before us.  We can make no claim to anything of significance.  But He has chosen us.  Sovereignly and specifically.  Strongly and decisively.  He has collected us and brought us to His heart.

*

ybic, Bryan

 

 

Related articles

Let the Church Be the Church

Brennan Manning

“Any church that will not accept that it consists of sinful men and women, and exists for them, implicitly rejects the gospel of grace. As Hans Kung wrote, “it deserves neither God’s mercy nor men’s trust”.

The church must constantly be aware that its faith is weak, its knowledge dim, its profession of faith halting, that there is not a single sin or failing which it has not in one way or another been guilty of.

And though it is true that the church must always disassociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinners at a distance. If the church remains self-righteously aloof from failures, irreligious and immoral people, it cannot enter justified into God’s kingdom. But if it is constantly aware of its guilt and sin, it can live in joyous awareness of forgiveness. The promise has been given to it that anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Brennan Manning

Luminosity

 

Luminosity, the state of being luminous, brilliance or radiance.

In Astronomy, the state in which a star radiates energy in every direction.

  • John 8:12, “Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
  • Lamentations 3:2, ‘He has led me into darkness, shutting out all light.”
  • Micah 7:8, “Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”
  • Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.”
  • 2 Corinthians 4:7, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

Personal Thoughts

We can only see, if we have a strong light to “discover” everything that is in close proximity to that light. Jesus declared that He was “the light of the world.” When He draws close to us (usually in our difficulties) we find that we still function, as light bearers to our very dark world.

Jesus has transferred His light, unto us, His Church. But being a light bearer isn’t always easy. And His church hiccups and skips as we try to absorb this reality. Disturbed and confused, we try to squeeze past its challenging reality. But, all we find is a dark confusion.This disturbs us. Obviously.

We need all that is light. Throughout the New Testament, we are notified that “we are children of the light.” This is the core of our personality. We have been separated from the works and deeds of darkness. We simply do not make very good sinners any more. We do try though, but we will never be successful sinners. We no longer have the aptitude for it.

Being the light has certain responsibilities. We have been irrevocably touched by God, and we must live with this.  

“Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence.”

2 Corinthians 5:17

Actually, we are at our best when we step against evil, and the darkness. Luminous, we step out and shine. We become all that the Lord Jesus desires. We have become “the Green Berets” of the Spirit. He places us on a hill. From there we shine.

I suppose that this is quite obvious to many of you, I suppose that I state nothing new to you. And yet I am quite aware that God’s grace touches us, and we “become electric.” His presence, makes us the light, and we shine for Him.

ybic, Bryan

Related articles