Luke Short

God's reward for faithful ministry is beautifully illustrated by the story of Luke Short, converted at the tender age of 103. Mr. Short was sitting under a hedge in Virginia when he happened to remember a sermon he had once heard preached by the famous Puritan John Flavel. As he recalled the sermon, he asked God to forgive his sins right then and there, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Short lived for three more years, and when he died, the following words were inscribed on his tombstone, "Here lies a babe in grace, aged three years, who died according to nature, aged 106."

Here is the truly remarkable part of the story. The Sermon that old Mr. Short remembered had been preached eighty-five years earlier back in England! Nearly a century passed between Flavel's sermon and Short's conversion, between the sowing and the reaping. Sooner or later, by the grace of God, faithful work always has its reward.

P Ryken, in:
DA Carson, Ed
Entrusted with the Gospel
IVP
p41

On learning

When we teach others, we must also be willing to be taught, for if we are not willing to learn so that others may profit by our instruction, we shall never be able to do our duty. Therefore, he whom God has placed as teacher in his house must himself be ready and willing to receive doctrine and good instruction. We must listen when other men give counsel and be willing to receive information.

J Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

16th November

Christians

We cannot take the name Christian upon us, we cannot say that we belong to the children of God and are of his church, unless we have been delivered from our filthiness. If a person calls himself the servant of a prince and yet is a thief, shouldn't he be doubly punished because he abused the title that did not truly belong to him? Behold the Son of God, who is the fountain of all holiness and righteousness! If we try to hide ourselves and cover all our filthiness, is not it so much more shameful if we do so under his name? Does not this horrible sacrilege deserve the most severe punishment?

J Calvin
365 Days with Calvin
Day One
10th November

Is it morbid to confess your sins?

The morbid thing is not to confess them.The morbid thing is to conceal your sins and let them eat away at your soul, which is exactly the state of most people in today's highly civilized communities.

GK Chesterton, quoted in:
M Deckard
Helpful Truth in Past Places
Mentor
p79

The arguments of the wicked

When the Christian's arguments cannot be answered, and the Christian's works cannot be denied, the last resource of the wicked is to try to blacken the Christian's character.

JC Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Volume 1

Baker

p130

God's love

No figure of speech can describe God's extraordinary affection toward us, for it is infinite and various: so that, if all that can be said or imagined about love were brought together in one, yet it would be surpassed by the greatness of the love of God.

J Calvin, quoted in:
P Ryken
Discovering God
P&R
p189

Contentment

It is not by the humanistic, we are 'good people' approaches that people will find relief or more importantly growth. It is found by facing the the deceptions of our hearts, one of those being the notion that we are basically good people who make mistakes now and then. By first seeing ourselves as sinners always in need of God's grace, we are enabled to find the strength and righteousness of Christ which will allow us to overcome sin, love the unlovely, and persevere in 'dissatisfying' situations. Without confronting this deceptive belief with the truth of who we are, contentment will never be achieved.

M Deckard
Helpful Truth in Past Places
Mentor
p61

Rewards

Any rewards are entirely according to God's mercy. He has given us life and talent. More than that, he has saved us through the sacrificial death of his dear Son. He has forgiven us, come to live within us by his Holy Spirit, and even been willing to use us. Then he rewards us for serving him. God is indeed full of grace! As sons of the light, let us be armed, awake and alert, waiting for the day of the Lord's return.

R Carsell

Growing through Encouragement

Bryntirion Press

p71

Christ's Victory

But the most astonishing thing is that evil and suffering were Christ's appointed way of victory over evil and suffering. Every act of treachery and brutality against Jesus was sinful and evil. But God was in it. The Bible says, "Jesus [was] delivered up [to death] according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). The lash on his back, the thorns on his head, the spit on his cheek, the bruises on his face, the nails in his hands, the spear in his side, the scorn of rulers, the betrayal of his friend, the desertion by his disciples - these were all the results of sin, and all designed by God to destroy the power of sin.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p119

Preachers

Since the Lord established His church, there have been preachers - lots of preachers. Through all its centuries of existence, the church has heard good preachers and it has endured bad preachers. It has gloried in faithful preachers and lamented faithless preachers. It has listened with rapt attention to masters of eloquence, and it has wondered at the loquacity of pulpit babblers. Humorists and bawlers, expositors and storytellers, thematic preachers, evangelistic preachers, literary preachers, sawdust preachers, postmodern preachers, seeker-seeking preachers, famous preachers, infamous preachers - the church has had them all.

RA Mohler

He is Not Silent

Moody

p145

Prayer

It is useless to say you know not how to pray. Prayer is the simplest act in all religion. It is simply speaking to God. It needs neither learning, nor wisdom, nor book-knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will. The weakest infant can cry when he is hungry. The poorest beggar can hold out his hand for an alms, and does not wait to find fine words. The most ignorant man will find something to say to God, if he has only a mind.

JC Ryle

Practical Religion

Banner of Truth

p83

Gospel & Church

It is appropriate that [Paul] should move on to examine the gospel, for gospel and church are inexplicably bound up with one another. The church comes into being when the gospel is proclaimed, yet the call to proclaim the gospel is the responsibility of the church.

P Arthur

Patience of Hope

EP

p30

Worship

I wonder if in our worship we encounter anything like this vision of God [in Isaiah 6]. Do those who come to our services of worship come face-to-face with the reality of God? Or do they go away with a vision of some lesser God, some dehydrated deity?

RA Mohler

He is not Silent

Moody

p30

Ascension

His ascension was indeed a return to the glory from which he first descended; but it was a return with a difference. He left as the Son of God. He returned both as Son of God and also, by reason of the incarnation, as Son of man. He left as Lord. He returned both as Lord and also as Minister on our behalf in the presence of the Father. He left as King. He returned both as King and also as High Priest and Intercessor for those whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren. He left as Sovereign. He returned also as Saviour.

PE Hughes

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews

Eerdmans

p283

The Cost of Discipleship

On Matthew 8:19-22:

It would be well for the churches of Christ, if these sayings of our Lord were more remembered than they are. It may well be feared, that the lesson they contain is too often overlooked by the ministers of the Gospel, and that thousands are admitted to full communion, who are never warned to "count the cost." Nothing, in fact, has done more harm to Christianity than the practice of filling the ranks of Christ's army with every volunteer who is willing to make a little profession, and talk fluently of his experience. It has been painfully forgotten that numbers alone do not make strength, and that there may be a great quantity of mere outward religion, while there is very little real grace. Let us all remember this. Let us keep back nothing from young professors and inquirers after Christ. Let us not enlist them on false pretenses. Let us tell them plainly that there is a crown of glory at the end. But let us tell them no less plainly, that there is a daily cross in the way.

JC Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Vol 1)

Baker

p78

Forgiveness

The incomparable goodness of God is that he deigns to forget all our sis as soon as he sees us earnestly desirous of returning to him.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

7th May

God's love

There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.

JI Packer

Knowing God

Hodder & Stoughton

p41

Grace

[God] is better to the worst of us than the best of us deserves.

D Macleod

Behold Your God

CFP

p78

The Father's love for the Son

It is important to remember the cost to the Father arising out of his love for His Son. How Abraham felt as he brought to the altar his son, his only son, Isaac whom he loved; how David felt as he cried, 'Absalom, my son, my son! Would I had died for thee Absalom, my son, my son!' - These are but shadows of the cost to God, as the love of these fathers for their sons was but a faint reflection of God's love for His. We lose much if our doctrine of the impassibility of God obscures from us the implications of the depth of the Father's affection.

D Macleod

Behold Your God

CFP

p148

You are the glory of God

You are not an animal. You are the glory of God.

You are not a pervert. You are the glory of God.

You are not an addict. You are the glory of God.

You are not a victim. You are the glory of God.

You are not a fool. You are the glory of God.

Mark Driscoll in

Tim Chester

Captured by a Better Vision

IVP

p159

God speaking from Mount Zion

The God who once to Israel spoke
From Sinai’s top, in fire and smoke,
In gentler strains of gospel grace
Invites us, now, to seek his face.

He wears no terrors on his brow,
He speaks, in love, from Zion, now;
It is the voice of JESUS’ blood
Calling poor wand’rers home to GOD.

The holy Moses quaked and feared
When Sinai’s thund’ring law he heard;
But reigning grace, with accents mild,
Speaks to the sinner, as a child.

Hark! how from Calvary it sounds;
From the Redeemer’s bleeding wounds!
“Pardon and grace, I freely give,
Poor sinner, look to me, and live.”

John Newton

365 Days with Newton

Day One

21st August

Against you, you only, have I sinned

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement. (Psa 51:4)

I believe that David is saying here that even if the world pardoned him, God was the judge before whom David had to appear. Conscience hailed him to God's bar. Thus the voice of man offered no relief to him, however much others might be disposed to forgive or to excuse or to flatter. David's eyes and soul were directed to God, regardless of what man might think or say.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

25th February

Prayer

Pausing briefly from prayer, David takes time to meditate upon the goodness of God so that he may return with renewed ardour to prayer.

Likewise the faithful feel that their hearts will soon languish in prayer unless they stir themselves up with new incitements. It is difficult to steadfastly and unweariedly persevere in prayer. Indeed, as fuel must frequently be added to preserve a fire, so prayer requires helps so that it will not languish and at length be extinguished.

John Calvin

365 Days with Calvin

Day One

13th February

Flattery

If gossip is saying something behind a person's back that we would never say to his face, then flattery is saying to a person's face what we would never say behind his back.

Alistair Begg

Pathway to Freedom

Moody

p199

Freedom

The ultimate question is not who you are but whose you are. Of course, many people think they are nobody's slave. They dream of total independence. Like a jellyfish carried by the tides feels free because it isn't fastened down with the bondage of barnacles.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p64

Marriage

George Orwell said that a restatement of the obvious is sometimes the first duty of a responsible man. It is therefore worth restating what was once obvious and commonly held: Marriage involves a man and a woman. From the very creation of mankind and the foundation of civil order, God intended marriage to be an inseparable union between husband and wife. In that context only is it possible to make sense of the biblical injunction: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). The most obvious argument against the lesbian and homosexual agenda is human physiology! A light bulb needs a socket if there is to be illumination. Two sockets on their own are incapable of light, and the same is true for two bulbs. Homosexuality in practice involves a perverted use of the human body, and it is a forsaking of the natural for the unnatural. It is not a marriage. It cannot be.

Alistair Begg

Pathway to Freedom

Moody

p157

Heaven

Eternal life is not merely the extension of this life with its mix of pain and pleasure. As hell is the worst outcome of this life, so "eternal life" is the best. It is supreme and ever-increasing happiness where all sin and all sadness will be gone. All that is evil and harmful in this fallen creation will be removed. All that is good - all that will bring true and lasting happiness - will be preserved and purified and intensified.

John Piper

The Passion of Jesus Christ

Crossway

p57

Wisdom

Wisdom is the skill of godly living.

John Frame
The Doctrine of God
P&R
p507

The Law

God intended the law to reveal sin and drive men to Christ; Satan uses it to reveal sin and to drive men to despair.

John Stott
The Message of Galatians
IVP
p105