Energy For The Soul

Quoting Robert Bolton:

“There is a secret, heavenly vigour infused into every gracious soul by the sanctifying Spirit, which deadens it to the world, and makes it delight in God. He ought to shine in the world, as a light ‘in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation,’ Phil. ii.15. Light and darkness cannot endure one another; neither the power of grace those works of darkness in which the world lies drowned. He is by no means to be conformed to this world, Rom. 12:2, nor to run with the wicked to the same excess of riot, 1 Pet. 4:4. He is now new-born, and becomes a child of eternity; whereby his heart is fallen in love with new and everlasting delights, and the eye of his soul turned from the dung of this world towards the glory of the second life. As the worldling cannot relish the sweet joys of gracious exercises, so neither can the christian the frothy pleasures of carnal fellowship. You can as hardly draw the sound professor to an assembly of swaggering companions, as a lover of pleasure to a day of humiliation.”

George Washington On The Eternal Rules Of Order

Quoting George Washington:

There exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness…we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)

Wonderful Grace!

If you have ever been to Rome or studied History (which is “His Story”), you must have seen or read about the many great aqueducts which no longer convey water into the city. The arches are now broken and the amazing structures are in ruins. You see, an aqueduct must be kept undamaged if it is to carry the water. Just so, faith too must rest on a strong foundation. It must flow right up to God and back down to us. Otherwise, it may not be a serviceable conduit of grace and mercy to our souls. Charles H. Spurgeon teaches us:

“By grace are ye saved, through faith” (Ephesians ii. 8).

Think it well to turn a little to one side that I may ask my reader to observe adoringly the fountainhead of our salvation, which is the grace of God. “By grace are ye saved.” Because God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified, and saved. It is not because of anything in them, or that ever can be in them, that they are saved; but because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy, and grace of God. Tarry a moment, then, at the well-head. Behold the pure river of water of life, as it proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb!

What an abyss is the grace of God! Who can measure its breadth? Who can fathom its depth? Like all the rest of the divine attributes, it is infinite. God is full of love, for “God is love.” God is full of goodness; the very name “God” is short for “good.” Unbounded goodness and love enter into the very essence of the Godhead. It is because “his mercy endureth for ever” that men are not destroyed; because “his compassion’s fail not” that sinners are brought to Him and forgiven.

Remember this; or you may fall into error by fixing your minds so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation as to forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself. Faith is the work of God’s grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Ghost. “No man cometh unto me,” saith Jesus, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved “through faith,” but salvation is “by grace.” Sound forth those words as with the archangel’s trumpet: “By grace are ye saved.” What glad tidings for the undeserving! (All of Grace)