Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
If God has made your cup to run over, then seek to serve him, not after the order and measure of bare duty, but according to the enthusiasm of gratitude. I mean, give to God, you that have it; if he has given much to you, give much to him. Depend on it, there is great wisdom in this, even from a selfish point of view; good measure, pressed down, and running over, will God return into your bosoms.
If you cannot give money, then give your time, your talents; and believe me, the more you do for God, the more you can do, and the more happiness you will have in the doing of it. It is your lazy Christians who grow rusty, it is your unused keys that lose their brightness. You that rot away in inglorious ease, you know not the joy that belongs to the child of God. The Christian should feel, “I shall do all I can do and a little more, getting more strength from God than I had, that I may do a little still in excess. I will not measure my duty by what others would say I ought to do, but reckon that if I might draw back, I would not; if I might make some reserve, I could not; if I might deny my Lord something, yet I dare not, would not think of such a thing; the love he plants in my heart will not permit me.”
If your cup runs over, let your service run over; be “fervent in the Spirit, serving the Lord.” Let your generosity run over—give without stint. Let your prayers run over—pray without ceasing. Let your hymns run over—praise him as long as you have any breath. Let your talk of him run over—tell the universe what a good God he is to you. Praise him! you can never praise him enough. Exaggeration will be impossible here. Let the loftiest panegyrics be heaped upon the head of Christ, and he will deserve something better. Let the angels make way for him, and let them pile their thrones one upon the other. Let them conduct him to the seventh heaven—overt to the heaven of heavens, and let him fill a lofty throne there, yet, even then, is not he so high as his Father hath set him.
Words cannot describe his glory—it boweth down all language beneath its weight. Metaphors, similes, though they were gathered with the wealth of wit and wisdom from all quarters of heaven and earth, cannot reach even to the skirts of his garments. Your love, and your fidelity, your diligence, and your zeal, are not fit even so much as to unloose the latchets of his shoes, he is so great and so good. O talk much of him then! Let your talk run over like the language of Rutherford in his letters, where he seems sometimes to break through reason and moderation to glorify his Lord. Let your language of Christ be like the apostle Paul, where he putteth aside all syntax, grammar, speech, and all else, and maketh new words, and coineth fresh expressions, and confoundeth tenses and moods, and I know not what beside, because his soul could not express itself after the common-place language of mankind.
O let your praise run over to your Lord and King. Love him, praise him, exalt him, magnify him, live out his life again. You can but praise him so; die in his arms, that you may for ever extol him in the upper skies. May God grant us to be Christians rich in spiritual wealth, spending our strength and substance like princes as we are, for him who is more than a prince and greater than a king.
The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 15, sermon number 874, "The Overflowing Cup.""If the Lord pardons thee, it is for ever; if he adopts thee, it is for ever; if he accepts thee, in is for ever; if he saves thee, it is for ever. There is eternity set as a divine stamp upon every mercy."
If you cannot give money, then give your time, your talents; and believe me, the more you do for God, the more you can do, and the more happiness you will have in the doing of it. It is your lazy Christians who grow rusty, it is your unused keys that lose their brightness. You that rot away in inglorious ease, you know not the joy that belongs to the child of God. The Christian should feel, “I shall do all I can do and a little more, getting more strength from God than I had, that I may do a little still in excess. I will not measure my duty by what others would say I ought to do, but reckon that if I might draw back, I would not; if I might make some reserve, I could not; if I might deny my Lord something, yet I dare not, would not think of such a thing; the love he plants in my heart will not permit me.”
If your cup runs over, let your service run over; be “fervent in the Spirit, serving the Lord.” Let your generosity run over—give without stint. Let your prayers run over—pray without ceasing. Let your hymns run over—praise him as long as you have any breath. Let your talk of him run over—tell the universe what a good God he is to you. Praise him! you can never praise him enough. Exaggeration will be impossible here. Let the loftiest panegyrics be heaped upon the head of Christ, and he will deserve something better. Let the angels make way for him, and let them pile their thrones one upon the other. Let them conduct him to the seventh heaven—overt to the heaven of heavens, and let him fill a lofty throne there, yet, even then, is not he so high as his Father hath set him.
Words cannot describe his glory—it boweth down all language beneath its weight. Metaphors, similes, though they were gathered with the wealth of wit and wisdom from all quarters of heaven and earth, cannot reach even to the skirts of his garments. Your love, and your fidelity, your diligence, and your zeal, are not fit even so much as to unloose the latchets of his shoes, he is so great and so good. O talk much of him then! Let your talk run over like the language of Rutherford in his letters, where he seems sometimes to break through reason and moderation to glorify his Lord. Let your language of Christ be like the apostle Paul, where he putteth aside all syntax, grammar, speech, and all else, and maketh new words, and coineth fresh expressions, and confoundeth tenses and moods, and I know not what beside, because his soul could not express itself after the common-place language of mankind.
O let your praise run over to your Lord and King. Love him, praise him, exalt him, magnify him, live out his life again. You can but praise him so; die in his arms, that you may for ever extol him in the upper skies. May God grant us to be Christians rich in spiritual wealth, spending our strength and substance like princes as we are, for him who is more than a prince and greater than a king.
1 comment:
would to God these words ring out in every church this Lords day morn!!
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