Have I then no work to work in this great matter of my pardon? None! What work can you work? What work of yours can buy Divine forgiveness — or make you fit for the Divine favor? What work has God bidden you work in order to obtain salvation? None. His Word is very plain and easy to be understood, “To him who works not — but believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). There is but one work by which a man can be saved. That work is not yours — but the work of the Son of God. That work is finished.

-Horatius Bonar

When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do: love one day — and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favorites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint — his condition admits of no alteration. God’s call is founded upon His decree — and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people’s sins — but not their names.

Thomas Watson 

I am bound to speak well of my Physician—He treats me with great tenderness, and bids me in due time to expect a perfect cure. I know too much of Him (though I know but little) to doubt either His skill or His promise.

It is true, I have suffered sad relapses since I have been under His care. Yet I confess, that the fault has not been His—but my own! I am a perverse and unruly patient! I have too often neglected His prescriptions, and broken the regimen He appoints me to observe. This perverseness, joined to the exceeding obstinacy of my disorders, would have caused me to be turned out as an incurable long ago—had I been under any other hand but His! Indeed—there is none like Him! When I have brought myself very low—He has still helped me. Blessed be His name—I am yet kept alive only by means of His perfect care.

Though His medicines are all beneficial—they are not all pleasant. Now and then He gives me a pleasant cordial; but I have many severe disorders, in which there is a needs-be for my frequently taking His bitter and unpalatable medicines!

We sometimes see published in the newspapers, acknowledgments of cures received. Methinks, if I were to publish my own case, that it would run something like this:

“I, John Newton, have long labored under a multitude of grievous disorders:
    a fever of ungoverned passions,
    a cancer of pride,
    a frenzy of wild imaginations,
    a severe lethargy, and
    a deadly stroke!

In this deplorable situation, I suffered many things from many physicians, spent every penny I had—yet only grew worse and worse!

In this condition, Jesus, the Physician of souls, found me when I sought Him not. He undertook my recovery freely, without money and without price—these are His terms with all His patients! My fever is now abated, my senses are restored, my faculties are enlivened! In a word, I am a new man! And from His ability, His promise, and the experience of what He has already done—I have the fullest assurance that He will infallibly and perfectly heal me—and that I shall live forever as a monument of His power and grace!”

-John Newton

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Upon some points, a believer is absolutely sure. He knows, for instance, that an invisible hand is always on the world’s rudder. He also knows that wherever providence may drift — Jehovah steers it. That reassuring knowledge prepares him for everything.

He knows that God is always wise, and knowing this he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes — that nothing can occur which ought not to occur.

He can say, “If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose it, than have it — if God so wills. The worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing which could befall me — if God ordains it!”

“We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God — to those who are called according to His purpose.” The Christian does not merely hold this as a mere theory, but he knows it as a certain fact. Everything has worked for good as yet. Every event as yet has worked out the most divinely blessed results.

So believing that God rules all things, that He governs wisely, that He brings good out of evil — the believer’s heart is assured, and he is enabled calmly to meet each trial as it comes.

The believer can in the spirit of true resignation pray, “Send me what You will, my God — as long as it comes from You. There has never come a bad portion from Your table to any of Your children!”

C.H Spurgeon

Fellowship with God is the highest, purest, sweetest mercy a saint of God can have on earth. Yes, it is the highest, purest, sweetest bliss the saints of God can have in heaven. What is the enjoyment of heaven? Not merely exemption from trial, and freedom from sorrow, rest from toil, and release from conflict. Oh no! it is the presence – the full unclouded presence of our Father there. To be with Christ – to behold His glory – to gaze upon His face – to hear His voice – to feel the throbbings of His bosom – to bask in the effulgence of God’s presence – oh, this is heaven, the heaven of heaven!

-Octavius Winslow

Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren.

– J. C. Ryle

“For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

What a mercy it is naturally to have a sound mind! It is one of the greatest temporal blessings that God can bestow upon a man. It is far better than intellect, imagination, poetical gift, or reasoning power. And how wretched it is to have an unsound mind! A mind in the least degree diseased, eccentric, or in any way tainted with those delusive fancies which mar all comfort and often lead to the worst of consequences. But however great be the blessing of a healthy body, a healthy mind as much exceeds it in value as it is superior to it in nature. How you see men ruining themselves every day for lack of a sound mind! What disorder they bring upon their families, upon their property, and upon others also. What havoc and ruin from being crazed with some fancy or wild delusion!

To possess, then, the spirit of a sound mind is to have a sound judgment in the things of God—not to be drawn aside by every passing opinion—not to be allured by every novel doctrine—not to be charmed by every fresh device of the wicked one—not to be caught by every one of his flesh-pleasing snares—but to have that sobriety of judgment and holy wisdom in the things of God, with that fixedness of heart upon the Lord Jesus, and that solid experience of His Spirit and grace, as shall keep us from errors and delusions on the right hand and on the left.

Unless we have this spiritual sobriety—this ripe and matured judgment—and this firm establishment in the truth of God—we are almost sure to be drawn aside into some error or other. Satan will entangle us in a maze of confusion and error—he will beguile our minds with some of his subtle deceits.

But where there is a sound mind, there will be a sound faith—a sound hope—a sound love—a sound repentance—and a sound work of grace upon the heart from first to last. To have a sound mind is to have a mind deeply imbued and vitally impregnated with the truth of God. And [those who know the Truth] are the only people really possessed of soundness of mind—for they only take right and sound views of all things and all events, natural and spiritual, and have, as the apostle says, “the mind of Christ.”

-J.C Philpot

A true recognition of God’s sovereignty will avow God’s perfect right to do with us as He wills. The one who bows to the pleasure of the Almighty will acknowledge His absolute right to do with us as seemeth Him good.  If He chooses to send poverty, sickness, domestic bereavements, even while the heart is bleeding at every pore, it will say, Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right! Often there will be a struggle, for the carnal mind remains in the believer to the end of his earthly pilgrimage.  But though there may be a conflict within his breast, nevertheless, to the one who has really yielded himself to this blessed truth, there will presently be heard that Voice saying, as of old it said to the turbulent Gennesareth, “Peace be still”; and the tempestuous flood within will be quieted and the subdued soul will lift a tearful but confident eye to heaven and say, “Thy will be done.”

-Arthur W. Pink

True religion is a serious and personal concern. It arises from a right knowledge of God and ourselves; a sense of the great things He has done for fallen man; a persuasion, or at least a well-grounded hope, of our own interest in His favor; and a principle of unbounded love to Him who first loved us. 

True religion consists in an entire surrender of ourselves, and our all, to God; in setting Him continually before us, as the object of our desires, the scope and inspector of our actions, and our only refuge and hope in every trouble.  It also consists in making the goodness of God to us — the motive and model of our behavior to our fellow-creatures: to love, pity, relieve, instruct, forbear, and forgive them, as occasions offer, because we ourselves both need and experience these things at the hand of our heavenly Father.

The two great points to which true religion tends, and which it urges the soul, where it has taken place, incessantly to press after, are: communion with God, and conformity to Him. And as neither of these can be fully attained in this life, it teaches us to pant after eternal glory; to withdraw our thoughts and affections from temporal things, and fix them on that eternal state, where our desires shall be abundantly satisfied; and that work begun by grace — shall be crowned with glory!

-John Newton

Godly sorrow springs from a view of a suffering
Savior, and manifests itself by . . .
hatred of self,
abhorrence of sin,
groaning over our backslidings,
grief of soul for being so often entangled by our lusts and passions,
and is accompanied by . . .
softness,
meltings of heart,
flowings of love to the Redeemer,
indignation against ourselves,
and earnest desires never to sin more.

-J.C Philpot