An Appeal: Deliverance: by Charles Spurgeon

 

"And call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you,

and you will glorify Me" Psalm 50:15

This is a promise indeed!
Here is an urgent occasion -- "the day of trouble." It is dark at noon on such a day, and every hour seems blacker than the one which came before it. Then is this promise in season: it is written for the cloudy day.
Here is condescending advice, "Call upon me." We ought not to need the exhortation: it should be our constant habit all the day and every day. What a mercy to have liberty to call upon God! What wisdom to make good use of it! How foolish to go running about to men! The LORD invites us to lay our case before Him, and surely we will not hesitate to do so.
Here is reassuring encouragement: "I will deliver thee." Whatever the trouble may be, the LORD makes no exceptions but promises full, sure, happy deliverance. He will Himself work out our deliverance by His own hand. We believe it, and the LORD honors faith.
Here is an ultimate result: "Thou shalt glorify me." Ah, that we will do most abundantly. When He has delivered us we will loudly praise Him; and as He is sure to do it, let us begin to glorify Him at once.

Followers of the Cross: by Andrew Murray

 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13

Here our Lord revealed to us the inconceivable love that moved Him to die for us. And now, under the influence and in the power of that love dwelling in us, comes the message: “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Nothing less is expected of us than a Christlike life and a Christlike love, proving itself in all our fellowship with our fellow believers.

The cross of Christ is the measure by which we know how much Christ loves us. That cross is also the measure of the love that we owe to the believers around us. Only as the love of Christ on the cross possesses our hearts will we be able to love others. Our fellowship in the cross of Christ is to manifest itself in our sacrifice of love, not only to Christ, but also to all who belong to Him.

The life to which John calls us is something entirely supernatural and divine. Only the faith of Christ Himself living in us can enable us to accept this great command in the assurance that Christ Himself will work it out in us. It is He who calls us: 

“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” Matthew 16:24

Nothing less than this—a faith that our “old man” (Romans 6:6), our flesh, has been crucified with Christ, so that we no longer need to sin—nothing less than this can enable us to say,

“We love His commandments; this commandment, too, is not grievous.” 1 John 5:3

But for such fellowship and conformity to the death of Christ, nothing will be effective except the daily, unbroken abiding in Christ Jesus that He has promised us. By the Holy Spirit revealing and glorifying Christ in us, we may trust Christ Himself to live out His life in us. He who proved His love on the cross of Calvary, He alone can enable us to say in truth, “He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Only as the great truth of the indwelling Christ obtains a place in the faith of the church that it does not have now, will the Christlike love for other believers become the mark of true Christianity, by which all men will know that we are Christ’s disciples. (See John 13:35.) This is what will bring the world to believe that God has loved us even as He loved Christ. (See John 17:23.)

The Way to Purity: By Oswald Chambers

 Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart….For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man… —Matthew 15:18-20

Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, “But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart.” We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own “innocent ignorance”? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own “innocence,” I am living in a fool’s paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.

The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.

Sanctification: IMPARTATION not IMITATION: by Oswald Chambers

 

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us…sanctification… —1 Corinthians 1:30

The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He “became for [me]…sanctification….” Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.

The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you…” (Colossians 1:27). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification— imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God’s grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?

Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy— it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness— “…kept by the power of God…” (1 Peter 1:5).

The Church... The Expression of Christ: by TA Sparks

 

To those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. John 1:12,13

What, in the thought of God do Christians exist for? What does the Church exist for? There is only one answer. The existence and the function is to be an expression of Christ. There is nothing less and nothing more than that. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and all between! Let that be the starting point; let that be the governing rule and reality in all matters of life and work, and see at once the nature and vocation of the Church. This vast, incomprehensible heavenly system, of which Christ is the personal embodiment, touches every detail of life, personally and collectively. But remember only the Holy Spirit sees and knows how it is so; hence, as at the beginning, there has to be an utter submission to and direction by the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. What the bloodstream is to the human body, the Divine Life is to and in "the Church which is His body." What the nerve system is in the physical realm, the Holy Spirit is in the spiritual. Understand all the workings of those two systems in the natural, and you begin to see how God has written His great heavenly principles, first in the person of His Son, and then in His corporate Body.

As an individual believer is the result of a begetting, a conception, a formation, a birth and a likeness, so, in the New Testament, is a true local church. It is a reproduction of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Man cannot make, form, produce or "establish" this. Neither can anyone "join" or "enroll," or make himself or herself a member of this organism. First it is an embryo, and then a "formation" after Christ. So, all talk about "forming New Testament churches" is nonsense. The beginning is in a seeing of Christ.

The Church: The Major Decision: by AW Tozer

 

Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.—2 Timothy 1:13,14

There is a great decision that every denomination has to make sometime in the development of its history. Every church also has to make it either at its beginning or a little later—usually a little later. Eventually every board is faced with the decision and has to keep making it, not by one great decision made once for all, but by a series of little decisions adding up to one great big one. Every pastor has to face it and keep renewing his decision on his knees before God. Finally, every church member, every evangelist, every Christian has to make this decision. It is a matter of judgment upon that denomination, that church, that board, that pastor, that leader and upon their descendants and spiritual children.

The question is this: Shall we modify the truth in doctrine or practice to gain more adherents? Or shall we preserve the truth in doctrine and practice and take the consequences?...

A commitment to preserving the truth and practice of the church is what separates me from a great many people who are perhaps far greater than I am in ability. This is my conviction, long held and deeply confirmed by a knowledge of the fact that modern gospel churches, almost without exception, have decided to modify the truth and practice a little in order to have more adherents and get along better. Rut, Rot or Revival: The Condition of the Church, 165-167.

"We're under constant pressure to have more adherents, more members, more numbers, Lord. The emphasis today is on growth, bigness, size, and success. God help me never to modify or compromise to achieve that, but to tenaciously hold fast to my core beliefs and priorities. Amen."

God Has an Interest in Making Us Righteous: by AW Tozer

 

he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:5

A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to “accept” Christ without forsaking the world.

But what says the Holy Spirit?

 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4

and

“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” 1 John 2:15

This requires no comment, only obedience.

It is an error to assume that we can experience justification without transformation. Justification and regeneration are not the same; they may be thought apart in theology but they can never be experienced apart in fact!

When God declares a man righteous He instantly sets about to make him righteous.

The error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians. Many of these go on day after day assuming that salvation is possible without repentance and that they can find some value in religion without righteousness.

A revival is, among other things, a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life!