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 –…

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…

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,…

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,…

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…

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20) When Noah and his family were in that ark during the flood (though probably fearful), not one drop of water fell on them, for CHRIST WAS in THE MIDST OF THEM. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in that fiery furnace,…

“To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you . . .” 1 Peter 1:4 It will matter little when I lie in my coffin!  What does it really matter where we spend the few years of our pilgrimage here below? Life is short, vain, and transitory; and if I live in comfort and wealth, or…

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  (Ephesians 2:8) We must not make a Saviour out of faith.  Christ is the Saviour.  Faith is not the Saviour.  Faith didn’t die for us, faith doesn’t intercede for us, faith doesn’t pardon us; we’re saved by the grace of God. It is…

This is true sympathy, “weeping with those who weep,” making their sorrow our own. How really our Lord does this with His people. So completely is He our Surety—that He takes our sins and infirmities, our trials and sorrows upon Himself as if they were all and entirely His own. Our sins were so completely laid upon Him—that not one remains charged…