Taking Mountains by Their Roots

When God has heard prayer for one thing, faith comes and asks for two things, and when God has given those two things, faith asks for six. Faith can scale the walls of heaven. She is a giant grace. She takes mountains by their roots and puts them on other mountains and so climbs to the throne in confidence with large petitions, knowing that she shall not be refused. Most of us are too slow to go to God. If we have been heard once, we go away instead of coming again and again, and each time with a larger prayer. Make your petitions longer and longer. Ask for ten, and if God gives them, then for a thousand, and keep going until at last you will have enough faith to ask as great a favor as Moses did, “I beseech you, show me your glory.” -Charles Spurgeon

Praise Him

It is not left to our own choice whether we will praise God or not. Praise is God’s most righteous due; every Christian, as the recipient of His grace, is bound to praise God from day to day. –Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Sing forth the honor of His name: make His praise glorious. – psalm 66:2

Home First, then the World

-the beloved of the LORD are to hand down their witness for the Gospel and the covenant to their heirs; these, in turn, are to hand it down to their descendants. This is our first duty. We are to begin with the family. He who does not begin his ministry at home is a bad preacher. The unsaved are to be sought by all means, and the “highways and hedges” (Luke 14:23) are to be searched, but home has a prior claim. Woe to those who reverse the order of the LORD’S arrangement. Teaching our children God’s ways is a personal duty; we cannot delegate it to Sunday school teachers or other friendly helpers. They can assist us, but they cannot deliver us from our sacred obligation; proxies and sponsors are wicked instruments under these conditions. Mothers and fathers must, like Abraham, instruct their households in the fear of God and talk with their offspring concerning the wondrous works of the Most High. Parental teaching is a natural duty. Who are best able to look to a child’s well-being as those who are the authors of his physical being? To neglect the instruction of our offspring is worse than foolish. Family religion is necessary for the family itself, for the nation, and for the church of God. One of the most effective means of preventing unbelief and doctrinal error is the instruction of children in the faith. However, this means is all but being neglected. Parents must realize the importance of this matter. It is a pleasant duty to talk to our sons and daughters about Jesus, and even more so because it has often proven to be an accepted work. –Charles H. Spurgeon

Look to Jesus

It is always the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work it just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us pay attention to ourselves instead of to Christ. He insinuates, “Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith. You do not repent enough. You will never be able to continue to the end. You do not have the joy of His children. You have such a weak hold of Jesus.” All these are the thoughts about self, and we will never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self. He tells us that we are nothing, but that “Christ is all in all.” Remember, therefore, that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you; it is Christ. It is your joy in Christ that saves you; it is Christ. It is not even your faith in Christ, though that is the instrument, but it is Christ’s blood and His merits that save you; therefore, do not look as much to your hand, with which you are grasping Christ, as to Christ. Do not look to your hope, but to Jesus, the Source of your hope. Do not look to your faith, but to “Jesus, the author and finisher of [your] faith” (Heb. 12:2). We will never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our actions, or our feelings. It is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. –Charles H. Spurgeon

An Opened Heart

Whose heart the Lord opened. –Acts 16:14

Spurgeon on the conversion of Lydia (Acts 16: 11-15)

“She did not open her own heart. Her prayers did not do it; Paul did not do it. In order for us to receive the things that bring about our peace with God, the Lord Himself must open our hearts. He alone can put the key into the hole of the door, open it, and gain admittance for Himself. He is the heart’s Master as He is the heart’s Maker. The first outward evidence of the opened heart was obedience. As soon as Lydia had believed in Jesus, she was baptized. It is a sweet sign of a humble and broken heart when a child of God is willing to obey a command that is not essential to his salvation, that he does not feel forced to comply with out of a selfish fear of condemnation, but that is a simple act of obedience and communion with his Master. The next evidence was love, manifesting itself in acts of grateful kindness to the apostles. Love for the saints has always been a mark of the true convert. Those who do nothing for Christ or His church give but sorry evidence of an “opened” heart. Lord, give me an opened heart forever.”
-C. H. Spurgeon

Lord, give me an opened heart forever. A heart of love. Amen.

P.S. Isn’t Acts 16:14 wonderful? Pray it over your children. Pray it over all you know that are unsaved.