Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Reading on Your Knees

I searched out these references to Whitefield's and Muller's approach towards Holy Scripture.
"We can visualize him at 5 in the morning in his room, on his knees with his Bible, his Greek New Testament, and a volume of Matthew Henry spread out before him. With intense concentration he reads a portion in English, studies its words and tenses in the Greek, and then considers Matthew Henry’s exposition of the whole. Finally comes his unique posture of ‘praying over every line and every word’ in both the English and the Greek, feasting his mind and his heart upon it till its essential meaning has become a part of his very person. When we shortly see him preaching forty and more hours per week with virtually no time whatsoever for preparation, we may look back upon these days and recognize that he was then laying up a store of knowledge on which he was able to draw amidst the tumult and hast of that later ministry” (Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: God’s Anointed Servant in the Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century, pg. 22)

George Muller (1898), after reading Whitefield’s biography and concluding that the source of his evangelistic power to be his reverence and approach to the word of God and his passionate prayer life. So, George Muller took up the practice of reading his Bible on his knees. What Whitefield was in Evangelism, Muller was with Faith (e.g. 50,000 cases where he could trace distinct answers to definite prayers). (A.T. Peirson: George Muller of Bristol: His Life of Prayer and Faith, pgs. 137-139)

Monday, February 23, 2009

Grace



Thomas Brooks offers ten particulars of renewing grace over and against restraining grace.

1. True grace makes all glorious within and without: A lion in a cage is a lion still; he is restrained, but not changed. But now true grace turns a lion into a lamb.

2. The objects of true grace are supernatural.

3. True grace enables a Chrsitian, when he is himself, to do spirtual actions with real pleasure and delight, To souls truly gracious, Christ's yoke 'is easy, and his burden is light;' his commandments are not grievous, but joyous."

4. True grace makes a man most careful, and most feaful of his own heart.

5. Grace will work a man's heart to love and cleave to the strictest and holiest ways and things of God, for their purity and sanctity, in the face all dangers and hardships.

6. True grace will enable a man to step over the world's crown, to take up Christ's cross; to prefer the cross of Christ above the glory of this world.

7. Sanctifying grace, renewing grace, puts the souls upon spiritual duties, from spiritual and intrinsical motives, as from the sense of divine love, that does constrain the soul to wait on God, and to act for God; and the sense of the excellency and sweetness of communion with God, and the choice and precious discoveries that the soul hath formerly had of the beauty and glory of God, while it hath been in the service of God.

8. Saving grace, renewing grace, will cause a man to follow the Lord Fully in the desertion of all sin, and in the observation of all God's precepts.

9. True grace leads the soul to rest in Christ, as in his summum bonum, chiefest good.

10. True grace will enable a soul to sit down satisfied and contented with the naked enjoyments of Christ.

Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, Banner of Truth Trust, 154-162.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Devilish Doubt

"Satan does not labor more mightily to persuade hypocrites that their graces are true when they are conterfeit, than he does to persuade precious souls that their graces are counterfeit, when indeed they are true."

Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, Banner of Truth Trust, 155.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Friday, February 13, 2009

A Review of The Shack

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

The Shack is no Shaq!, February 10, 2009

By whejoe

I thought this was a horrible book, as I thought it was a biography about Shaquille O'Neil. He will go down as one of the greatest centers in the history of the nba. From his time in Orlando, through his current team, the Phoenix Suns, he continues to dominate.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Sanctification

“Sanctification is a lifelong process of repentance (not recovery) and obedience (not inner healing) that results in holiness (not wholeness) for the glory of God (not personal fulfillment).”

- C.J. Mahaney

Friday, February 6, 2009