Benjamin Warfield:

“We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only “when we believe.”

It is just as true after we have believed.

It will continue to be true as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.

It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him.

We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner.

But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said.

It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether.

The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitence indeed, but also of overmastering exultation.

The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it.

It is an attitude of exultant joy.

Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves.

But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.”

The great Lion of Princeton, B.B. Warfield (1851–1921), from his essay, “’Miserable-Sinner Christianity’ in the Hands of the Rationalists,” in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 7, pp. 113-114.

Do you mortify?  Do you make it your daily work?  Do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.  We must strike it as an enemy until it ceases living.  Sin is laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh.  When sin lets us alone, we may let sin alone.  Sin is active when it seems to be the most quiet, and its waters are calm.  Sin is always acting, conceiving, seducing and tempting.  There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled.  There is no safety but in a constant warfare from sin’s perplexing rebellion.  Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, and disquieting if not continually mortified, it will also bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, and soul-destroying sins (Gal. 9:19-20).  When sin rises to tempt, it always seeks to express itself in the extreme.  Every unclean thought would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression; and every thought of unbelief would be atheism.  It is like the grave that is never satisfied.  Sin’s advance blinds the soul from seeing its drift from God.  The soul becomes indifferent to sin as it continues to grow.  The growth of sin has no boundaries but the utter denial of God and opposition to him.  Sin proceeds higher by degrees; it hardens the heart as it advances.  Mortification withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour.  The best saints in the world are in danger of a fall if found negligent in this important duty.  Negligence of this duty decays the inner man instead of renewing him.  It is our duty to be ‘bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God’ (1 Cor. 7:1), and every day to be growing in grace (1 Pet. 2:2), and seeking to be renewed in the inner nature day by day (2 Cor. 4:16).

John Owen, Works, VI:9-14

J.C. Ryle - Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark p.65-66

God bless!!!

George Müller lived from 1805 to 1898 and is famous for establishing numerous orphanages and relying on God for help in remarkable ways. Listen to his testimony about how and why to meditate on Scripture.

“While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now, while preparing the eighth edition for the press, more than forty years have since passed away. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as a habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed in the morning.

Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, whilst meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning, early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that which, very soon after, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man.

The difference then between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events, I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc.; and often, after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, or even an hour, I only then begin really to pray. I scarcely ever suffer now in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into experimental fellowship with God, I speak to my Father, and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it!) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I did not sooner see this. In no book did I ever read about it. No public ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private intercourse with a brother stirred me up to this matter. And yet now, since God has taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything, that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. We should take food for that, as every one must allow. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God; and here again not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

I dwell so particularly on this point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of having derived from it myself and I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my fellow-believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God I ascribe to this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace through deeper trials in various ways than I had ever had before; and after having now above forty years tried this way, I can most fully in the fear of God, commend it. How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!”

I ended on the note of how to respond to these reasons and I did so with a quote from D.M. Lloyd-Jones.  I was asked after the evening to consider posting this quote and I am glad to do so.  These words are taken from the book by Lloyd-Jones entitled Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and Cures, p.21

“The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself.  You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.  You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’ – what business have you to be disquieted?  You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’ – instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way.  And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.  Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.’ “

Thanks Suzanne…

SHALL I CRUCIFY MY SAVIOR

Shall I crucify my Savior when for me He bore such loss?
Shall I put to shame my Savior, can I nail Him to the cross?
Are temptations so alluring, do earth’s pleasures so enthrall
that I can not love my Savior well enough to leave them all?
‘Twas my sin that crucified Him, shall they crucify Him yet?
Blackest day of nameless anguish can my thankless soul forget?
Oh, the kindly hands of Jesus pouring blessings on all men
Bleeding nail-scarred hands of Jesus, can I nail them once again?
Shall I crucify my Savior, crucify my Lord again?
Once, O once, I crucified Him, shall I crucify again?

Carrie Breck 1896

From the late F.B. Meyer

“God may be working in you to confess to that fellow-Christian that you were unkind in your speech or act.  Work it out.  He may be working in you to give up that line of business about which you have been doubtful lately.  Give it up.  He may be working in you to be sweeter in your home, and gentler in your speech.  Begin.  He may be working in you to alter your relations with some with whom you have dealings that are not as they should be.  Alter them.  This very day let God begin to speak, and work and will; and then work out what He works in.  God will not work apart from you, but He wants to work through you.  Let Him.  Yield to Him, and let this be the day when you shall begin to live in the power of the mighty Indwelling One. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility meet at the Crossroads of some mighty decisions.  And remember, the sign marked “His good pleasure” is the only one worth following.”

F.B. Meyer The Epistle to the Pilippians.  London, 1921