I really enjoyed reading Charles Spurgeon, All of Grace. Spurgeon's goal was to make the book as accessible as possible to all readers. He wanted the book to be read and understood. He wanted Christ to be "looked upon" and embraced. He wanted to see souls saved. The whole book is a proclamation of the good news! Reading this book reminded me of why I love Spurgeon so much!
The chapter titles: "To You," "What Are We At?" "God Justifieth the Ungodly," "It is God That Justifieth," "Just and the Justifier," "Concerning Deliverance from Sinning," "By Grace Through Faith," "Faith, What Is It?" "How May Faith Be Illustrated," "Why Are We Saved By Faith?" "Alas! I Can Do Nothing!" "The Increase of Faith," "Regeneration and the Holy Spirit," "My Redeemer Liveth," "Repentance Must Go With Forgiveness," "How Repentance is Given," "The Fear of Final Falling," "Confirmation," "Why Saints Persevere," "Close."
Favorite quotes:
The law is for the self-righteous, to humble their pride: the gospel is for the lost, to remove their despair.
The sinner is the gospel's reason for existence.
We hold no theory, we publish a fact. The grandest fact under heaven is this--that Christ by His precious blood does actually put away sin, and that God, for Christ's sake, dealing with men on terms of divine mercy, forgives the guilty and justifies them, not according to anything that He sees in them, or foresees will be in them, but according to the riches of His mercy which lie in His own heart.
The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology, or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact; fiction could not have devised it. God himself ordained it; it is not a matter which could have been imagined.
Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the wonder! There He hangs upon the cross! This is the greatest sight you will ever see. Son of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Oh, the glory of that sight! The innocent punished! The Holy One condemned! The Ever-blessed made a curse! The infinitely glorious put to a shameful death! The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more sure I am that they must meet my case. Why did he suffer, if not to turn aside the penalty from us? If, then, He turned it aside by His death, it is turned aside, and those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be so, that since expiation is made, God is able to forgive without shaking the basis of His throne, or in the least degree blotting the statute book.
God will spare the sinner because He did not spare His Son.
We can never be happy, restful, or spiritually healthy till we become holy. We must be rid of sin; but how is the riddance to be wrought? This is the life-or-death question of many.Dear friend, salvation would be a sadly incomplete affair if it did not deal with this part of our ruined estate. We want to be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without sanctification would not be salvation at all.
Remember that the Lord Jesus came to take away sin in three ways; He came to remove the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and, at last, the presence of sin.
The Lord knows right well that you cannot change your own heart, and cannot cleanse your own nature; but He also knows that He can do both.
All things are possible with God. He can reverse the direction of your desires and the current of your life, and instead of going downward from God, He can make your whole being tend upward toward God. That is, in fact, what the Lord has promised to do for all who are in the covenant; and we know from Scripture that all believers are in the covenant. Let me read the words again: A new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give an heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 11:19)It is God's promise, and it is for Him to fulfill His own engagements. Trust in Him to fulfill His Word to you, and it will be done.
Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of it as if it were the independent source of your salvation.
Our life is found in "looking unto Jesus," not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us; yet the power is not in the faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies.
There are many descriptions of faith; but almost all the definitions I have met with have made me understand it less than I did before I saw them.
What is faith? It is made up of three things--knowledge, belief, and trust.Faith is believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do, and then to expect this of Him.
Faith never makes herself her own plea, she rests all her argument upon the blood of Christ.
Love to God is obedience, love to God is holiness. To love God and to love man is to be conformed to the image of Christ; and this is salvation.
The work of the Lord is perfect. It begins where we are, and asks nothing of us in order to its completion.
Jesus did not come to save us because we were worth the saving, but because we were utterly worthless, ruined, and undone. He came not to earth out of any reason that was in us, but solely and only out of reasons which He fetched from the depths of His own divine love. In due time He died for those whom He describes, not as godly, but as ungodly, applying to them as hopeless an adjective as He could well have selected.
Repentance will not make you see Christ; but to see Christ will give you repentance.
Begin as you mean to go on, and go on as you began, and let the Lord be all in all to you.
True religion is supernatural at its beginning, supernatural in its continuance, and supernatural in its close. It is the work of God from first to last.
The saints shall persevere in holiness, because God perseveres in grace.
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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