What is justifying faith? - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“What is justifying faith? It is the faith that believes what God says in Christ in spite of all I know about myself, my past sins, my present sinfulness, in spite of the fact that I know that I still have an evil nature within me which make me say with Paul, ‘In me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing’. Justifying faith is that which enables a man to believe the Word of God in spite of all that, to believe the Word of God in spite of knowing his own weakness, his own proneness to fall, his own proneness to fail – that is justifying faith…
This is Christian faith. That is justifying faith. It is faith that enables the believer to dare to believe on the bare word of God, that one day he will be ‘faultless & blameless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing’. Through this faith he can believe ‘that He which hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ’ [Philippians 1:6], & can stand confidently & defy everybody & everything. Possessing it he no longer fears death & the grave. Indeed, he no longer fears the final judgement because he knows that he has ‘passed from judgement into life’ in Christ Jesus.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25 Atonement and Justification

The man who is truly blessed by God - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." – Romans 4:5-8

“The man who is truly blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven as debt, whose sin is covered up so that God will never look at it again. He is one to whom it is never going to be imputed as a crime. There is the negative aspect. But it goes beyond that; he is also one to whom God reckons this righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is the doctrine of justification by faith. Here are we – all of us – sinners in the sight of God. What does the doctrine tell me? It tells me that as I stand there on trial, my debt is cancelled, my sin is covered. God has cast my sin ‘behind his back’. He will never look at it again; He will never see it again. It is blotted out – out of His sight for all eternity. And I shall never be charged with it as a crime. I’m completely delivered from it. But over and above that, God puts to my account, and reckons to me, this righteousness of Jesus Christ His Son.
What the Apostle has clearly demonstrated is that that has always been God’s way and method of dealing with man in sin. It was what He did to Abraham. David says that He does it…
God took our sins, and instead of imputing them to us and to our account, He put them to His Son’s account. He put them on Him and He punished them in Him. Christ came into the world deliberately in order to do it. This is how we are saved and reconciled to God – instead of reckoning my sins to me God reckoned them to Christ, and punished them in Him…We had no righteousness at all. He has a perfect righteousness. God reckons His righteousness to us.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25 Atonement and Justification

The promises of God, the power of God, faith and the glory of God – John Calvin

“No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.” - Romans 4:20-21

“All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God: He promises immortality; we are surrounded with mortality and corruption: He declares that he counts us just; we are covered with sins: He testifies that he is propitious and kind to us; outward judgments threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves and all things connected with us, that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true…It is hence the chief thing in honoring God, obediently to embrace his promises: and true religion begins with faith…
But we do not sufficiently exalt the power of God, unless we think it to be greater than our weakness. Faith then ought not to regard our weakness, misery, and defects, but to fix wholly its attention on the power of God alone; for if it depends on our righteousness or worthiness, it can never ascend to the consideration of God’s power. And it is a proof of the unbelief, of which he had before spoken, when we mete the Lord’s power with our own measure. For faith does not think that God can do all things, while it leaves him sitting still, but when, on the contrary, it regards his power in continual exercise, and applies it, especially, to the accomplishment of his word: for the hand of God is ever ready to execute whatever he has declared by his mouth.”

- John Calvin

A Sinner and his Saviour - Dora Greenwell

“I sought Thee, weeping, high and low;
I found Thee not; I did not know
I was a sinner; even so
I missed Thee for my Saviour.

I saw Thee sweetly condescend
Of humble men to be the friend;
I chose Thee for my way — my end.
But found not yet my Saviour.

Until upon the cross I saw
My God, who died to meet the law
That man had broken; then I saw
My sin, and then my Saviour.

What seek I longer? let me be
A sinner all my days to Thee
Yet more and more — and Thou to me
Yet more and more my Saviour,

A sinner all my earthly days,
A sinner who believes and prays,
A sinner all his evil ways
Who leaves for his dear Saviour.

Who leaves his evil ways, yet leaves
Not Him to whom his spirit cleaves
More close, that he so often grieves
The soul of his dear Saviour.

Be Thou to me my Lord, my Guide,
My Friend, yea everything beside;
But first, last, best, whate'er betide.
Be Thou to me my Saviour!”

- Dora Greenwell

"But now" - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it.” – Romans 3:21

“There are no more wonderful words in the whole of the Scripture than just these two words ‘But now’. What vital words these are! These are the words with which the Apostle always introduces the Gospel. He first paints his dark and hopeless picture – and this is not only true of this Apostle but also of the others; but it is especially true of the Apostle Paul and of his particular style. He first of all paints his black and his sombre and his hopeless picture. Then, having done that he says, ‘But now’.
It was because they had understood this teaching and manner that the Puritans, and many of their successors until comparatively recently, always taught that in true evangelism you must always start with a ‘law work’. They said that there should always be a law work before you introduce the Gospel…
Until this point the Apostle has been doing precisely that, and it is only after he has done that that he says, ‘But now’. Having followed him through all that in detail, and having considered every statement that he makes about man under sin and in sin and having seen ourselves as we are by nature and as descendants of Adam, can there be two words which are more blessed and more wonderful for us than just these two word, ‘But now’? To me they provide a very subtle and thorough-going test of our whole position as Christians. Would you like to know for certain at this moment whether you are a Christian or not? I suggest that this is one of the best tests. As I repeat these two words, ‘But now’, is there something within you that makes you say, ‘Thank God!’ Is there a ‘But now’ in your experience?...
These words come to us in a two fold manner. They come as the introduction of the Gospel, but at the same time they come as words that test us. This, to me, is so important that I cannot leave it. Let us examine our experiences.
When the devil attacks you and suggests to you that you are not a Christian, and that you have never been a Christian because of what is still in your heart, or because of what you are still doing, or because of something you once did – when he comes and thus accuses you, what do you say to him? Do you agree with him? Or do you say to him: ‘Yes, that was true, but now…’ Do you hold up these words against him? Or when, perhaps, you feel condemned as you read the Scripture, as you read the Law in the Old Testament, as you read the Sermon on the Mount, and as you feel that you are undone, do you remain lying on the ground in hopelessness, or do you lift up your head and say, ‘But now’? This is the essence of the Christian position; this is how faith answers the accusations of the Law, the accusations of conscience, and everything else that would condemn and depress us. These are indeed very wonderful words, and it is most important that we should lay hold of them and realize their tremendous importance and their significance.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25 Atonement and Justification

"not in answer to my prayers" - A.W. Pink

“God not only gives, but He “gives to all liberally” (James 1:5). Very often His liberality exceeds not only our deserts but even our desires, bestowing upon us more than we have either wisdom or confidence to ask…
Every Christian already has abundant proof that God can give him & do more for him than he can ask or think, for He has already done so! It was not in answer to my prayers that God elected me & inscribed my name in the book of life, for He chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world. It was not in response to any petition of mine that an all-sufficient Redeemer was provided for my hell-deserving soul, for God sent forth His Son into this world to save His people from their sins nearly two thousand years before I had any historical existence. It was not in return for any eloquent request of mine that the Holy Spirit quickened me into newness of life when I was dead in trespasses and sins, for to pray for life is not a faculty of the unregenerate. Rather the new birth itself capacitates us for living desire and spiritual longing. The new birth imparts life which causes the soul to long for more life. No, God’s people are spiritually dead and far from Him when He regenerates them and thereby fulfills to all of them that word “I am found of them that sought me not” (Isa. 65:1). God’s gracious dealings with us are above even our faith and requests!"

- A.W. Pink, Gleanings from Paul: Studies in the prayers of the Apostle

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Gleanings_Paul/paul_19.htm

"Look thou to Him who hangs on yonder cross" - C.H. Spurgeon

“I do not urge you to look within, to try & see whether this new birth is there. Instead of looking within thyself, look thou to him who hangs on yonder cross, dying the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Fix thou thine eyes on him, and believe in him; & when thou seest in thyself much that is evil, look away to him; and when doubts prevail, look to him; and when thy conscience tells thee of thy past sins, look to him.

I have to go through this story almost every day of the year, and sometimes half a dozen times in a day. If there is a despairing soul anywhere within twenty miles, it will find me out, no matter whether I am at home, or at Mentone, or in any other part of the world. It will come from any distance, broken down, despairing, half insane sometimes; and I have no medicine to prescribe except “Christ, Christ, Christ; Jesus Christ and him crucified. Look away from yourselves, and trust in him.” I go over and over and over with this, and never get one jot further. Because I find that this medicine cures all soul sicknesses, while human quackery cures none. Christ alone is the one remedy for sin-sick souls. Receive him; believe on his name. We keep hammering at this. I can sympathize with Luther when he said, “I have preached justification by faith so often, and I feel sometimes that you are so slow to receive it, that I could almost take the Bible, and bang it about your heads…”

One said to me just lately, “Oh, sir, I am the biggest sinner that ever lived!” I replied, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” “But I have not any strength.” “While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died.” “Oh! But,” he said, “I have been utterly ungodly.” “Christ died for the ungodly.” “But I am lost.” “Yes,” I said, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” “The Son of man has come to save that which was lost.” I said to this man, “You have the brush in your hand, and at every stroke it looks as if you were quoting Scripture. You seem to be making yourself out to be the very man that Christ came to save. If you were to make yourself out to be good and excellent, I should give you this word — Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He did not die for the good, but for the bad. He gave himself for our sins; he never gave himself for our righteousness. He is a Savior. He has not come yet as a Rewarder of the righteous; that will be in his Second Advent. Now he comes as the great Forgiver of the guilty, and the only Savior of the lost. Wilt thou come to him in that way?” “Oh! But,” my friend said, “I have nothing to bring to Christ.” “No,” I said, “I know that you have not; but Christ has everything.” “Sir,” he said, “you do not know me, else you would not talk to me like this;” and I said, “No, and you do not know yourself, and you are worse than you think you are, though you think that you are bad enough in all conscience; but be you as bad as you may, Jesus Christ came on purpose to uplift from the dunghill those whom he sets among princes by his free, rich, sovereign grace.”

C.H. Spurgeon, The Simplicity and Sublimity of Salvation

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2259.htm

"What is the old gospel?" - Charles H. Spurgeon

"What is the old gospel? It is that, seeing you are helpless to save yourself, or bring yourself back to God, Christ came to restore you; that he took those sins of yours, which were enough to sink you to hell, and bore them on the cross, that he might bring you to heaven. If you will but trust him, even now, he will deliver you from the curse of the law; for it is written, "He that believes on him is not condemned." If you will trust him, even now, he will give you a life of blessedness, which will never end; for again it is written, "He that believes on the Son hath everlasting life." Because that gospel is preached, there is hope for you. When there is no hope, there will be no presentation of the gospel. God must, by an edict, suspend the preaching of the gospel ere he can suspend the fulfillment of the gospel promise to every soul that believeth. Since there is a gospel, take it; take it now, even now. God help you to do so!"

- Charles H. Spurgeon

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2249.htm

“O Lamb of God! still keep me near to Thy wounded side" - James George Deck

“O Lamb of God! still keep me
near to Thy wounded side;
'tis only there in safety
and peace I can abide.
What foes and snares surround me!
What lusts and fears within!
The grace that sought and found me
alone can keep me clean.

'Tis only in Thee hiding,
I know my life secure;
only in Thee abiding,
the conflict can endure:
Thine arm the victory gaineth
o'er every hurtful foe;
Thy love my heart sustaineth
in all its cares and woes.

Soon shall my eyes behold Thee
with rapture, face to face;
one half hath not been told me
of all Thy power and grace:
Thy beauty, Lord, and glory,
the wonders of Thy love,s
hall be the endless story
of all Thy saints above.”

- James George Deck

'It is not we, but Jesus Christ who saves' - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The cross tells me that I am a complete failure, & that I am such a failure that He had to come from heaven, not merely to teach & preach in this world, but to die on that cross. Nothing else could save us. I could not keep His teaching. How could I obey the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, I who cannot live up to my own code, who cannot please other people? It is impossible…He came to save souls, the Saviour of the world, ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.’ ‘For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). Here is the only one who can encompass the whole world, and all in utter helplessness can look to Him. And this is what is so wonderful about it - it is He who saves. It is not we, but He who saves. It is not even our believing in Him that saves us, it is He who saves us. It is His doing to that cross, & submitting Himself as the Lamb of God, & having our sins put upon Him by His Father, & bearing the stroke, the punishment, for us, that is what saves us. He does it all.”

-Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The Cross: God's Way of Salvation By Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Working of God’s Mighty Power - A.W. Pink

“And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” - Ephesians 1:19-20

“This is what God would have us know, and this is what our faith needs to be engaged with and exercised upon: that what God wrought in the Head, He will work in His members; that Christ is here represented as the pattern or standard of His operations to Christians. The love which moved the Father to work so gloriously in His Son is the love which the Father has for His sons (John 17:23). The physical, legal, and moral power which the Father put forth for Christ is being exercised for us. The wondrous works that power performed on the Redeemer will be duplicated in the redeemed.”

A.W. Pink, Gleanings From Paul

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Gleanings_Paul/paul_14.htm

"Grace and the wisdom of God" - John Bunyan

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” - Revelation 22:1

“When we read that out of the throne proceeds a river of grace; when we read this proceedeth out of the throne of God, it is as much as to say the wise God, who most perfectly knoweth all ways, counteth, in his wisdom, that to save men by grace is the best, most safe, and sure way: "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed" (Rom 4:16). And, again, forgiveness is according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence (Eph 1:7,8).
Wherefore, to set grace upon the throne, to let grace proceed out of the throne as a river, is by the wise God, the only wise God, counted the best way, the safest way, the way that doth best suit the condition of a sinful man, and that tends most to the utter disappointment of the devil, and death, and hell.
Grace can justify freely, when it will, who it will, from what it will. Grace can continue to pardon, favour, and save from falls, in falls, out of falls. Grace can comfort, relieve, and help those that have hurt themselves. And grace can bring the unworthy to glory. This the law cannot do, this man cannot do, this angels cannot do, this God cannot do, but only by the riches of his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Wherefore, seeing God has set grace on the throne, and ordered that it should proceed from this throne to the world; yea, seeing he has made it king, and granted to it, to it only, the authority and sovereignty of saving souls, he has magnified not only his love, but his wisdom and his prudence before the sons of men. This, then, is his great device, the master-piece of all his witty inventions; and, therefore, it is said, as was hinted before, in this thing he hath proceeded towards us in ALL wisdom and prudence (2 Sam 14:14; Prov 8:11,12).”

- John Bunyan, The Water of Life

http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/Sermons.Allegories/Water.of.Life/4.html

“Lord, send thy Spirit upon the churches!” – C H Spurgeon

“Soundness of doctrine is only worth having when it is the result of the living indwelling of God in the church; and because too much the Holy Spirit has departed, we see the signs that the orthodox faith is given up, and the inventions of man preached instead thereof.
Sometimes I breathe as I walk along, this prayer, that God would raise up more ministers to preach the gospel with power; there is so much feeble preaching, mere twaddling, and so little declaration of the gospel with power. But I do not know that I will pray that prayer again; I will put up this, “Lord, send thy Spirit upon the churches!” then will come the ministers, then will come the earnest workers. The Spirit of God will touch their tongues with fire, and they will say, “Here am I, send me,” and once again we shall have back the Puritanic age of preaching and ministries like those of Whitfield, Edwards, and McCheyne. The Spirit of God is the power of the church, and speaks with might in her.
My longing is that the churches may be more holy. I grieve to see so much of worldly conformity; how often wealth leads men astray; how many Christians follow the fashions of this wicked world. But shall I pray that the churches may be holy? I will, but I will put my prayer in this form, I will ask that God will give the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of holiness, he leads to obedience, purges from sin and creates the image of God in his people.”

- C. H. Spurgeon, Right Replies To Right Requests
http://bit.ly/4aHiS

O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found - James Mc­Gran­a­han

O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found,
And found in Thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.

I sighed for rest and happiness,
I yearned for them, not Thee;
But, while I passed my Savior by,
His love laid hold on me.

I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,
But, ah, the waters failed;
Even as I stooped to drink they fled,
And mocked me as I wailed.

The pleasures lost I sadly mourned,
But never wept for Thee,
Till grace the sightless eyes received,
Thy loveliness to see.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other Name for me!
There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in Thee.

- James Mc­Gran­a­han

“A heavenly conversation brings much glory to the saints” – Jeremiah Burroughs

“A heavenly conversation is one that will bring much glory to yourselves. Though it’s true that the saints should aim at the glory of God most, there will come glory upon themselves whether they wish it or not if their conversations are in heaven. It’s impossible for the consciences of men not to be honored if they are walking in a heavenly conversation. There’s an excellent Scripture that shows that in glorifying God we glorify ourselves. In 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, the apostle prays for them:
“Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power.”
To what end?
“That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
He prays for the Thessalonians that they might walk so that they might have so much of the grace of God in them, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified in them. Oh, this is that which all the saints should desire and endeavor after, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ should be glorified in them, and you in Him, he says. Labor that Christ may have glory in our glory, and then we shall have glory in Christ’s glory. This is a sweet and blessed life when the saints have such hearts that they can say, “Lord, let me have no glory, but that you may have glory in.” Then God says, “Is it so? Do you desire no further glory in this world but that I may have glory in? Then I will have no glory in this world but what you shall have glory in!” Christ will make us partakers of His glory as well as we shall make Him partaker of our glory. Oh, heavenly conversation that glorifies God will glorify the saints, too!”

– Jeremiah Burroughs, A treatise on earthly-mindedness

"Traders for heaven trust God much" - Jeremiah Burroughs

“Tradesmen who trade for great matters must trust much. They cannot expect to have present pay in great sums. It’s true, men who trade for little matters trade by retail. They usually take in their pence and two pence as their commodities go forth. But it’s not so with merchants who trade for great things in wholesale. Traders for heaven trust much and, indeed, the grace of faith is the great grace that helps in the trading for heaven; they have a little earnest for the present.

You who are traders and go to exchange and sell bargains for many thousands, you may not have more than twelve pence or a crown for the present, the first fruits of the Spirit, or a bare promise from Christ. This is that which binds the whole bargain, and they expect to have the full pay hereafter when they come to heaven. It is a happy thing when God gives men and women hearts to be willing to trust God for eternity; and if they have just a little comfort and grace now, they ought to look at that as an earnest penny of all the glory that Jesus Christ has purchased by His blood and that God has promised in His Word. You are not fit to be a tradesman for heaven if you cannot trust, if you cannot be content that great bargains should be bound with a little earnest. But that’s the soul that trades in heaven, that can be content to wait for the fulfilling of the promises, and to take what they have from God for the present, though it is but a very little, as an earnest to bind all those glorious things that God has promised in His Word.”

Jeremiah Burroughs, A Treatise on earthly-mindedness

http://www.puritanlibrary.com

"Look to God and the record of what He has done in Jesus Christ" - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“If you regard the gospel merely as a plan and scheme of life, whether social or personal; if you regard it merely as something that calls you to the high and the heroic and to a certain order of morality; you will never know the joy and the happiness which it offers. Regard the Christian life as being something primarily that you have to do and far from making you happy it will make you miserable, for you will be constantly aware of your own failure. But the glory of the gospel is that it is based upon something that God has done once and for all in Christ. What has He done?...God has acted. He has sent His only begotten Son into the world to live and die and rise again for us and for our salvation. ‘How can I feast and rejoice?’ Look unto Jesus Christ on the cross and see your guilt borne by Him and wiped out by Him. ‘How can I be happy’, you say, ‘when I am so filled with a sense of shame because of what I have been?’ To which the gospel answers:

The past shall be forgotten,
A present job be given.

In Christ there is a new beginning and you are no longer the slave of sin. And, in like manner, it tells you that your whole status and your situation are also changed. In Christ you become a child of God and are regarded as such by Him. You have been an enemy and an alien but now you are a son. Do not look to your own feelings, or your own record. Look to God and the record of what He has done in Jesus Christ. Rejoice, sing, cry aloud, be glad, Christ has cleansed away your sin and restored you to the favour of God which you had lost. Yes, the rejoicing is based purely upon what God has done.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons,
No Feasting: No Christianity

http://www.monergismbooks.com/Old-Testament-Evangelistic-Sermons-p-18605.html

“Pass me not, O gentle Savior” - Fan­ny Cros­by

“Pass me not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Savior, Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.

Let me at Thy throne of mercy
Find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition;
Help my unbelief.

Trusting only in Thy merit,
Would I seek Thy face;
Heal my wounded, broken spirit,
Save me by Thy grace.

Thou the Spring of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Whom in Heav’n but Thee?”

- Fan­ny Cros­by

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/p/a/passment.htm

"What is a true Christian?" - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The man who is truly Christian is the man who has come to realize that God is the most important Person in all his life. What is a Christian? I define him as the man who has come to realize he has a soul and that he has lost that soul in a spiritual sense. He is a man who realizes he is guilty before God. He is a man who has come to see that what matters is the destiny of his soul. He was interested in other things, but he knows they will all disappear when the soul still goes on. He sees judgment to come, and because of all this, he now sees the most important thing of all – ‘I need salvation, I need forgiveness, I need a new life, I need to be reconciled to God!’ Is there anyone who can help? Yes, there is, and he turns to Christ and says, ‘I will not let Thee go, I must have this blessing.’ For this he pleads, for this he cries – it is now the supreme interest in his life. May I again put my simple question. Is this the biggest thing in your life? If I ask tonight from this pulpit what is the one thing to which you would hold if everything else has to go, what would you say? Would you hold on to Christ at the expense and the cost of everything else? That is the mark of the Christian. He sees that it is Christ dying on the cross that alone can give him forgiveness of sin. He sees it is in Christ alone he is given a new life and a new nature and a new standing before God. He sees it is in Christ, who has conquered death and the grave, that he is given an eternal and glorious inheritance. He sees all that in Christ and he says, ‘Though I am bereft of everything, as long as I have him all is well.’ Is Christ supreme in our lives? Do we know that this is the most vital thing and would we gladly sacrifice everything else for the sake of this? That is what Jacob came to feel. It has always been the feeling of every true Christian.”

- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons,
Before and After Penuel: The Evidence of True Conversion

http://www.monergismbooks.com/Old-Testament-Evangelistic-Sermons-p-18605.html

“Be meditating on the death of Christ in order to get your heart free from earthly-mindedness” – Jeremiah Burroughs

“But above all, set Jesus Christ before you and be meditating on the death of Jesus Christ. That’s the great thing that will take the heart from the things of the earth. Be looking upon Christ crucified, how He who was the Lord of heaven and earth put Himself into such a low condition merely to redeem us! Conversing much with the death of Jesus Christ deadens the heart much to the world. In Philippians 3 we have a notable text for that, in the example of Paul. He counted all things as dung and dross for Jesus Christ. Verse 8: “I account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.” Then in verse 10: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death.”
Paul desired to be so conformable to the very death of Christ, that he counted all things in the world but as dung and dross in comparison of that. Paul had the death of Christ before his eyes, and meditated much on the death of Christ: and that meditation had a great impression upon his spirit. That made him count all these things as dross, as dog’s meat by comparison, that he might have fellowship with the death of Christ.”

Jeremiah Burroughs, A Treatise on earthly-mindedness

http://www.puritanlibrary.com/

"I fear a great many Christian people do not think much about their religion" - C H Spurgeon

"I fear to a very large extent in this age the minds even of good people are empty, and void, and waste. Years ago, when the influence of the Puritan age yet lingered among us, the female members of Christian churches were generally women of very considerable education, whose range of reading was very different from that of their sisters in these days, and whose theological knowledge was profound; while the men who were members of our Nonconformist churches, were as a rule persons of very clear doctrinal knowledge - perhaps rather too much given to controversy, and to pushing their own views without sufficient tolerance for the views of others - and on the whole, Nonconformist Christianity was highly intelligent, thoughtful, and meditative. Men and women then when they joined the church, knew what they believed, and believed what they knew; they were prepared to be counted singular for their belief, but were equally prepared to justify themselves for talking up so separated a position. They were students of the word of God and of such books as opened up to them the word of God; so that our armies of believers, if they were fewer than now, were nevertheless very strong, because the warriors handled their weapons well, were well drilled, and at home in the holy war. I fear a great many Christian people do not think much about their religion. They give their guinea subscription, they occupy their seat at the meetinghouse, they attend the prayer meetings, but they are little given to thinking out a system of doctrines, or to ransacking the weaning of Scripture. Contemplative pursuits are not so general among Christian professors as I could wish."

- C. H. Spurgeon, Think well and do well

http://www.recoverthegospel.com/Old%20Recover%20the%20Gospel%20Site/Spurgeon/Spurgeon%201-1000/956.pdf

"My sins, my sins, my Saviour!" - Monsell

"My sins, my sins, my Saviour!
They take such hold on me,
I am not able to look up,
Save only, Christ, on thee;

In thee is all forgiveness,
In thee abundant grace,
My shadow and my sunshine
The brightness of thy face.

My sins, my sins, my Saviour!
Their guilt I never knew
Till with thee in the desert
I near thy passion drew;

Till with thee in the garden
I heard thy pleading pray'r,
And saw the sweat-drops bloody
That told thy sorrow there.

Therefore my songs, my Saviour,
E'en in this time of woe,
Shall tell of all thy goodness
To suff'ring man below;

Thy goodness and thy favor,
Whose presence from above
Rejoice those hearts, my Saviour,
That live in thee and love."

- Monsell

http://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=475

"Thank you God for the finished work of Christ" - Francis Schaeffer

“I have found it extremely helpful that when a man has accepted Christ as his Savior, he should bow his head and say “Thank you” to the God who is there – “Thank you for the completed work.” Undoubtedly men have been saved & have gone away not consciously saying “Thank you” but how wonderful it is when a man has seen himself as a sinner, & has understood his lostness, for that man to have accepted Christ as his Savior and then to have bowed his head consciously to say “Thank you” for a work that is absolute and complete. It is usually when the newly-born one thanks God that the assurance comes, that he comes to rest in certainty and in peace.

It is the same in restoration. There is a continuing parallel here. If we have sinned, it is wonderful consciously to say, “Thank you for a completed work” after we have brought that specific sin under the finished work of Christ. While not absolutely necessary for restoration, the conscious giving of thanks brings assurance and peace. We say “Thank you” for work completed upon the cross, which is sufficient for a completely restored relationship. This is not on the basis of my emotions, any more than in my justification. The basis is the finished work of Christ in history and the objective promises of God in the written Word.”

-Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality

"simply to believe in Jesus" ~Charles H. Spurgeon

"And I know that many a troubled conscience thinks that simply to believe in Jesus is too little a thing. The deceitful heart suggests a course which looks to be more effectual. “Do some penance: feel some bitterness; weep a certain amount of tears. Goad your mind, or break your heart”: so cries carnal self. Jesus simply commands, “Believe.” It does appear to be too little a thing to be done, as if it could not be that eternal life should be given upon putting your trust in Jesus Christ: but this is the principle we want to teach you that when Jesus Christ is about to give a blessing he issues a command which is not to be questioned, but to be at once obeyed. If ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established; but if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”

The third principle is this-that whenever we get a command from Christ it is always wisdom to carry it out zealously. He said, “Fill the waterpots with water,” and they filled them up to the brim. You know there is a way of filling a waterpot, and there is another way of filling it.It is full, and you cannot heap it up; but still you can fill it up till it begins almost to run over: the liquid trembles as if it must surely fall in a crystal cascade. It is a filling fullness. In fulfilling Christ’s commands, my dear brethren and sisters, let us go to their widest extent: let us fill them up to the brim. If it is “Believe,” oh, believe him with all your might; trust him with your whole heart. If it is “Preach the gospel,” preach it in season and out of season; and preach the gospel-the whole of it. Fill it up to the brim. Do not give the people a half gospel. Give them a brimming-over gospel. Fill the vessels up to the very brim. If you are to repent, ask to have a hearty and a deep repentance-full to the brim. If you are to believe, ask to have an intense, absolute, childlike dependence, that your faith may be full to the brim. If you are bidden pray, pray mightily: fill the vessel of prayer up to the brim. If you are to search the Scriptures for blessing, search them from end to end: fill the Bible-reading vessel up to the brim. Christ’s commands are never meant to be done in a half-hearted manner."

Charles H. Spurgeon, The Waterpots at Cana

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1556.htm

"God’s way of salvation" ~ Charles Spurgeon

“Here is God’s way of salvation, and He demands that I do trust His dear Son, who died for sinners. I perceive that Christ is worthy to be trusted, for He is the Son of God, so that His sacrifice must be able to put away my sin; I perceive also that He laid down his life in the room, place, and stead of his people, and therefore I heartily trust Him. God bids me trust Him, and I do trust Him without any further question. If Jesus Christ satisfies God, He certainly satisfies me; and, asking no further question, I come and trust myself with Him…

…You are to feast on Christ at once; you need not fast till you turn yourself into a living skeleton, and then come to Christ. I am sent with no such message as that, but this is my word of good cheer: “Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. He, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; let Him come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Freely take what God freely gives, and simply trust the Savior. Is not that the gospel?... Trust yourself with your Savior, and He is your Savior.”

~ Charles H. Spurgeon, The Plain Man's Pathway To Peace

http://www.recoverthegospel.com/Old%20Recover%20the%20Gospel%20Site/Spurgeon/Spurgeon%201001-2000/1560.pdf

'the basic consideration of the Christian life' - Francis A. Schaeffer

“This is the basic consideration of the Christian life. First, Christ died in history. Second, Christ rose in history. Third, we died with Christ in history, when we accepted Him as our Savior. Fourth, we will be raised in history, when He comes again. Fifth, we are to live by faith now as though we were now dead, already have died. And sixth, we are to live as though we were now dead, already have died. And sixth, we are to live now by faith as though we have now already been raised from the dead…

…When through faith I am dead to all, and am face-to-face with God, then I am ready by faith to come back into this present world, as though I have already been raised from the dead. It is as though I anticipate that day when I will come back. I will be in that number, as will all who have accepted Jesus as Savior, when the heavens open and we come back, following Jesus Christ in our resurrected, glorified bodies. And so now I am ready to come back as though back from the grave, as though the resurrection had already taken place, and step back into this present historic, space time world.”

- Francis A. Schaeffer, True Spirituality

“Jesus’ theology was a crisis theology" - R.C. Sproul

“Jesus’ theology was a crisis theology. The Greek word crisis means “judgment.” And the crisis of which Jesus preached was the crisis of an impending judgment of the world, at which point God is going to pour out His wrath against the unredeemed, the ungodly, and the impenitent. The only hope of escape from that outpouring of wrath is to be covered by the atonement of Christ.

Therefore, Christ’s supreme achievement on the cross is that He placated the wrath of God, which would burn against us were we not covered by the sacrifice of Christ. So if somebody argues against placation or the idea of Christ satisfying the wrath of God, be alert, because the gospel is at stake. This is about the essence of salvation – that as people who are covered by the atonement, we are redeemed from the supreme danger to which any person is exposed. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a holy God Who’s wrathful. But there is no wrath for those whose sins have been paid. That is what salvation is all about.”

- R.C. Sproul, The Truth of the cross

https://store.ligonier.org/product.asp?idDept=B&idCategory=TH&idProduct=TRU07BH

"following Jesus is first and foremost not heroic" - John Piper

“Jesus is followed as “the Lamb of God,” the sin-remover of the world...The connection between verses 36 and 37 means that the reason that John the Baptist’s disciples left John and followed Jesus is because Jesus is the sin-remover. Verse 36: John said, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And so in verse 37: The two disciples “heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.” This means that discipleship is first and foremost the expressed need for a savior from our sins.

In other words following Jesus is first and foremost not heroic. I’m desperate, I’m a sinner, I need a Savior. I’m not like David’s mighty men following David - “we’re gonna protect him, if he wants water, we’ll get water, we will not let anything happen to our king.” That’s not the way you follow Jesus. You follow him the way sheep follow the shepherd—because you need to be protected. We need to have our sins forgiven. We are weak, and he is strong. We are foolish, and he is wise. We are hungry, and he is bread. We are thirsty, and he is living water.

The point of the connection between verses 36 and 37 is that following Jesus calls attention to his strength, not ours. His goodness, not ours. His wisdom, not ours. Jesus made this crystal clear, “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). The reason these two disciples of John left him and followed Jesus was because Jesus is the Lamb of God. They are sinners. And he is a sin-remover.”

– John Piper

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2008/3439_We_Have_Found_the_Messiah

"Desires towards God" - C H Spurgeon

“There is a measure of believing in every true desire after believing. If you say, “I desire to trust Christ,” why, soul, you trust Him already in some degree, since you believe that He is the kind of Person whom it would be right to trust!... Your desire to cast yourself wholly upon Christ has in it the beginning of saving faith! And you have love, too. I am sure of it! Did ever a man desire to love that which he did not love already? You have already some affection toward the Lord Jesus, some drawings of your heart Christwards, or else you would not sigh and cry to be more filled with it. He who loves most is the very man who most passionately desires to love more. Love and desire keep pace in Christians so that the more love, the more desire to love; and so I gather that this desire of yours to love Jesus is a sure evidence that you love Him already! Your desire is the smoke which proves that there is fire in your soul. A living flame lingers among the embers and, with a little fanning, it will reveal itself! Your desire to serve God is obedience! Your desire to pray is prayer! Your desire to praise is praise! I am sure, also, that you have some hope, for a man does not continue to groan out before his God and to make his desire known unless he has some hope that his desire will be satisfied and that his grief will be relieved. David lets out the secret of his own hope, for he says in the 15th verse, “In You, O Lord, do I hope.” You, my downcast brother, do not hope anywhere else, do you? You know that every other door is shut; every other road is blocked up except that which leads from your soul to God. I know you have some hope and, therefore, if you have no hope anywhere else I am persuaded that you have a hope in God!”

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Desires towards God: a sermon for the weak

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1564.pdf

"It is in Jesus, the Crucified One, I must abide" - Andrew Murray

"It is in Jesus, the Crucified One, I must abide...
All the grace which Jesus the Saving One gives is given only in the path of fellowship with Jesus the Crucified One. Christ came and took my place; I must put myself in His place, and abide there. And there is but one place which is both His and mine - that place is the Cross. His in virtue of His free choice; mine by reason of the curse of sin. He came there to seek me; there alone I can find Him.
When He found me there, it was the place of cursing; this He experienced, for "cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). He made it a place of blessing; this I experienced, for Christ has delivered us from the curse, being made a curse for us (v. 13). When Christ comes in my place, He remains what He was, the beloved of the Father; but in the fellowship with me He shares my curse and dies my death. When I stand in His place, which is still always mine, I am still what I was by nature, the accursed one, who deserves to die; but united to Him, I share His blessing, and receive His life. When He came to be one with me He could not avoid the Cross, for the curse always points to the Cross as its end and fruit. And when I seek to be one with Him, I cannot avoid the Cross either, for nowhere but on the Cross are life and deliverance to be found. As inevitably as my curse pointed Him to the Cross as the only place where He could be fully united to me, His blessing points me to the Cross too as the only place where I can be united to Him. He took my cross for His own; I must take His Cross as my own; I must be crucified with Him. It is as I abide daily, deeply in Jesus the Crucified One, that I shall taste the sweetness of His love, the power of His life, the completeness of His salvation.”

- Andrew Murray

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/5f00.0562/5f00.0562.11.htm

"Living in Union with Christ" - Walter Marshall

"The key to living a holy life is union with Christ…
In order to keep the law of God, your soul must be empowered out of the fullness of Christ. The power to live a holy life is something that is produced in you by Christ, and treasured up for you in Him. Sanctification is similar to justification in this sense. In justification, you are justified by a righteousness earned by Christ and credited to you. In sanctification, Christ lived a completely holy life, and He imparts to you a holy disposition as you live in Him.
Think of it this way. The 1st Adam fell into sin, & because you were in union with him as the head of the human race, you inherited a sinful nature from him. Now that you are in union with Christ, He begins to impart His godly nature to you. In other words, you do not produce a godly nature by yourself, out of yourself. Rather, you take it to yourself by receiving it from Christ. Through fellowship with Him, you begin to receive that holy frame of mind which is in Christ Himself. This is such a great mystery, it is difficult to understand…
This is the key error Christians fall into in their lives: they think that even though they have been justified by a righteousness produced totally by Christ, they must be sanctified by a holiness produced totally by themselves."

- Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification
http://www.monergismbooks.com/The-Gospel-Mystery-of-Sanctification-Paperback-p-17152.html

“Trusting Him to keep you” - Andrew Murray

"I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:12 (KJV)
“I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 3:12 (NASB)

“This connection between Christ's work and our work is beautifully expressed in the words of Paul: "I follow after, if that I may apprehend that whereunto I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus." It was because he knew that the mighty and the faithful One had grasped him with the glorious purpose of making him one with Himself, that he did his utmost to grasp the glorious prize. The faith, the experience, the full assurance, "Christ hath apprehended me," gave him the courage and the strength to press on and apprehend that whereunto he was apprehended. Each new insight of the great end for which Christ had apprehended and was holding him, roused him afresh to aim at nothing less.”

“You can trust Him to keep you trusting and abiding…It is because Jesus has taken hold of me, & because Jesus keeps me, that I dare to say: Savior, I abide in You”

“The idea they have of grace is this--that their conversion and pardon are God's work, but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually, and become hopeless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness. No, wandering one; as it was Jesus who drew you when He spake "Come," so it is Jesus who keeps you when He says "Abide." The grace to come and the grace to abide are alike from Him alone.”

- Andrew Murray

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/murray/5f00.0562/5f00.0562.03.htm

“a test whether you’re well learned in God’s Word” - John Calvin

“Many will brag that they be well learned in God’s Word: but the true trial to know whither [whether] it be so or no, is if we perceive how great need we have, that God should pour out his mercy upon us, to succor us by drawing us out of the gulf of Hell, and thereupon conclude that we cannot be cleansed and washed from any of all our spots, but by the blood of God’s son: nor obtain righteousness but by the obedience that he hath yielded: nor have any satisfaction for us but by the sacrifice that he hath offered: nor come in God’s favor but by his means: nor open our mouths to call upon him but by his intercession. Therefore when we be thoroughly persuaded of the gracious benefits that are brought us by the son of God: then may we say we have some understanding in the Gospel: but without that, we have nothing but imagination and folly. Mark that for one point.”

- John Calvin

"The cross is the school of orthodoxy" - C.H. Spurgeon

“if you want to be kept right and sound in the faith, the first thing is to get the right subject fixed in the center of your hearts- Jesus Christ crucified. Paul says that he preached that. He set Jesus forth. Whatever else he might not have made clear, he did set forth the person and work of Jesus Christ. Beloved, settle this in your soul, that your sole hope and the main subject of your meditation shall always be Jesus Christ. Whatever I do not know, O my Lord, help me to know Thee. Whatever I do not believe, enable me to believe Thee, and to trust Thee, and to take Thy every word as the very truth of God. Beloved, away with the religion that has little of Christ in it. Christ must be Alpha and Omega, first and last. The religion that is made up of our doings and our feelings and our willings is a falsehood. Our religion must have Christ for the foundation, Christ as the cornerstone, Christ as the topstone; and if we are not based and bottomed, grounded and settled upon him, our religion is vain...The cross is the school of orthodoxy. Endeavour to keep there."

- Charles Spurgeon

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1546.pdf

“God justified, though man believes not.” - C H Spurgeon

"When God devised the great plan of salvation by grace; when he gave his own Son to die as the Substitute for guilty men; when he proclaimed that whosoever believed in Jesus Christ should have everlasting life; you would have thought that everybody would have been glad to hear such good news, and that they would all have hastened to believe it. Christ is so suitable to the sinner. Why does not the sinner accept him? The way of salvation is so simple, so suitable to guilty men, it is altogether so glorious, so grand, that if we did not know the depravity of the human heart, we should expect that every sinner would at once believe the gospel, and receive its boons. But, alas, some have not believed!"

- C H Spurgeon, sermon "God justified, though man believes not"

"Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ" - John Piper

"The apex of the glory of Christ is the glory of His grace – treating people infinitely better than they deserve – giving Himself for the everlasting joy of the worst of sinners who will have Him as their Treasure. And the apex of His grace is the murder of the God-man outside Jerusalemaround A.D. 33. The death of Jesus Christ was murder. It was the most spectacular sin ever committed.
At the all-important pivot of the human history, the worst sin ever committed served to show the greatest glory of Christ and obtain the sin-conquering gift of God's grace. God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.
Evil is anything and everything opposed to the fullest display of the glory of Christ. That's the meaning of evil. In the death of Christ, the powers of darkness did their best to destroy the glory of the Son of God. This is the apex of evil. But instead they found themselves quoting the script of ancient prophecy and acting the part assigned by God. Precisely in putting Christ to death, they put His glory on display – the very glory that they aimed to destroy. The apex of evil achieved the apex of the glory of Christ. The glory of grace."

- John Piper, Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/BySeries/80/

"Living Faith" - Samuel Ward

“Faith is to be put to use! This is the chief mystery of our spiritual life. Stir up your soul in this mountain to talk with Christ. Consider all the promises and privileges you regularly enjoy. Now actually think of them, roll them under your tongue, chew on them until you fell their sweetness in the palate of your soul. View them together and individually. Sometimes contemplate one in particular or another more deeply.Consider how wonderful it is that you debts have been cancelled, and that the wrath of God has been satisfied. Consider how happy and safe a condition you are in by being a son of God, and how pleasant a state not to fear death and hell. Consider how stately a thing it is to be an heir of glory. Mingle these thoughts with your prayers to heaven for grace and aid. Do not leave the mountain until your heart has been cheerfully warmed and revived in strength for the next day.This is using your faith. It is living by faith. You will find your soul saying, with good reason, ‘It is good to be here.’ It is good to be here daily, to come here often!...Let a man diligently and thoroughly make use of his faith and it will become great, and great will be the joy that it will bring to him.”

- Samuel Ward, Living Faith

"Presenting the Gospel" - John Stott

"In our evangelistic proclamation we must address the whole person (mind, heart and will) with the whole gospel (Christ incarnate, crucified, risen, reigning, coming again, and much else besides). We shall argue with his mind and plead with his heart in order to move his will, and we shall put our trust in the Holy Spirit throughout. We have no liberty to present a partial Christ (man but not God, his life but not his death, his cross but not his resurrection, the Savior but not the Lord). Nor have we any liberty to ask for a partial response (mind but not heart, heart but not mind, or either without the will). No. Our objective is to win a total man for a total Christ, and this will require the full consent of his mind and heart and will."

- John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters

"Faith: Illogical Belief in the Improbable?" - John R. W. Stott

“Thus faith and thought belong together, and believing is impossible without thinking.
Dr. Lloyd Jones has given us an excellent New Testament example of this truth while commenting on Matthew 6:30 in his Studies in the Sermon on the Mount: "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?"

"Faith according to our Lord's teaching in this paragraph, is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him... We must spend more time in studying our Lord's lessons in observation and deduction. The Bible is full of logic, and we must never think of faith as something purely mystical. We do not just sit down in an armchair and expect marvelous things to happen to us. That is not Christian faith. Christian faith is essentially thinking. Look at the birds, think about them, and draw your deductions. Look at the grass, look at the lilies of the field, consider them....Faith, if you like, can be defined like this: It is a man insisting upon thinking when everything seems determined to bludgeon and knock him down in an intellectual sense. The trouble with the person of little faith is that, instead of controlling his own thought, his thought is being controlled by something else, and, as we put it, he goes round and round in circles. That is the essence of worry... That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think."

- John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960) , II, 129-30

"Scripture Alone: Sufficient for Guidance" - James Montgomery Boice

“Not long ago one of my staff gave me a script to be used for an imagined “evangelical psychiatric hotline,” the kind of recorded message one might hear when he or she calls a participating church for psychiatric help. It went like this:

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are codependent, please ask someone else to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want.
Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are evangelical, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

Is that how we are to find guidance from God for our lives? A little voice? Not at all. That is a kind of mysticism. “I prayed about it, and God told me to do the following.” In former days, a statement like that would be followed by a more mature believer asking for “chapter and verse,” meaning, where do you find that in Scripture? We need to get rid of that way of talking and of such false claims.

God has given us all the guidance we need in the Bible. So if there is something we want or think we need that is not in the Bible – What job shall I take? Where shall I live? Whom shall I marry? – after having prayed for God’s providential guidance, we are free to do whatever seems right to us, knowing that God who cares for us always will certainly keep us in His way. In areas about which the Bible does not speak explicitly, we are free to act as we think best, as long as we are obeying God and trying to live a godly life.”

- James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?, Scripture Alone: Sufficient for Guidance

"Your Personal Salvation" by C.H. Spurgeon

“Ah, my careless hearer, I wish you were in the same plight as I was in once, when I was burdened with a sense of my transgressions. If you felt as I did, you would catch at that word “grace” right eagerly, and be delighted with the promise made to “faith.” You would make up your mind that if prophets searched out salvation, if apostles reported it, if angels longed to know it, you yourself would find it, or perish in searching after it. Do you forget that you must have eternal life, or you are undone forever? Do not trifle with your eternal interests! Do not be careless where earth and heaven are in earnest! Prophets, apostles, angels, all beckon you to seek the Lord. Awake, thou that sleepest. Arise, O sluggish soul! A thousand voices call thee to bestir thyself, and receive the grace which has come unto thee.”

- "Your Personal Salvation" by C.H. Spurgeon

http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1524.pdf

The gospel is the power of God for salvation

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith.” - Romans 1:16-17

“The gospel is not advice to people, suggesting that they lift themselves. It is power. It lifts them up. Paul does not say that the gospel brings power but that it is power, and God’s power at that. When the gospel is preached, this is not simply so many words being uttered. The power of God is at work. When the gospel enters anyone’s life, it is as though the very fire of God had come upon him. There is warmth and light in his life.The power of God of which Paul writes is not aimless but directed to salvation. It issues salvation. This is the general term of which justification, redemption, and the life are particular aspects.”

- Leon Morris in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans

Grace in Trials

FATHER OF MERCIES,
Hear me for Jesus’ sake.
I am sinful even in my closest walk with Thee;
it is of Thy mercy I died not long ago;
Thy grace has given me faith in the cross
by which Thou hast reconciled Thyself to me
and me to Thee,
drawing me by Thy great love,
reckoning me as innocent in Christ though guilty in myself.
Giver of all graces,
I look to Thee for strength to maintain them in me,
for it is hard to practice what I believe.
Strengthen me against temptations.
My heart is unexhausted fountain of sin,
a river of corruption since childhood days,
flowing on in every pattern of behavior;
Thou hast disarmed me of the means in which I trusted,
and I have no strength but in Thee.
Thou alone canst hold back my evil ways,
but without Thy grace to sustain me I fall.
Satan’s darts quickly inflame me,
and the shield that should quench them
easily drops from my hand:
Empower me against his wiles and assaults.
Keep me sensible of my weakness,
and of my dependence upon Thy strength.
Let every trial teach me more of Thy peace,
more of Thy love.
Thy Holy Spirit is given to increase Thy graces,
and I cannot preserve or improve them
unless He works continually in me.
May He confirm my trust in Thy promised help,
and let me walk humbly in dependence upon Thee,
for Jesus’ sake.

- “The Valley of Vision”

'Thy righteousness is in heaven'

“229. But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, 'Thy righteousness is in heaven'; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever (Heb. 13.8).

230. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations had fled away; so that, from that time, those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me now; now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God. So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that sentence, Thy righteousness is in heaven; but could not find such a saying, wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my remembrance, He 'of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption' by this word I saw the other sentence true (1 Cor. 1.30).

231. For by this scripture, I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as He is distinct from us, as touching His bodily presence, so He is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here, therefore, I lived for some time, very sweetly at peace with God through Christ; Oh, methought, Christ! Christ! there was nothing but Christ that was before my eyes, I was not only for looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of His blood, burial, or resurrection, but considered Him as a whole Christ! As He in whom all these, and all other His virtues, relations, offices, and operations met together, and that as He sat on the right hand of God in heaven.[Eph. 1:3]

232. It was glorious to me to see His exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all His benefits, and that because of this: now I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home! Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Saviour! Now Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.

233. Further, the Lord did also lead me into the mystery of union with the Son of God, that I was joined to Him, that I was flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone, and now was that a sweet word to me in Ephesians 5.30. By this also was my faith in Him, as my righteousness, the more confirmed to me; for if He and I were one, then His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, His victory also mine. Now could I see myself in heaven and earth at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my head, by my righteousness and life, though on earth by my body or person.

234. Now I saw Christ Jesus was looked on of God, and should also be looked on by us, as that common or public person, in whom all the whole body of His elect are always to be considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law by Him, rose from the dead by Him, got the victory over sin, death, the devil, and hell, by Him; when He died, we died; and so of His resurrection. 'Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise,' saith he (Isa. 26.19). And again, 'After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight' (Hos. 6.2); which is now fulfilled by the sitting down of the Son of Man on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, according to that to the Ephesians, He 'hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus' (Eph. 2.6).”

- “Grace Abounding to Chief of Sinners” by John Bunyan

"A Cure for Distrust" - Milton Vincent

“Every time I deliberately disobey a command of God, it is because I’m in that moment doubtful as to God’s true intentions in giving me that command. Does He really have my best interests at heart? Or is He withholding something from me that I would be better off having? Such questions, whether consciously asked or not, lie underneath every act of disobedience.

However, the gospel changes my view of God’s commandments, in that it helps me to see the heart of the Person from whom those commandments come. When I begin my train of thought with the gospel, I realize that if God loved me enough to sacrifice His Son’s life for me, then He must be guided by that same love when He speaks His commandments to me. Viewing God’s commands and prohibitions in this light, I can see them for what they really are: friendly signposts from a heavenly Father who is seeking to love me through each directive, so that I might experience His very fullness forever.

When controlling my thoughts as described above, the gospel cures me of my suspicion of God, thereby disposing me to walk more trustingly on the path of obedience to His commands.”

- Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer. Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love.

The saint prefers what he hath already of God before any thing in this world

“The saint prefers what he hath already of God before any thing in this world. That which was infused into his heart at his conversion, is more precious to him than any thing which the world can afford. The views which are sometimes given him of the beauty and excellency of God, are more precious to him than all the treasures of the wicked. The relation of a child in which he stands to God, the union which there is between his soul and Jesus Christ, he values more than the greatest earthly dignity. The image of God which is instamped on his soul, he values more than any earthly ornaments. It is, in his esteem, better to be adorned with the graces of God’s Holy Spirit, than to be made to shine in jewels of gold, and the most costly pearls, or to be admired for the greatest external beauty. He values the robe of Christ’s righteousness, which he hath on his soul, more than the robes than the robes of princes. The spiritual pleasures and delights which he sometimes has in God, he prefers far before all the pleasures of sin. Plas. 84:10. “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

- Jonathan Edwards, sermon “God the best portion of the Christian”