Christian Life

Friends, humility is the only soil in which unity will grow. Only when Christ is more precious to us than our reputations, will we give up our petty rivalries and personal agendas. Only when his glory eclipses all else in our eyes will we live for him and not for another purpose. The peace and unity we so desperately need will be, friends, the fruit of a fresh humbling before the glory of Christ. It is only the gospel, the good news of Christ our saviour, that creates true peace. The gospel creates peace, and the gospel defines peace.

We are not just called to a glorious task but to a glorious Person. … What is beholding the glory of the Lord but believing the gospel? What is gazing on the face of Christ but receiving his benevolent smile and his gracious kindness?

our hope is not in the what of our glorification, but the who of our glorification. When we see Christ as he is, it will be a vision unfettered by sin and thus we can experience the reality of Christ’s presence in a way that no human has experienced.

Our merciful High Priest will never make a harsh observation, nor ask a rasping question, nor pronounce a crushing sentence. Go to him only, for there is none like him.

O that every sacrifice I offer were consumed with the fire of ardent love to Jesus. Reading, praying, studying and preaching are to me very cold exercises, if not warmed with the love of Christ. This is the quintessence of holiness, of happiness, of heaven.

Behold the beauty of Jesus, which is the beauty of the Triune God—this beauty is able to save because it is not merely the beauty of a man, but is rather the timeless beauty of the incomprehensible, unchanging, self-existing, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, all-holy, all-just, all-gracious, loving, undiminished glory of the Trinity. That glory is able to save. And when we look at the crucified and risen Savior in this precious book, we are looking at that glory of that God.

The gospel is refreshing for the inmate because it reconciles and restores them to a right relationship with God. It brings them joy in the darkest of places. It makes their wrongs right. It grants them a new identity in Christ.

The humility we learn at the foot of the gospel, glorying in Christ and not ourselves, therefore turns out to be the wellspring of all evangelical health. When our eyes are opened to the love of God for us sinners, we let slip our masks. Condemned as sinners yet justified, we can begin to be honest about ourselves. Loved despite our unloveliness, we begin to love. Given peace with God, we begin to know an inner peace and joy. Shown the magnificence of God above all things, we become more resilient, trembling in wonder at God, and not man.

Crowds lined the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the olivewood casket as it made its way through the streets of south London. On top was a large pulpit Bible opened at Isaiah 45:22: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” It was Thursday, February 11, 1892, and the body of Charles Haddon Spurgeon was being taken for burial.