From Spurgeon

Come!

“Come for repentance, if you cannot come repenting. Come for a broken heart, if you cannot come with a broken heart. Come to be melted, if you are not melted. Come to be wounded, if you are not wounded.”
- Charles Spurgeon, The Precious Blood of Christ

Ps. 23:6

"...surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever."
I had never thought much about this verse until last week, but as I was praying through some things, the Lord reminded me of it, and caused me to think about it. The goodness and mercy of God will follow me...pursue me...dog my steps. It is not just that I will occasionally experience kindness from God. And it is not that when I am "right" with Him, He will manifest His grace and favor. No, the reality is that the goodness and mercy of God will literally haunt my life. I will be unable to escape the determination of God to shed His love abroad in my life.
How does this thought impact you?
For me it does two main things:
1. It comforts me--all my days will be hedged about with the gracious kindness of God, and in eternity I will live forever with Him.
2. It breaks me--who wants to fight against a God whose heart is like that towards you?
May you be comforted and broken by the character and love of God for you.
There is no one like Him.

Christ: The Believer's only Righteousness

“Believers obey Christ as the One by whom our obedience is accepted by God. Believers know all their duties are weak, imperfect and unable to abide in God’s presence. Therefore, they look to Christ as the One who bears the iniquity of their holy things, who adds incense to their prayers, gathers out all the weeds from their duties and makes them acceptable to God.”

-- John Owen, quoted by Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs, Co.: NavPress), 42.

A bit of Amy Carmichael

Thou Lovest Me!
Amy Carmichael

Thou knewest me before I was;
I am all open unto Thee;
And yet Thou lovest me, because—
Thou, my Lord, lovest me.

No other reason can I find;
No other reason can there be;
No human love, were it not blind,
Could ever care for me.

But Thy pure eyes do read me through;
My soul is naked unto Thee;
And yet—oh wonder ever new—
Thou, my Lord, lovest me.

And Thou wilt love. If good of mine
Had caused Thy glorious love to be,
Then surely would Thy love decline
And weary, Lord, of me.

I may not fear, for to the end
Thou lovest. Who save only Thee,
The sinner’s Savior and his Friend,
Would set His love on me?

And on Thee now my heart is set;
Thy name is music unto me.
O help me never to forget
That I am loved by Thee.

To Glory in Knowing God

You say, "Glory in Me"
But here I stand:
Glorying in folly that I call "wisdom,"
poverty that I claim as "wealth,"
and impotence that I have termed "strength."
I foolishly deem my position to be secure.

But You will not leave me to my own devices.
You strip and crush my life until I am
undone,
broken,
desolate,
laid in the dust,
wounded,
disconsolate,
shattered,
poor and needy.
Hopeless, apart from You.

I begin to know seeking with the whole heart,
hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
Your Spirit teaches me.
You allow me to know Your love
shed abroad in my now-open heart.
You have taken away everything--
Everything that I had clutched and boasted in--
And You have jealously claimed me to be Yours alone.

And now You say, "Glory in Me."
But still I recoil.
I am too shallow to take You at Your Word.
I think that I must manufacture righteousness on my own...somehow...
I still fail to recognize that
You are who You say You are.
You are the God Who exercises
lovingkindness,
forgiveness,
mercy.
The God Who delights in steadfast love.
The God Who takes pleasure in manifesting Himself.

And so You take me still lower:
revealing pride,
touching fears,
uprooting self,
illuminating sin,
warring against everything that keeps me in bondage to myself,
You take my life to the cross.
You cause its shadow to fall across my entire being,
and I am left
silent,
humbled to the dust,
yielded,
resting in You alone,
slowly lifting my eyes to gaze at You,
weeping with a joy that crushes,
mourning with a burden that restores.

Then You say, "Glory in Me."
And I understand now.
I allow You to take my hand and draw me to my feet.
I stand before You whole--though I have never been so weak and empty.
I cannot take my eyes off of Your face.
I throw back my shoulders,
and begin to sing of You with a confidence that comes from knowing You.
But then, in the midst of my song, I realize what You have actually done for me:
You have let me know You.
And I do know You now.

My song of You is flowing from a heart that is
weeping uncontrollably at the sight of
Your Person and Your ways--Who You are and what You have done.
I am just starting to see Your perspective on all of this:
I am who I am. I am a finite, sinful, created being. I am nothing apart from You.
And that is OK. It is irrelevant.
Because You are Who You are. And You have determined to make me know You, and You are determined to bring Yourself glory.
You have spared nothing to accomplish Your purpose.
What You have done to and for me has brought You glory and pleasure,
and as I accept the riches and the righteousness that You lavish on me,
I can live to the praise of the glory of Your grace.
This is what it means to glory in You.
It is to not insult Your fullness by living in my own resources.
It is to experience continually my life being brought to the foot of the cross,
being marked by its shadow.
It is to be confident in that position,
knowing that You are Everything--literally Everything--to me.

So when You say, "Glory in Me,"
I can rightfully boast in the one thing that I have the least right to know: Knowing God.
I can lift up my head and sing...about my Savior.
Yes, I can glory...in knowing You
And You alone.

The Beauty of Surrender

These two quotes were emailed to me just now by a good friend:

"When He asks for and receives our all, He gives in return that which
is above price--His own presence. The price is not great when
compared with what He gives in return; it is our blindness and our
unwillingness to yield that make it seem great." Rosalind Goforth

"I had utterly abandoned myself to Him...Could any choice be as
wonderful as His will? Could any place be safer than the center of His
will? Did He not assure me by His very presence that His thoughts
toward us are good, and not evil? Death to my own plans and desires
was almost deliriously delightful. Everything was laid at His
nail-scarred feet, life or death, health or illness, appreciation by
others or misunderstanding, sucess or failure as measured by human
standards. Only He Himself mattered." V. Raymond Edman

What could possibly be sweeter than a walk with Christ?

A Thought

The Vine Dresser is never nearer to the vine than when He is pruning it.

"...and he was called the friend of God."

“I have known men who came to God for no other reason than...[to be with Him because] they loved Him. Friendship is best kept up by frequent visits; and the more free from impurity those frequent visits are, and the less brought about by business, necessity, or custom, the more friendly and welcome they are.” ~Thomas Goodwin

May this be increasingly true of us as we deepen in knowing Him.
I loved this quote--shared by Dr. Coats in a session that we had with him.