Showing posts with label Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edwards. Show all posts

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Lean on Him

"I seemed to depend wholly on my dear Lord, wholly weaned from all other dependencies. I knew not what to say to my God, but only lean on His bosom, as it were, and breathe out my desires after a perfect conformity to Him in all things...God was so precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments was infinitely vile. I had no more value for the favor of men than for pebbles. The Lord was my ALL; and that He overruled all greatly delighted me...I saw Him such a fountain of goodness that it seemed impossible I should distrust again, or be any way anxious about anything that should happen to me."

-The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, edited by Jonathan Edwards

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So often am I overwhelmed that I have no idea what to say to God. I'm too exhausted to speak, but I desperately need Him...To catch me...To let me rest in Him...To let me give my biggest sigh of relief, knowing that He has got me, because of Christ. He does catch us. It is not based on how great our faith is, but how great He is. Simply trust He will catch you. He will. Those moments filled with grace wipe anxiety away like nothing else.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Fighting for Time?

"My soul often mourned for want of more time and opportunity to be alone with God. In the spring and summer following, I had better advantages for retirement and enjoyed more comfort in religion. Though indeed my ambition in my studies greatly wronged the activity and vigor of my spiritual life. Yet this was usually the case with me that 'in the multitude of my thoughts within me, God's comforts principally delighted my soul'; these were my greatest consolations day by day."

-The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, Edited by Jonathan Edwards

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I really resonated with this, and it's always encouraging to know you are not alone in fighting for time to spend with the Lord. I pray that God's promises to us will be the focus and high point of each and every day regardless of the day's events!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Continual Grace Upon Us


"However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction...You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into fire every moment."

- Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

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Those are heavy words, but incredibly liberating. I often overlook sin in my life. Not just things I do or say, but my very diseased nature. I even go through lengths of thought to convince myself I'm doing pretty well based on my lifestyle. These words by Edwards put the deserved weight on my sin and the just consequences. God's wrath is real, and fair. His love is just as real, and gracious. They met at the cross. God gave us a means of salvation through his Son due to his grace. It is all of grace.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Glorious Grace

The last paragraph from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards,


Let those who have been made partakers of this free and glorious grace of God, spend their lives much in praises and hallelujahs to God, for the wonders of his mercy in their redemption. To you, O redeemed of the Lord, cloth this doctrine most directly apply itself; you are those who have been made partakers of all this glorious grace of which you have now heard. 'Tis you that God entertained thoughts of restoring after your miserable fall into dreadful depravity and corruption, and into danger of the dreadful misery that unavoidably follows upon it; 'tis for you in particular that God gave his Son, yea, his only Son, and sent him into the world; 'tis for you that the Son of God so freely gave himself; 'tis for you that he was born, died, rose again and ascended, and intercedes; 'tis to you that there the free application of the fruit of these things is made: all this is done perfectly and altogether freely, without any of your desert, without any of your righteousness or strength; wherefore, let your life be spent in praises to God. When you praise him in prayer, let it not be with coldness and indifferency; when you praise him in your closet, let your whole soul be active therein; when you praise him in singing, don't barely make a noise, without any stirring of affection in the heart, without any internal melody. Surely, you have reason to shout, cry, "Grace, grace, be the topstone of the temple!" Certainly, you don't want mercy and bounty to praise God; you only want a heart and lively affections to praise him with.