Precious Repentance: by Charles Spurgeon

Ezekiel 20:43

There you will remember your conduct and all the actions by which you have defiled yourselves, and you will loathe yourselves for all the evil you have done.

When we are accepted of the Lord, and are standing in the place of favor, and peace, and safety, then we are led to repent of all our failures and miscarriages toward our gracious God. So precious is repentance, that we may call it a diamond of the first water, and this is sweetly promised to the people of God as one most sanctifying result of salvation. He who accepts repentance, also gives repentance; and He gives it not out of "the bitter box," but from among those "wafers made with honey" on which He feeds His people. A sense of blood-bought pardon and of undeserved mercy, is the best means of dissolving a heart of stone. Are we feeling hard? Let us think of covenant love, and then we shall leave sin, lament sin, and loathe sin; yea, we shall loathe ourselves for sinning against such infinite love. Let us come to God with this promise of penitence, and ask Him to help us to remember, and repent, and regret, and return. Oh, that we could enjoy the meltings of holy sorrow! What a relief would a flood of tears be! Lord, smite the rock, or speak to the rock, and cause the waters to flow!

Repentance: by CS Lewis

 

Isaiah 30:15

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

2 Corinthians 7:10

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like.

If You Ask God To Take You Back Without It, You Are Really Asking Him To Let You Go Back Without Going Back. It Cannot Happen.

Very well then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

More Than Pardon: by AW Tozer

For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. 2 Corinthians 7:10

It is a fact that the New Testament message of good news, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,” embraces a great deal more than an offer of free pardon.

Surely it is a message of pardon—and for that may God be praised—but it is also a message of repentance!

It is a message of atonement—but it is also a message of temperance and righteousness and godliness in this present world!

It tells us that we must accept a Savior—but it tells us also that we must deny ungodliness and worldly lusts!

The gospel message includes the idea of amendment—of separation from the world, of cross-carrying and loyalty to the kingdom of God even unto death!

These are all corollaries of the gospel and not the gospel itself; but they are part and parcel of the total message which we are commissioned to declare. No man has authority to divide the truth and preach only a part of it. To do so is to weaken it and render it without effect!

Eyes Wide Open: by TA Sparks

Jesus... said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” Matthew 20:32,33

We shall never see Divine things by the aid of our reason. We shall never see things because they are put plainly to us by the one who ministers. No, it will only be as Jesus of Nazareth comes into touch with us and we with Him. And that applies to every stage of the Christian life. If there are any reading these lines, who have never in the first place had their eyes opened to see, so that the result is Life eternal – for knowing is only another word for seeing, and Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ" (John 17:3); "that they should know" – another word for seeing – if you have not yet entered into Life, received eternal Life, remember that it will not just happen to you; it will not simply happen. You will have to become tremendously concerned about this and show the Lord that you mean business; you will have to be like Bartimaeus and cry, and "so much the more" cry. Remember that the Lord does so often wait, delay, and hold off, to see if we really place value upon this seeing. We are tested as to how much we esteem His things.

And what is true at the beginning is true all the way along. There is no end to Divine revelation; there is no end to our seeing. Oh, how little we have seen, how little we know, of the vast stores of Divine intention and thought and purpose and meaning. We stand and paddle on the shores of this vast ocean of God and of His purposes and meanings in our creation. How little we know about it! – and we are not going to know until we have deep heart exercise. But it is there, and it is there for us, and oh, we have got to come in this way – "so much the more." Are you like that after a conference, or after any meeting in which there has been a ministry of God's Word? Are you sure you have seen all that God meant you to see? Are you just hearing what is said? You agree – but what is the effect? The real effect waits upon this heart exercise, this crying out – and a crying out "so much the more." The Lord is not close and mean, holding it from you, but He is wanting to know that this is of greater price to you than all else; if needs be, of greater price than your sleep, your rest: you are going to give Him no rest until He opens your eyes.

Christian Reality: by CS Lewis

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:26-27

And let me make it quite clear when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being 'in Christ' or of Christ being 'in them', this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution—a biological or superbiological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

The Conditions of Discipleship: by Oswald Chambers

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. —Luke 14:26, see also 27, 33

If the closest relationships of my life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, Jesus says my choice must be instant obedience to him. Discipleship means passionate devotion to a person—to our Lord, Jesus Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a person and devotion to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause; he proclaimed that we should be personally devoted to him. To be a disciple is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord.

Many of us who call ourselves Christians aren’t devoted to Jesus Christ. We may admire Jesus Christ, we may respect and reverence him, but we do not love him. The only lover of Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit, and the only way anyone on earth can possess passionate love for Jesus is if the Holy Spirit imparts it to them; it is the Spirit who puts the love of God in our hearts. When the Holy Spirit sees a chance of glorifying Jesus through you, he will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and make you simply blaze and glow with devotion to the Lord.

What does this devotion look like? The life of the devoted Christian is marked by the moral originality that comes from abandonment to God. This spontaneous obedience to the Spirit leaves the Christian disciple open to a charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ: the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent to God. As Christians, we must be consistent to the life of the Son of God inside us, not to our creeds and ideologies. People pour themselves into creeds. God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.

Sure-Footedness: by Charles Spurgeon

Habakkuk 3:19

The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

This confidence of the man of God is tantamount to a promise; for that which faith is persuaded of is the purpose of God. The prophet had to traverse the deep places of poverty and famine, but he went down hill without slipping, for the Lord gave him standing. By￾and-by he was called to the high places of the hills of conflict; and he was no more afraid to go up than to go down.

See! The Lord lent him strength. Nay, Jehovah Himself was his strength. Think of that: the Almighty God Himself becomes our strength!

Note, that the Lord also gave him sure-footedness. The hinds leap over rock and crag, never missing their foothold. Our Lord will give us grace to follow the most difficult paths of duty without a stumble. He can fit our foot for the crags, so that we shall be at home where apart from God we should perish.

One of these days we shall be called to higher places still. Up yonder we shall climb, even to the mount of God, the high places where the shining ones are gathered. Oh, what feet are the feet of faith, by which, following the Hind of the Morning, we shall ascend into the hill of the Lord!

Psalm 18:33

He makes my feet like hinds’ feet, And sets me upon my high places.