Heaven

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My Lord Jesus Christ is Able to Save Me to the Uttermost

“He is able to save to the uttermost!” (Hebrews 7:25)

“My Lord Jesus Christ is able to save me to the uttermost!

He is able to save me the uttermost depth of my need. Science is now sounding the lowest abysses of the ocean; but there is no science, nor thought, nor imagination, which can send its plummet to the bottom of Christ’s unsearchable grace! 

Down to my sharpest sorrow He goes, down to my profoundest loneliness, down to my keenest temptation, 
down to my foulest sin! He traveled from Heaven to Calvary to atone for my sin; and I know of no descent which He will not make today.

He is able to save me the uttermost limit of my nature. And such a many-faceted nature mine is! The intellect has its demands, and the memory, and the conscience, and the imagination, and the will, and the heart–each of them cries out for a separate satisfaction. And each of them finds it in Jesus!
He answers the questions of my intellect. He plucks the deepest sorrows from my memory. He cancels the accusations of my conscience. He paints  the noblest pictures in my imagination. He renews and directs my will. He fills my heart with His love.

He is able to save me to the uttermost verge of my life. My various conditions and experiences, my conflict and my calm, my work and my rest, my gladness and my grief–He blesses me through them all. Lo, He is with me all the days, even unto the end, and through the end, and beyond the end forever and ever! Death cannot part me from Him. Eternity will only draw me closer to Him. To the ages of the ages–He is mine, and I am His!

Christ’s uttermost leaves me no more to desire!”

– Alexander Smellie, The Hour of Silence

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Live Near to God

“Prayer is the link that connects earth with Heaven! Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities!

When you gaze upon the sun–it makes everything else dark. When you taste honey–it makes everything else tasteless. Likewise, when your soul feeds on Jesus–it takes away the sweetness of all earthly things–pride, pleasure, fleshly lusts, all lose their sweetness.

‘Let us fix our eyes on Jesus!’ (Hebrews 12:2). Keep a continued gaze! So will the world be crucified to you–and you unto the world!”

– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

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Little Sins Multiplied, Become Great

“Avoid every kind of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:22)

“Little sins multiplied, become great. There is nothing less than a grain of sand–yet there is nothing heavier than the sand of the sea when multiplied.

Little sins are very dangerous! A little leaven, leavens the whole lump. A little knife, may kill. A little leak in a ship, may sink it.

Though the scorpion is little–yet will it sting a lion to death! Just so, a little sin may at once bar the door of Heaven, and open the gates of Hell! The least sin damn us–if not pardoned by the death of Christ!”

– Thomas Brooks

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Beloved, What Is Heaven?

“Beloved, what is Heaven? What is the final glory of the saints? It is the best place, the richest inheritance provided by the Father for the people ransomed and redeemed by the precious blood of His dear Son! And when we enter there, we shall enter as children welcomed to a Father’s home! It will be the best that God can give us! He will bestow upon us, who deserved the least–the best in His power to bestow: the best Savior, the best robe, the best banquet, the best inheritance. In Heaven, there will be nothing more to taint, nothing more to sully, nothing more to embitter, nothing more to wound, no serpent to beguile, no Eve to ensnare, no spoiler to destroy, no sin to defile, no adversity to sadden, no misunderstanding to alienate, no tongue to defame, no suspicion to chill, no tear, no sickness, no death, no parting. It will be the best part of the pure, radiant, glorified universe which God will assign to His redeemed people!Let the prospect cheer, sanctify, and comfort you! It will not be long that you are to labor and battle here on earth. It is but a little while that you are to occupy your present sphere of conflict, of trial, and of sorrow. The time is coming–oh, how fast it speeds! Soon the Lord Jesus Christ will bring you home to Heaven!”

– Octavius Winslow

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Count It All Joy To Be Thus Tried

Although it is true that ‘whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives’–still we are not all called upon to suffer great tribulation. God appoints for each, the discipline needed to prepare him for glory. With some He deals gently, for ‘He knows how much the weak can bear.’ He sees the tenderness of their spirits, the gentleness of their nature. With others He may appear to deal more harshly–He alone knows how hard and stubborn is their will, how great their backslidings, how needful all this seeming severity. He also permits great tribulation to fall upon some, that they may be examples to His Church; examples of love, of patience, of long-suffering–and is not this an honor? Shall we not count it all joy to be thus tried? 

And has not God promised to proportion His consolations to the sufferings of His people? With what powerful comfort will such a passage as that which we are meditating upon, come home to the deeply-tried Christian–to him whose tears are wrung from him by pain of body, loss of friends, one bitter affliction after another: ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!’ (Revelation 7:17)

The anticipation of suffering is often a cause of greater anguish than suffering itself; for though we are told not to worry about anything–still, the anxious mind will often distress itself with gloomy forebodings while in this valley of tears. But in Heaven, we shall have no fear of evil–no cause for fears. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes: the tear of sympathy, the tear of pity, the tear of separation, the tear of pain, the tear of godly sorrow for sin, the tear of disappointed hope, the tear of wounded affection–shall flow no more! ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!’ (Revelation 7:17) “

– Maria Sandberg, Glimpses of Heaven

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One Second of Glory Will Outweigh a Lifetime of Suffering

“Finally, the apostle here weighed the ‘sufferings’ of this present time over against the ‘glory’ which shall be revealed in us, and as he did so he declared that the one is ‘not worthy to be compared’ with the other. The one is transient, the other eternal. As, then, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, so there is no comparison between the sufferings of earth and the glory of heaven.

One second of glory will outweigh a lifetime of suffering. What were the years of toil, of sickness, of battling with poverty, of sorrow in any or every form, when compared with the glory of Immanuel’s land! One draught of the river of pleasure at God’s right hand, one breath of Paradise, one hour amid the blood-washed around the throne, shall more than compensate for all the tears and groans of earth. ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ [Romans 8:18]. May the Holy Spirit enable both writer and reader to lay hold of this with appropriating faith and live in the present possession and enjoyment of it to the praise of the glory of Divine grace.”

– Arthur W. Pink, Comfort for Christians, p.18-19

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One Second of Glory Will Outweigh a Lifetime of Suffering

“Finally, the apostle here weighed the ‘sufferings‘ of this present time over against the ‘glory‘which shall be revealed in us, and as he did so he declared that the one is ‘not worthy to be compared‘ with the other. The one is transient, the other eternal. As, then, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite, so there is no comparison between the sufferings of earth and the glory of heaven.

One second of glory will outweigh a lifetime of suffering. What were the years of toil, of sickness, of battling with poverty, of sorrow in any or every form, when compared with the glory of Immanuel’s land! One draught of the river of pleasure at God’s right hand, one breath of Paradise, one hour amid the blood-washed around the throne, shall more than compensate for all the tears and groans of earth. ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.‘ May the Holy Spirit enable both writer and reader to lay hold of this with appropriating faith and live in the present possession and enjoyment of it to the praise of the glory of Divine grace.”

– Arthur W. Pink, Comfort for Christians, p.18-19

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The Natural Man Has No Sense of Spiritual Things

“Surely you must be aware that the vast majority of people in the world see nothing, feel nothing, and know nothing in religion as they ought. How and why is this, is not the present question. I only put it ti your conscience: Is it not the fact?

Tell them of the sinfulness of many things which they are doing continually; and what is generally the reply? ‘They see no harm.’

Tell them of the awful peril in which their souls are, the shortness of time, the nearness of eternity, the uncertainty of life, the reality of judgment. They feel no danger.

Tell them of their need of a Savour–mighty, loving, and divine, and of the impossibility of being saved from hell except by faith in Him. It all falls flat and dead on their ears. They see no such great barrier between themselves and heaven.

Tell them of holiness, and the high standard of living which the Bible requires. They cannot comprehend the need of such strictness. They see no use in being so very good.

There are thousands and tens of thousands of such people on every side of us. They will hear these things all their lives, They will even attend the ministry of the most striking preachers, and listen to the most powerful appeals to their consciences, And yet when you come to visit them on their deathbeds, they are like men and women  who never heard these things at all. They know nothing of the leading doctrines of the Gospel by experience. They can render no reason whatever of their own hope.

And why and wherefore is all this? What is the explanation, what is the cause of such a state of things? It all comes from this, that man naturally has no sense of spiritual things. In vain the sun of righteousness shines before him: the eyes of his soul are blind, and cannot see it. In vain the music of Christ’s invitations sounds around him: the ears of his soul are deaf,  and cannot hear it. In vain the wrath of God against sin is set forth: the perceptions of his soul are stopped – like the sleeping traveler, he does not perceive the coming storm. In vain the bread and water of life are offered to him; his soul is neither hungry for the one or thirsty for the other. In vain he is advised to flee to the great Physician: his soul is unconscious of its disease; why should he go? In vain you put a price to his hand to buy wisdom: the mind of his soul wonders, he is like a lunatic, who calls straws a crown and dust diamonds –he says, ‘I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.’ Ah! Reader, there is nothing so sad as the utter corruption of our nature. There is nothing so painful as the anatomy of a dead soul.”

– J.C. Ryle, Regeneration, p.23-25