sin of loving or fearing any creature above its worth — John Flavel

“It is a great sin to love or fear any creature above its worth, as if it were master of all our temporal & eternal comforts… To trust in any creature as it had God’s power to help us, or to fear any creature as if it had God’s power to hurt us, is exceedingly sinful. It provokes God… It is a sinful & dangerous mistake to give to a creature that trust & dependence that belongs to God alone… We are inclined to a sinful trust and dependence upon each other, & to inordinate fear and dread of each other. We act as if the creature were god rather than a man, a spirit rather than flesh… God rebukes this sin in His own people: “I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker…?” (Isaiah 51:12-13a). It is evident that fear exalts people and belittles God. It thinks upon a person’s harmful power so much that it forgets God’s saving power.”

— John Flavel, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear

our faith rests in His labors — A.W. Tozer

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:9-11

“The quality of our Christian faith is in direct proportion to our resting in God, which is a result of totally embracing His finished work… The majority of Christians frantically try to be what God wants them to be but will never be until they rest, that is, cease from their own labors & enter into His finished labor…

If you were in debt to the government for unpaid income tax you would be properly worried. Yet, if somebody came along and said, “Here, you owe $10,000 in back taxes, and the government is breathing down your neck; I will take care of it for you. I will pay your debt. Here is the receipt.” You certainly would rest, wouldn’t you? You would relax for the first time and sleep well at night. You would say, “I am not worried when I see a police officer anymore. I am not thinking he is after me. He is just walking down the street, looking for criminals, and I am all right. I have earned rest of mind; I have entered into my rest. Not mine, but the rest of another.” That is exactly what the Bible teaches here.

The Christian’s rest is based upon the work of another. It is not his own work, for that he could never do. It is the work of another, who is capable of earning that rest, capable of procuring it. The Christian is not capable; nobody is capable. You and I cannot deal with the matter of holiness outraged. We cannot deal with a matter of justice violated. We cannot take care of question of sins committed and a moral debt… The debt we already owe is so great that it would send us into hell. So now we have to pay that before we can rest. We owe a debt we cannot pay, not to a government but to God Almighty, to the eternal God…

I believe the Bible is clear in stating that we cannot pay our own debt… What happens then? There is someone who comes and lays down His life, the just for the unjust, who pays the debt that He did not owe and includes in that debt all of our debts. He propitiates for violated holiness; He atones for justice that is broken. He does all of this. He is capable of it…

We either have to satisfy God’s holiness, satisfy His violated justice and pay the moral debt, or we have to have somebody do it for us. The book of Hebrews declares that somebody did it for us. The eternal Son did that work.

Many people do not want this kind of rest. They want another kind… Many people are anxious to do meritorious deeds… We want to go out and do something big. When we come to think of God and the things of carnal world, we want to do virtuous deeds. We want to be known as a virtuous person…

I heard a Methodist bishop once say that he had found, as a pastor, that 70 percent of his parishioners were not ready for heaven. They had to cram for the examination at the last minute before they felt free to get in. They were not resting in what Christ has done. They were vaguely hoping about what they might do or had done. Somebody heard the bishop and said, “Bishop, are you not a bit rough there when you said 70 percent? Is that right?”

He said, “I am telling you the truth. It’s 70 percent.” Then he said, “I counted them. Only about 30 percent of my parishioners were ready to go.”

More than two-thirds of those who went to church for a lifetime, sang the hymns of Zion, heard the Scriptures read, listened to prayers and engaged in them and heard great preaching (for there were great preachers in those days). But when they came to die, they had not entered into rest. They could not go without fear.

I want God to lead me to a place where there is no fear in dying because I am resting in God, resting in what Jesus Christ has done for me. God did His work and entered into His rest. His Son Jesus Christ did another work, and we enter into that rest. Let us see that we do it.

When I rest wholly and completely in Jesus Christ and His finished work, faith leaps up and alleviates from me the frantic labor of trying to make it. I rest perfectly and securely in the labor of Jesus Christ.”

— A.W. Tozer, A Disruptive Faith: Expect God to Interrupt Your Life

How God and Jesus mainly manifest or show their love to us — John Piper

“God does not mainly love us in this life by sparing us suffering and death. He mainly loves us by showing us and giving us himself and his glory. God loves us mainly by giving us himself and all that he is for us in Jesus. Jesus loves us mainly by giving us himself and all that God is for us in him. That’s mainly the way He loves us. He loves us others ways, but mainly everything is moving towards that. You’re loved by Jesus when Jesus gives you Jesus and all that God is for you in Jesus.
Don’t measure the love of God for you by how much health and wealth and comfort he brings into your life. If that were the measure of God’s love, then he hated the apostle Paul. Measure God’s love for you by how much of himself he shows you. How much of himself he gives you to know and enjoy…

In John 14:21, Jesus says, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” What a wonderful statement! “I will love you, and manifest myself to you.” That’s what love is… To be loved for the Christian is to get more of Him. Go ahead Jesus, manifest Yourself to me and I will feel loved!”

— John Piper, Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/jesus-is-the-resurrection-and-the-life

Illness, death, love and the glory of God – John Piper

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” – John 11:5,6

“Because He loved them He did not go to them. John intends and Jesus intends for everyone seeing this to ask “Now, how is that love to let him die?”…And the answer is very clear in this text, but not common or acceptable without the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. The key to this: love lets him die, because his death will help them see the glory of God. That’s why verse four is here. This is not about death, this about the glory of God and the glory of the Son through Him, that’s what this is about and since I love them I’m going to put it on maximum display at great cost to Lazarus and his sisters. A cost that most people do not want and are not willing to pay… This is one of the reasons Christianity is hard to believe in for many people, because it defines love in a way that is so different. So what is love?… Love means giving us what we need most. What do we need most? And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Most of them don’t know that. That’s why we preach, that’s why we share the gospel…A revelation to your soul of the glory of God is what this text says love is, above life… Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? What will give you full and eternal joy? The answer of this text is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory God in Jesus Christ.
Here is another way to say it: love is doing whatever you have to do to help people see and treasure the glory of God as their supreme joy—to help people see and be satisfied with the glory of God…”

– John Piper, This Illness Is for the Glory of God

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/this-illness-is-for-the-glory-of-god

Where was love born? — C.H. Spurgeon

“We love him, because he first loved us.”— 1 John 4:19

“…And if love grow sick and cold, there is no place so fit for it to go to as the place where it was born, namely, the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Where was love born?… Let me tell you where love was born. Love was born in the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus sweat great drops of blood, it was nurtured in Pilate’s hall, where Jesus bared his back to the ploughing of the lash, and gave his body to be spit upon and scourged. Love was nurtured at the cross, amid the groans of an expiring God, beneath the droppings of his blood — it was there that love was nurtured. Bear me witness, children of God. Where did your love spring from, but from the foot of the cross? Did you ever see that sweet flower growing anywhere but at the foot of Calvary? No; it was when you saw “love divine, all loves excelling,” outdoing its own self; it was when you saw love in bondage to itself, dying by its own stroke, laying down its life, though it had power to retain it and to take it up again; it was there your love was born; and if you wish your love, when it is sick, to be recovered, take it to some of those sweet places; make it sit in the shade of the olive trees, and make it stand on the pavement and gaze, while the blood is still gushing down. Take it to the cross, and bid it look and see afresh the bleeding lamb; and surely this shall make thy love spring from a dwarf into a giant, and this shall fan it from a spark into a flame.”

— C.H. Spurgeon, A Sermon # 229, Love