When I Love You So Little

From the writings of Thomas Reade:

Adorable Jesus! I acknowledge my vileness, my worthlessness, my ingratitude. With shame and confusion of face I look up unto you, O bleeding Lamb, for having slighted your goodness, and your loving kindness towards me.

Take away this earthliness from my mind; this coldness from my heart; this insensibility to the things of God. Preserve me from a secret alienation of heart; from a growing lukewarmness.

You are the Rock of Ages, the everlasting Strength. Endue me with power from on high to overcome all my indwelling corruptions, which, like a thick cloud, intervene between my soul and you, the Sun of Righteousness; and thus prevent the rays of your consolation from gladdening my heart, and making me to abound in the fruits of righteousness.

To whom can I look, to whom can I go, but unto You, O Friend of sinners. Lord, at your sweet call, I come for pardon, peace, and holiness.

Lord! I am sorely grieved, that I love you so little; that my affections move so slowly towards you.

Stir up my languid desires. Inflame my cold affections. Set my whole soul on fire with holy love.

How painful, that I should be so little affected by the agony and bloody sweat, the cross and passion, of my suffering Redeemer.

Why is not my soul all on fire, when I think of your love? Why is it not melted into tears, when I think of my dying Savior?

Am I harder than the rock in Horeb? Am I colder than the northern ice?

Lord! smite my rocky heart with the rod of your loving kindness; dissolve my frozen affections, by the melting beams of your grace.

O! blessed Jesus! I praise you for such infinite love, such abounding grace to the chief of sinners! (Christian Meditations)

Charles Spurgeon On The New Year

Charles H. Spurgeon by Ron Adair

Has 2011 been a disappointment to you? Perhaps there are great things awaiting you with the arrival of the New Year, 2012. There is no doubt in my mind that God has plans to use you and me. Therefore, pray for His blessings and that you might know His Ways. Charles Spurgeon continues on this topic:

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5 ESV)

How pleased we are with that which is new! Our children’s eyes sparkle when we talk of giving them a toy or a book which is called new; for our short-lived human nature loves that which has lately come, and is therefore like our own fleeting selves. In this respect, we are all children, for we eagerly demand the news of the day, and are all too apt to rush after the “many inventions” of the hour. The Athenians, who spent their time in telling and hearing some new thing, were by no means singular persons: novelty still fascinates the crowd. As the world’s poet says—

“All with one consent praise new-born gawds.”

I should not wonder, therefore, if the mere words of my text should sound like a pleasant song in your ears; but I am thankful that their deeper meaning is even more joyful. The newness which Jesus brings is bright, clear, heavenly, enduring. We are at this moment specially ready for a new year. The most of men have grown weary with the old cry of depression of trade and hard times; we are glad to escape from what has been to many a twelve-months of great trial. The last year had become wheezy, croaking, and decrepit, in its old age; and we lay it asleep with a psalm of judgment and mercy. We hope that this newborn year will not be worse than its predecessor, and we pray that it may be a great deal better. At any rate, it is new, and we are encouraged to couple with it the idea of happiness, as we say one to another, “I wish you a happy New Year.”

“Ring out the old, ring in the new; 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow;

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

We ought not, as men in Christ Jesus, to be carried away by a childish love of novelty, for we worship a God who is ever the same, and of whose years there is no end. In some matters “the old is better.” There are certain things which are already so truly new, that to change them for anything else would be to lose old gold for new dross. The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is forever good news. . . .

Yet, as I have already said, there has been so much evil about ourselves and our old nature, so much sin about our life and the old past, so much mischief about our surroundings and the old temptations, that we are not distressed by the belief that old things are passing away. Hope springs up at the first sound of such words as these from the lips of our risen and reigning Lord: “Behold, I make all things new.” It is fit that things so outworn and defiled should be laid aside, and better things fill their places. . . .

Though there is no real difference between [New Year’s Day] and any other day, yet in our mind and thought it is a marked period, which we regard as one of the milestones set up on the highway of our life. It is only in imagination that there is any close of one year and beginning of another; and yet it has most fitly all the force of a great fact. When men “cross the line,” they find no visible mark: the sea bears no trace of an equatorial belt; and yet mariners know whereabouts they are, and they take notice thereof, so that a man can hardly cross the line for the first time without remembering it to the day of his death. We are crossing the line now. We have sailed into the year of grace 1885; therefore, let us keep a feast unto the Lord. If Jesus has not made us new already, let the new year cause us to think about the great and needful change of conversion; and if our Lord has begun to make us new, and we have somewhat entered into the new world wherein dwelleth righteousness, let us be persuaded by the season to press forward into the center of his new creation, that we may feel to the full all the power of his grace. (Sermon No. 1816)