Christ: Altogether Lovely

Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.

JOHN FLAVEL, Christ Altogether Lovely

Enough and to Spare

There is enough to make every unbeliever without excuse, enough to show every inquirer the way to heaven, enough to satisfy the heart of every honest believer, enough to condemn man if he does not repent and believe, enough to glorify God. The largest vessel can only contain a certain quantity of liquid. The mind of all mankind would not appreciate more about Christ, if more had been written. There is enough and to spare.


~Taken from J.C. Ryle's commentary on John,
Chapter 21:18-25

Long, Cry, and Pray for a Larger Harvest

Travelling along our island just now you see everywhere the sickle, or the reaping machine, in full work; harvest whitens the plains; everywhere the loaded wagons are bearing home the precious fruits of the earth. My spirit is stirred within me, and my soul is on flame, for I see everywhere a harvest except in the church of Christ.

Reapers are busy everywhere except in the fields of our divine Boaz. All fields are ripe, but those of Bethlehem; all barns are filling but those of the Great Husbandman; Christ Jesus has scarce a sheaf ingathered of late; we hear of very few results from the sacred sowing of the word. Here and there the church, like Ruth, gathers an ear, a very precious ear it is true, for who shall estimate the value of a single soul; but we have no wave-sheafs as in the days of Pentecost, or, if we have them, they are few and far between; and as for the harvest home which we have so long expected, our eyes fail in looking for it in vain.

As a church, constituting a part of the Master’s field, we have had for years one continued harvest, but still never such an one as has satisfied our spirits, for our idea of our King is such that the largest increase to his church would not content us, we should still feel that our Lord Jesus deserved far more. As he has not yet seen of the travail of His soul so as to be satisfied, so neither are we His servants content on His behalf, but we long, and cry, and pray for a larger harvest as His reward for the dread sowings of Gethsemane and Golgotha, in bloody sweat and streams of vital blood.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
entitled "A Call For Revival," delivered August 18, 1872.

Rest & Life

“He hath given us rest by His sorrow,
and life by His death.”
John Bunyan

A Brief Glance

"A brief glance will suffice them for a lifetime;
but what shall be the royal dignity and blessedness of the risen and exalted bride!
Forever with her LORD,
forever like her LORD,
forever conscious that His desire is toward her,
she will share alike His heart and His throne."

Hudson Taylor
Union and Communion

The Greatness of This Salvation

"...we shall never have an adequate conception of the greatness of this salvation unless we realize something at any rate of what we were before this mighty power took hold of us, unless we realize what we would still be if God had not intervened in our lives and had rescued us. In other words, we must realize the depth of sin, what sin really means, and what it has done to the human race."
--Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Ephesians, Volume Two, p. 14

"What have we houses and tables for but as we have opportunity to serve God and His people with them?"
Matthew Henry